News — biking with kids

Angela and her husband Steve love anything that has two wheels. In fact, downhill racing is how they met 10 years ago. So it should come as no surprise that their little shredder Jack has inherited this love for the outdoors and biking. The excitement of picking a new trail and exploring a new place is what drives this adventurous family. Thanks to this early introduction to riding, Jack gets to spend loads of time on his bike at a phase in his life where there’s no obligation pulling him away. While Angela and Steve have to juggle work and adulthood, Jack gets to blissfully ride his bike along without a care in the world. We’re all a little jealous of Jack and other kids biking without restriction in the world!

Scrolling down my Instagram feed I kept seeing this new contraption popping up on my newsfeed, and I’m thinking hmm, that looks pretty cool, I’ll check that out when Jack’s gone to bed. Then my husband pings it over to me. Great minds or what?! We followed the link, and although it was a bit pricey, it looked so much better than anything we’d seen before. Jack at this point had just turned 2 years old and was really starting to understand his balance bike. The Mac Ride seemed to really help with their core balance, and so for us, the two things went hand in hand. We bought the MacRide that night.

Jack had always been itching to get on Daddy’s bike and sitting on the uncomfortable top tube didn’t quite cut it. You should have seen his face when he saw the Mac Ride seat on there. We took him for a spin around the garden and around the block, and he was loving it, trying to manoeuvre the bike himself using the handlebars and asking daddy to wheelie upon wheelie all the way along the street.

Our local trail centre is Hamsterley Forest in County Durham. This is where we spend the most time using the Mac Ride, there are plenty of flowy single tracks trails and a variety of blue, red and black trails. The first day we went there, Jack went down Pikes Teeth which is a black run, we didn’t go that fast obviously, but the Mac Ride was more than capable over the rooty and rocky bits. We tend to stick to the more flowy trails for him though just until he gets a bit older and a stronger hand grip, he really enjoys the bike going fast over the smooth whoopy bits and bermed corners.

A month or so ago I went to the forest with my husband, Jack and Billy (my two sons), and my cousin and his son. We had a whale of a time. We started out doing the Gruffalo trail and then rode alongside the river on an undulating woodland trail. Jack was on the Mac Ride, and Billy and Fox were in bike trailers. It was just really nice to be out riding as a family for once and all the kids enjoying themselves, especially with Billy just being 6 months old. It's difficult normally for everyone to be happy and enjoying themselves during a full day out. We stopped loads of times along the way to throw sticks in the river, hug the Gruffalo, and eat plenty of snacks. That’s another good thing about the Mac Ride, it’s so accessible – Jack can just hop on and off so easy, no faffing with clips or buckles. He just slides his feet in and out and off we go! Simples!

My second son Billy was 6 weeks old when we headed over to the Northumberland coast in the camper for a holiday. Moms have a lot of emotions after they’ve given birth and I had quite a bit of Mom guilt that I wasn’t spending as much time with Jack. Billy was breastfeeding a LOT, and so it was hard to find the time to give Jack all of my attention and do cool things together like he was used to doing. One morning, Billy was having his nap, and so Jack and I jumped on the Mac Ride, we’d not had it that long and so Jack was so excited to go for a ride with me with his new seat. The ride itself wasn’t technical at all, it was more about the journey. We rode along some little country roads and then crossed the giant’s causeway onto Holy Island before watching the tide come in and cover the road trapping us in on the Island (Hubby had driven onto the Island too, so we weren’t stranded). We stopped along the way to climb some sand dunes and peek out to sea over a lush deserted beach. It was just so nice to laugh and giggle and spend time chatting up front in the cockpit with my little boy while pedalling with the sea air in our faces.

To carry on riding your bike when you have kids is definitely tricky, it’s difficult to find the time and the energy really. Taking your kids with you is a great option if they’re into it. I love taking Jack on trails that I enjoy in the woods or to places that would be too far for us to walk or use his balance bike. Yeah, there are rear and front seats for them to sit in but they get bored of looking at your back and end up falling asleep all lopsided and slumped. We’ve found the Mac Ride to be much more fun for Jack. He gets something out of the ride, too. He can react to the bumps, he can lean into corners with you, and you can chat to each other along the way and point out things that you see. It just feels like you’re both having as much fun as each other, and it's not just me dragging my son along for the ride.

