Carey started blogging a few years ago and although she goes through spells of not updating if you are needing inspiration, motivation or maybe some great off road riding stories Carey’s Cycling Chronicles is the place to go.

Velo Orange has photos of their prototype mixte’s that will be available early 2010.

The Safe Routes to School Conference started today in Portland.  Follow BikePortland on twitter for more updates.

Chic Cyclist gives her impression of the bike share program in Paris called Velib.

Evening Ride After Work

Photo from CopenhagenCycleChic

There are endless ways to ride with your kids.  Starting at a young age it could be in a bicycle mounted seat or a pull behind trailer.  Make sure that your child can easily hold up their head with the approved helmet and you are ready to go.  There are even systems like Chariot that makes your trailer into a stroller, jogging stroller or pull behind with ski’s!  In Europe they use cargo type bikes to haul their children because remember, they don’t own cars.

Next step is to get your child on a bicycle, tricycle or anything that goes.  Start slow, encourage and try not to give them any reason to get scared or worried about their riding experience.  Instilling basics of looking for cars or turning at a slower speed will continue with them as they grow so practice safe cycling, even in your own drive-way.

Lose those training wheels!  This is a whole article in itself, so for now I will leave it with one word.  Patience.  It is one of the few things children remember of “break through” moments in their childhood.  They probably won’t remember the first time they crawled, walked or talked like you, their parent, but riding for the first time on two wheels they will remember for life.

Ride longer, stronger and really start teaching safety including looking for cars, watching for other riders and what hand signals mean.

A few key things to instill in your kids from day one:

• Helmets should be worn at all times.  It is law in our house that if you are on anything with wheels the helmet must be worn and buckled.
• Excitement! Riding is something very fun and should be passed on.
• Safety is very important.  Keep your kids safe but also help cycling become more accepted in your area.

There will be many follow up articles about age groups, ways to start riding and continuing your child’s development.

Bike riding with family and children is an daily happening in my family.  If you have questions or concerns about riding with your children let me know if I can help!

Until next time, some links to further your research :

About.com: 10 Tips for Safe Bike Riding

Kids Health : Bike Safety

REI : Cycling with Kids

Had some really great rides in the past few days.  Really making up for the lack of riding for the past few months.   Friday morning Joey and I went around Davidson, stopped for some coffee and then headed back to Cool Breeze to build up his new Surly Cross Check.  Saturday I attempted to swim laps at the neighborhood pool then Sunday Kim and I woke up early to ride the Lake Norman group ride from the state park.  I can say I’m finally getting my cycling tan back!

From emails and phone calls I have a few questions to answer :

Cool Breeze and Trek Store Charlotte are the same company.  Two different locations but the same owners, employees and ways of doing things.  Back in November I moved from our Cool Breeze location at Exit 33 on I-77 to our store that was opening, Trek Bikes Charlotte, at Exit 18 on I-77.  The stores are only 15 miles apart.

The Trek Store is a concept store. Meaning we teamed up with Trek, agreed to carry a large % of their product in that location and inreturn we can put their well known name on the side of the building.  Plus we got a lot of help from Trek corporate with things like archeticture, laying out the store, training and such.

Cool Breeze is the same physical size in the terms of store size but run completely different from any bike shop I’ve seen.  There is a fitness studio, aka gym, on the west wing of the store.  We have a personal trainer and USA Cycling coaches on staff.  Upstairs you will find a very well laid out fit studio that people are traveling hours away to get their fitting done in.  This store carries a lot of Trek, but also a lot of Cervelo and Serotta.  The store is niche and calls itself a “Triathlon Training Center.”  I hope to bring more mountain and recreation into that equation. We’ll see how that goes.

My role at Cool Breeze will be much like it was at the Trek Store.  Sales Manager/Leader or whatever you want to call it.  Continuing the education to the staff, training, and hopefully learning things myself along the way.