Let your kids cycle!

This article in the Times has raised our ire this morning. Over protective parents are not allowing they're kids to cycle, or if they do, only within a protected environment.

According to a survey done for Cycling England, three quarters of the children are allowed to cycle recreationally, at the weekend or after school, but only one in five is allowed to do so to actually get around in the week.

There is clearly a major problem with this attitude. Raising kids to see cycling as only a means of having fun rather than as a means of transportation reduces it to a childhood activity that many kids will simply grow out of as soon as they get the keys to their first car.

Don't take this to mean that we disagree with having fun on a bike. Bikes are fun. But they must also be promoted as a healthy, efficient (the most efficient) way to get around.

Another telling statistic at the end of the article shows the future may not be written yet. According to Sustrans 47% of kids want to cycle to school...

Maybe we should let them.