I’d say they have nothing to be nervous about, they really haven’t. If there’s one thing I have learned about kids, it’s that they are so so adaptable. If you’re nervous about them falling off because they’re not strapped in as such then just choose a flat trail, go really slow at first. Talk to the child the whole time and gauge how they are feeling. Your arms act as a bit of a cage around them and make them feel secure. I’m pretty sure the parent will be more nervous than the child.

Jack is a pretty decent chatterbox and I could try and capture his feedback on video for you if you like? Lol

We don’t think we could have said it better ourselves. This family sounds pretty “amaaaaaziiing” to us! It can be hard to give something up that you love for someone you love more than anything else in the world. Giving up mountain biking when you have kids doesn't need to be a reality. Like most things with life, it simply changes a bit. We created the Mac Ride seat so that we could have similar moments to what Angela and Jack have with their own children. We’re simply tickled to know other families out there are enjoying the trails with their own kids as much as we are.

Ready to get out on an adventure biking with kids and using a more adventurous child's bike seat? Shop for your own Mac Ride seat online today.

Find Angela on Instagram to follow her biking adventures.

We’ve known Martin since before the first Mac Ride child bike seat became public. We were still in the early stages of the invention when Martin reached out to support us through our Kickstarter program. When the Mac Ride bike seat finally came on the market, Martin was quick to get one. Martin moved back to Canada in September 2017 with his wife and children and immediately started getting out on the trail with his own Mac Ride seat. Clearly, the best things are worth waiting for as Martin raves about the Mac Ride seat so much that we have a permanent blush on our faces.

Want to learn more about Martin’s fascinating experience with the Mac Ride child bike seat? Read on to see how he’s passed on his love of the outdoors and tree-hugging to his little ones.

I love using Mac Ride on rolling bumps on packed dirt. That’s a perfect trail setup for my older daughter and me. She defines this as Rollercoaster Riding, and it is her definition of a “single trail.”

We get the most excitement from being outside in nature. We have ridden the urban network around Stanley Park, but as soon as the riding dynamics increase, the fun grows exponentially.

In the beginning, I was asking her to support me when we were climbing uphill to the trailhead. Her contribution was to squeeze my wrists and pretend to be working hard with some heavy breathing, copying me. Now that’s empathy!

Well, I have to say that my wife and I both have eBikes which make Mac Rides even more enjoyable because the radius of possible excursions has grown with the assist. We can take more things, and the rides can be longer. Last summer, we ended up having a picnic at the river, biking another 10k to have another picnic under a tree, playing ball, and then we biked to the forest for a third picnic. Those breaks are important to give the kids some relaxation time.

Helmets! I think that is a safety prerequisite, but the one really cool thing I always have is an action camera [like the main blog image].

This is the most beautiful no-brainer ever. Have not seen one child yet that did not like the experience. And I think I am now close to 20 Mac Rides that I basically “sold” to users. The amazing thing is that you can share the dynamics of the bike ride with your child.

First, make sure that you as a parent also like riding the trails and make sure that you rode a particular trail alone before you take your kid on it.

Later, explore the trail together when both are used to it. Of course, you can go and explore new stuff together safely.

Dress appropriately — it can get chilly for the kid on the Mac Ride kids bike seat. Better to over-layer a little bit. The cold is memorable and might interfere with the next ride.

That’s a longer and more philosophical question for me. I sense a fascinating and powerful energy when being in the forest. I would call it being close to Gaia.

Have you ever hugged a big tree and felt its temperature and listened to its sound? It gives me peace. I love the colour of light as it breaks through a canopy of trees. I love the smell of the soil and the sound of life. Happiness is not worth much if it’s not shared! And the joint experience of those beautiful things in nature with your little one is sharing in its purest form. Creating memories, feeling the adrenaline, and experiencing sympathy and meaning for nature together. I see lots of beautiful purpose in it.

If you want to follow along with Martin and his family on their many trail adventures, you can find him on Instagram. Ready to get this level of stoke and nature into your child's life? Shop online for your Mac Ride kids bike seat today.

We love to travel almost as much as we love to mountain bike. Almost. What’s even better is when we can combine both activities in one! We’ve definitely found that travelling with kids is a very different experience than when it was just the two of us — go figure. There are a few things we’ve found that helped us along the way to go from adventuring in our neighbourhood to adventuring as far as Costa Rica and Vietnam!

