This is great information even for those of us without kids. My husband and I are still transitioning into using our bikes more often for shopping. My panniers aren't big enough to handle "real" shopping so am looking to upgrade. Thanks for a good introduction.

Two other good options:

Parent/child tandems that let the child ride in front, while the parent steers from the rear. Brown Cycles (Colorado) and Onderwater (Netherlands) each make a good one.

Trail-a-bike style attachments that let the kid pedal behind a regular bike. Adams is pretty wobbly, but Burley Piccolos are nice and stable.

@KW I don't have kids either. I have an inexpensive cargo trailer for carrying bigger loads, like Costco trips where I buy the massive toilet paper bundles. It works well enough, but I must say I like the ideal of a long-tail so I can ride the back and get dropped off places occasionally by Dick.

@Greg I love those parent/child tandems with the kid in front. When I was researching about tandem rentals I saw that Blazing Saddles in SF rents them too. Have you seen the recumbent trail-a-bike attachments for kids. I saw one riding by near my house and then saw them for sale at Walt's in Sunnyvale. So many options these days!

As fun and Eco-friendly as all this sounds, I truly believe that people are unnecessarily endangering their children by forcing them onto bicycles. It\'s one thing to make a choice to ride and a choice to where one rides, but a child does not have this choice. The places I\'ve seen family bikes being ridden,the parents should be arrested for child endangerment. It\'s one thing to ride trails or in parks, even dedicated bike lines, but when I see kids toted along on Castro St., I can\'t help but wonder what their narrow minded, self serving parents are thinking.

@Dangerous You didn't directly say why it's more dangerous to ride on city streets than on trails, but I'll presume you're talking about the risk of being hit by a car. If so, I agree that motor vehicle collisions are dangerous. It's the #1 cause of death for children under 14 in the US. But the vast majority of those children were actually riding inside the car, not biking or walking. Web Link

The #1 way to reduce motor vehicle related deaths is to reduce vehicle speeds. The slower the speed, the sooner people can react and avoid a collision and slow speed crashes do far less damage. If a driver sees something in the road 100 feet ahead going 40 mph and hits the brakes immediately, the car will be going 38 mph at impact. If the driver is going 25 mph instead, the car will stop in time.

Speed kills even on the freeway. That's why when they lowered limits to 55 mph in the 1970s, the death rate went down. But drivers keep pressuring authorities to raise speed limits and ignoring the fact that 32,000 people die due to vehicle collisions each year in the US.

Given these facts, should we arrest parents for speeding and other forms of dangerous driving? After all, they are endangering not only the kids on bikes and on foot, but also their own kids in their cars.

In Tokyo due to the high cost and inconvenience of car ownership (yes, inconvenience) the bicycle has taken the place of the family station wagon for millions. From grocery shopping and running children to kindergarten and after school activities, almost any situation you'd envision an American family using a station wagon a Japanese family is doing it by bike.

The Mamachari Bicycle is the family station wagon of Japan.
Web Link

That is interesting reading. Of course there are more motor vehicle fatalities. That is obvious. I would like to see that data broken down to fatalities per 1000 trips taken. I can't say for certain, but I would venture to guess that the fatalities ->per 100 trips<- for cycling is far higher than motor vehicle deaths.

Figures don't lie but liars can figure...

The NMSL was lowered to 55mph in an effort to reduce oil consumption and the only reason the states all adopted it was because their federal highway funding was dependent on adopting the 55mph limit. SCIENCE and FACTS have proven that our highways are no more dangerous at 65/75/or even 80+, than they were at 55mph.

Your notion of reducing speed limits to reduce bicycle deaths is ignorant, selfish, and typical of your entitled generation. Speed limits are determined by the reasonable speed at which people travel the roads. If a survey indicates that the average speed traveled is higher than the prima facia speed limit, then that limit is raised, as it should be.

You should be more concerned about the creation of more dedicated bike routes than inconveniencing those that choose not to cycle for whatever reason they prefer to use their car. You're never going to mandate people out of cars and if you choose to pedal routes where bicycles don't mesh well, then you should expect fatalities. As far as I'm concerned, bicycles should be BANNED from the entire length of Castro from ECR to Central Expy. This is simply not a safe route for them. A bike boulevard should be striped in on View St. and all stop signs removed for cyclists since they don' abide by them anyway. (myself included) Stop signs could be left in place four all four ways for cars and the speed humps will continue to regulate the paltry vehicle flow along this street. The problem is people won't think outside the box and do this. The city council will need to spend $100K on a study performed by a cousin/uncle/friend of someone on city staff before they can even consider it instead of spending a few grand on signs and paint to try it out.

Bottom line, in my opinion, if you travel with your children on bicycles anywhere with high congestion traffic and no bicycles lanes, then you are unfit as a parent and should be allowed to endanger your children any further.

Should NOT that is...

@Dangerous You said: "You should be more concerned about the creation of more dedicated bike routes than inconveniencing those that choose not to cycle for whatever reason they prefer to use their car."

I am completely for having dedicated bike lanes and I have written and spoken many times on this matter. What I'm not for is banning people from riding on a 25 mph speed limit road, which is what Castro Street is. As for inconveniencing drivers, I hardly think enforcing speed limits qualifies as inconveniencing them.

As for my attitudes being typical of my "entitled generation," I'm not really sure which is the "entitled generation" you speak of, but I'm guessing you think I'm much younger than I am. (thanks for the compliment) I'm part of the Baby Boom generation and I remember the "even or odd" days of gasoline rationing after the oil embargo.

We sold one of our cars several years ago and have been biking as a family more ever since. It has been great for our family. It's interesting...when we used to drive everywhere we never thought about the dangers of driving. Now that we bike I'm constantly reminded that I'm endangering my family. We should be clear though...the only dangerous part of riding a bike is the part where someone driving a car runs my family down.

EVERY day I see cars run red lights, cars NOT stop at a red light before turning right, cars speeding, cars not using turn signals. We are so used to bad driving that it barely registers. But we see bikes do similar things and many car drivers are outraged. When people like 'Dangerous' start to complain about poor driving and ask for stringent enforcement action (including red light cameras) then I will believe they are concerned about safety. Until then I am convinced that their concern is only their convenience and that waiting 5 seconds behind a slower moving bicycle is the real issue.

@dangerous -- yes, biking is probably the most dangerous thing I do with my kids, possibly including the 100 mile (car) freeway trip to their grandparents' each weekend. But it makes them strong and self-reliant. Whatever happened to "Be the change you want to see in the world?"

@ Dangerous. The data indicate from CDC statistics that cycling is just about as dangerous as driving a car on a per hour basis. That means if I'm out on the road for 2 hours my risk is the same on a bike as in a car. The data for light trucks and SUV show that they are more dangerous per hour of activity and don't even mention motorcycles or horseback riding. They are way up their for risk.