Cycling with Children
Cycle to school, to the beach, grocery store, or a friend’s house. Riding a bike is not only fun, but also gives you a sense of freedom. Cycling offers many benefits for children, besides for the obvious fact that it’s always good to move around.
6 benefits of cycling for children
- Riding a bike allows children to practise their balance, coordination, and motor skills.
- Physical activity is always good and helps to improve children’s concentration, sleep, and alertness, and strengthens their immune system.
- When children can get around on their own, they feel more independent, confident and proud.
- Cycling makes it easy to exercise every day, which is extremely important for your well-being.
- Cycle together! It gives you the chance to teach your child about safety and the rules of the road at the same time.
- When the whole family rides bikes, you can get around in an environmentally friendly way, and perhaps you won’t have to take the car to the store or struggle to find parking at the beach.
So, we have established that cycling is both fun and beneficial for children. But how do you choose the right bike for your child? What size?
Cycling with children
If your child is too young to ride a bike on their own, we have equipment that will let you take your child along on bike rides. Buy a stable child seat and mount it on your bike, and your child will sit comfortably throughout the ride. Or is your child a little bigger and can ride by themselves with a pair of stabiliser wheels? Maybe you're still running after the bike, holding a push handle while your child learns to ride? You will find stabiliser wheels and push poles at Biltema, along with other practical items for the bike rides with children.
Equipping your child’s bike
It can be fun to decorate your child’s bike with various knick-knacks and special fittings, which all make riding the bike more fun!
For example, attach bicycle flag to the back of the bike to make it more visible. A bicycle flag can be an important safety detail because it makes the bike easier to see. A small children’s bike can otherwise easily be missed because it is small and not visible behind bushes or between parked cars, for example.
Turn the bike into a motorbike
Is your child crazy about motorbikes and would rather ride a motorbike than a bike? Attach a throttle grip with a motorbike sound effect to the handlebar instead of the ordinary grip. When you turn the grip, it sounds like a motorbike revving. A sure hit with children of all ages!
Browse our range of bike accessories
Helmets for children
Protect your child with a helmet! Or why not set a good example and where one yourself? A few important things should be considered when buying a helmet for your child.
1. Fit
Always try on the helmet before you buy it. For the helmet to be safe, it must fit well on the child’s head. With a good helmet, you should have the opportunity twill be able to adjust the size, and the buckle should fit well and comfortably under the chin.
2. Green buckle
Children under the age of 7 should use a helmet with a green buckle. The green safety buckle is designed to open if the child gets stuck or suspended in something when wearing the helmet. But the buckle will not open if the child falls off a bike and hits the ground.
3. Mips helmets
A Mips helmet does everything a normal helmet does, but provides additional protection against the rotational motion occurring inside the helmet in the event of an accident.
In a bicycle accident, cyclists often fall sideways to the ground, which causes the head to twist inside the helmet. Mips technology reduces both the strain on the brain and the risks of serious brain injury by reducing the rotational force that occurs.
How does a Mips helmet work?
In a helmet with Mips, the shell and the liner are separated by a friction layer, which allows them to slide independently of each other with a movement of 10-15 mm. This means that the helmet shell absorbs a large amount of the rotational energy from an oblique impact to the head. Your head can easily move inside the helmet, reducing the risk of brain injury when falling from the bike.