Yes, there’s the added expense of the kids’ tickets as well as extra food costs for extra little mouths. Thanks to services like Airbnb, it can still be very affordable to travel with kids. By renting a place with a kitchen, you can cook a lot of meals at home, which means familiar foods for the little ones. Not to mention, there are plenty of inexpensive countries out there just begging to be explored that are still safe for kids. Plus, we found that by packing the Mac Ride kids bike seat on our trip, we could save money on transportation and activities.

Travelling is exhausting for the best of us. Long days in airports, language gaps, and time changes are some of the most difficult obstacles we’ve faced with our kids in tow. We’ve found that not planning too many things in a single day was key. If planning is your thing, though, kids can be great at helping to pick out activities for specific days, especially if they’re each in charge of their own day. When you’re all tired and exhausted, instead of pushing through, a family nap could be the only adventure needed on vacation that day. For us, the biggest help with avoiding meltdowns from both adults and kids was maintaining a good routine even on vacation. Usual mealtimes and bedtimes are a must. When it came to long travel days, we made sure to have plenty of games and activities for the kids to help keep them occupied.

We were worried that there may not be enough to do with the kids everywhere we went. Some activities just aren’t suitable for little ones. Luckily, when it comes to adventure travel, a lot of activities are perfect for families with younger kids. Snorkelling, hiking, and biking are amazing activities for kids of all ages. We particularly liked biking to see volcanoes while in Costa Rica. Kids biking is something we’ve seen in many countries, and it was lots of fun for our kids to come along for the ride, seeing all the children biking in their own ways in new places.

There’s always danger when going to a new place. Food sickness and crime come to our mind when we think of some of the risks we worried about. Worrying about the safety of your kids in an unfamiliar place is enough to scare even the bravest parent! We tend to travel to safer places that are a little more expensive while still being cheaper in comparison to some of the most popular family-friendly destinations. We found that it was important for us to feel comfortable so that, by extension, our children would feel comfortable, too. We decided never to go somewhere that would have made us too nervous or on edge.

This is the biggest struggle we have faced — limiting the number of toys or special items our kids want to bring. Getting toddlers and young kids packed for vacation is like playing Tetris blindfolded. You can start by setting limits on how many toys or special items can be packed. Having a “must-have” list for your child is a great idea, too. That way, they can see how much room they have left over for their toys and special items they want to bring. It’s almost guaranteed that you’re going to have some of their stuff in your bags. And by some, we mean a lot. But as long as you keep this in mind, you can save a little space among the essentials for your kids’ extras!

We aren't the only family travelling with our kids, either! We’ve been lucky enough to see other families jet setting off to adventurous new places for a vacation with their kids. @GetOutThereAustralia and @Jonasstefans are just two of the many families we get to watch exploring the globe with their little adventurers in tow every day.

We’ve been lucky enough to travel with our kids to near and far destinations, and every time, we bring the Mac Ride kids bike seat along. Thanks to its small size and ability to fold up, the seat is the perfect adventure activity for any vacation. The kids feel much safer with this familiar method of transportation, and now, we’re able to explore new and unseen trails and places. This touch of home has helped our kids to feel more comfortable in unfamiliar places.

So, how do you adventure travel with your kids?

We’re so grateful to have such a strong community out there on the trails using our seat. One such family, who’s been there from the beginning, is @GetOutThereAustralia. This adventurous family is made up of Lynn (mom), Michael (dad) and Zachary — the little shredder himself.

This intrepid group was also one of the original backers of the crowdfunding project and have been out on the trails with their Mac Ride seat since May 2016. Zachary was only two years old when he climbed up onto his parent's bike to start adventuring. Now, the family is travelling across Australia in their caravan and on their mountain bikes. We’re sure they’re enjoying every moment of their adventures, and we love to follow along! But you don’t have to take our word for it. Lynn was kind enough to let us know first-hand about some of their triumphs, tales, and bumps in the trail.

Our most recent Mac Ride adventure has us riding 30 km along the Australian coastline, ending up in a little town called Goolwa where we caught a steam engine trail back to our starting point.

We always get quite a lot of attention with the Mac Ride when exploring various towns, and we are always happy to chat and share our praise for the bike seat. Influencing other families to get out and explore is something we enjoy, and the Mac Ride bike seat certainly helps to create epic adventures!

