ChiWhoBike #41
Dad: “These are our bikes, we have a garage full. My wife and I have road bikes, and the rest of the kids just have just something that they can beat up and have fun on.”
Mom: “Biking you get to see the city in all of its neighborhoods, and every neighborhood is so distinctive and unique, and you don't see that when you're on the train, you don't see that when you're driving, but you get to feel it and explore it when you're going on all the streets and the sidewalks, and I feel like our kids have gotten a sense of the city by riding it.”
Mom: “I think you can start out without having to spend a ton of money. Like we get most of the kids bikes at Play It Again Sports and then we trade in when they get bigger. So that makes it affordable even for big families. And then when they get to a certain age when you want to get them like a real road bike, we've kind of worked out a system for how we're gonna do that. And so it's not unaffordable and it does give your kids the opportunity to learn how to do things. Like they have taken it upon themselves to figure out how to fix their bikes and that just kind of goes along with our whole family mentality of homeschooling and teaching your kids how to take care of things for themselves. But they've learned a lot and they'll research and figure out like, why is my bike doing this? And so it makes our kids more independent in a good way. It teaches them about the city, and how to handle themselves around a lot of cars, around a lot of other cyclists, around dog walkers. And it gets them out in the sunshine, it gets them outside. I mean, we're not technology people, my kids would much prefer to be outside. So this is a great way that we can do that as a family and take advantage of our city.”
Dad: “Another thing that I feel like people don't really understand is that you can do it most of the year, you know? A lot of people really only get outside when the sun is shining, but as long as you're dressed appropriately, you can do it most of the year.”