It is always so much fun to hear Zachary squeal with excitement when we ride over little jumps, berms or technical trail features. He has never turned down an opportunity to come for a ride with us, and it has meant that my husband and I still get to ride together, which is something we did a lot of before having a child. Being able to get out on our bikes together helped a lot with my recovery from postpartum depression, and I cannot thank Ashley and the Mac Ride creators enough for making such an awesome, adventure-filled child’s bike seat.

We always carry an extra sweater in a backpack in case Zac gets cold while riding. We are always prepared with snacks, water, the Trailforks app to help prevent getting lost, and a sense of adventure. We also do a bit of geocaching at times which gives Zachary a bit of a break during longer rides while he hunts for 'treasure.'

We honestly couldn't believe how easy the seat was to get onto the bike. We were also impressed that it didn't rub against our carbon frames like some other seats. Zachary took to it straight away and had no issues getting comfortable with it all. Our legs had to get used to pushing around a bit of extra weight, but since we have to ride slower with him on it, it still gives us a decent workout despite the slower speed.

This family sure knows how to make memories, and getting families to go out and explore is something we enjoy, too! Zachary is growing up with a sense of the world, and his capabilities and the stories he’ll have are going to be pretty cool! If you want to follow the adventures of GetOutThereAustralia, you can find them on Facebook and Instagram.

Have a story about your experience with Mac Ride? Want to tell us about the best trail you’ve been able to take your child on? Perhaps you have a funny experience to share that other parents could relate to. Contact us because we’d love to hear about your experience with Mac Ride and maybe even feature you on the Blog and our newsletter!

Chances are that if you opened up the archives of your memory and thought back to how you learned to ride a bike, a pair of training wheels would come to mind. These popular contraptions caused many a scrape and scar or a little scare with tetanus, thanks to the rusted sharp edges common on a twisted pair of hand-me-down training wheels. So why do some continue to suffer through this method of teaching children to ride a bike? We have learned the wonder of the balance bike and we can say, full steam ahead with the balance bike brigade! Why do we prefer them over the methods of the past? Here are a few of the reasons we joined Team Balance Bike to help you decide what method is right for you.

The biggest skill required to ride a bike is balance. If a child learns to pedal but doesn’t learn to balance, the minute you take the training wheels off, it’s like learning a completely new skill. Training wheels don’t actually train your child how to bike. If anything, a bike with training wheels on it is something completely separate from a bike. Alternatively, with a balance bike, kids are learning to balance first and foremost. When they’re ready to put the pedal to the metal, the foundational knowledge is there, not to mention, they know if they start to tip, they can just put their feet out.

Training wheels aren’t very manoeuvrable. Even the slightest change in terrain or uneven ground can cause the bike to tip or the wheels to bend and get damaged. With a balance bike, a child is learning to steer and lean naturally without being hindered by the stabilizers, or training wheels, getting in their way. When it comes to dirt or grass or even uneven asphalt, a balance bike will be able to handle it, whereas a bike with training wheels will be held back by the very wheels that are supposed to be helping. A balance bike allows kids to explore other terrain and doesn’t limit them to a flat area of cement. Falling on grass is also a lot nicer — too bad training wheels and grass don’t seem to mix. Oh well, another win for balance bikes!

When a child learns to bike with training wheels, they develop a bit of dependency, which acts as a crutch. The minute it’s time to take those wheels off and they find themselves tipping a bit or even falling, their confidence is shattered. Because a child on a balance bike has been balancing and steering in the same manner, the transition is a lot less daunting and foreign. Biking with kids on balance bikes feels a lot less stressful to us as parents, too. They’re always hopping on and off and running around unhindered because the bikes are low enough for them to touch the ground. This makes riding our bikes around with them, no matter what terrain, a lot more enjoyable.

We’re huge fans of balance bikes as the method of teaching kids to ride a bike. By using a child's bike seat to help our children understand the feeling of a bike in motion, and then a balance bike when they were a bit older, our kids were excited to start pedalling on their own and felt more prepared and at ease. Balance bikes may look like little baby bikes, but they’re effective ways of teaching your child to be independent and confident when it comes to biking on their own. So, are you ready to step away from the training wheels? We’d highly recommend it.

If your child is interested in getting out on biking adventures with you and a balance bike won't cut it for a long day of adventure, try out a Mac Ride seat and bring them along for the ride. Using a child's bike seat, like Mac Ride, along with a balance bike for shorter, more independent riding was a great way for us to get our kids biking.