Like bees to a honey pot they come – to the new pump track in Grey Lynn Park! After school and all weekend long, kids of all ages and sizes, round and round, and up and down, a perpetual motion machine on wheels. The mayor himself gave it a go – in a suit, no less – when opening the Grey Lynn Greenway. We also have it on authority that sometimes, long after bedtime, you can hear dads on bikes out there whooping it up in the dark. The track was the brainchild of two Grey Lynn dads: Paul Wacker, a business coach, and Scott Kuegler, an adventure guide, who are both raising …
Bike Auckland
Bikes and kids go together like, well, kids and bikes. Every kid who rides knows the feeling of mastery it gives you; and every adult knows that part of the fun of riding a bike is that it makes you feel like a kid again. And what we all share is a sense of joyful simplicity. At its best, riding a bike is as close as you can get to the way you fly in dreams. So we were overjoyed to be contacted by 12 year old Vita with a video she’d put together about exactly that (with a little help from her dad). Watch for a moment and savour …
Jonny Webster from Bike Te Atatu writes with news of some smart kids exercising their right to ride… A cancelled bus route has inadvertently helped a group of West Auckland students discover the advantages of a commute by bike. The scheduled bus from Te Atatu Peninsula to the Rathgar Road schools in Henderson was plagued by stuck rush hour traffic and slow journey times (in the morning, it took about 45 mins but was almost always held up in traffic, especially with works on Te Atatu Rd, and the evening bus left 30 mins after school finished, and took 40 mins unless the traffic was bad). Then the bus got …
A couple of years ago during the school holidays, we threw together a list of great places to ride with little kids – beyond the driveway, the neighbourhood park, and the local school courtyard. And every school holidays, like clockwork, that blog post leaps to life again! We’ve just posted an updated list of great places to ride with little kids…and started a dedicated Facebook group for chatting about where to ride with kids in Auckland. But would you believe that original list is our most popular blog post Of. All. Time? That’s right. ‘Where to ride with children’ is bigger than ‘what’s up with Skypath’, more popular than ‘how to fix Tamaki Drive’, and more sought after than …
It was all smiles at Point England School this week, with the formal launch of their new bike track and bike fleet, thanks to the wonderful Bikes in Schools programme. Point England is the 20th Auckland school to be so lucky – with five more fully funded and ready to go (Whangaparaoa Primary’s bike track opens on 1 March), and another two dozen currently fund-raising. Each school gets a full package of kids’ bikes in different sizes, plus helmets; bike skills training and a bike track to practice skills on; and secure storage for the bikes within school grounds. It’s all accomplished under the auspices of the Bike On Trust, and paid for by fundraising …
When new bike lanes come to town – like the current Inner West Safe Routes proposal – we like to dig deep into the infrastructure implications. And we nudge you to support the proposals in principle, as a path to a better, more bikeable city. But to truly understand how transformative a proposal is, there’s nothing like hearing firsthand from the people whose lives it will change. Bike Auckland member (and co-inventor of Friding) Greg Wood lives in Westmere with his young family. His Facebook post this morning sums it up better than we could, so we’re sharing it here unedited… in the hope it will inspire you to add your support before midnight tonight! …
Of the four new routes currently being consulted on in Grey Lynn, the Surrey Cres-Old Mill Rd-Garnet Rd one is the longest and one of the most interesting. It runs directly past two primary schools, lots of houses, and small groups of corner shops – the latter often marking ‘ghost stops’ along the old tram line: friendly neighbourhood places to buy tobacco and a newspaper in the morning, or pick up your shopping on the way home from work. It’s nice to think of those shops as pins on the map for the idea of a city organized around public transport and local community… biding time and holding space until it comes back into fashion. At first …
A few months ago, we wrote about Jo Clendon’s petition to legalise what’s a fairly normal practice for children and their caregivers (as well as older folk): riding on the footpath. Since the petition was presented to Parliament, there’s been a lot more coverage (including on Seven Sharp; see also Toni’s take), and some good, nuanced discussion of the finer points. Public opinion is invited – and Wednesday is the last day to have your say, via this online submission form. Here’s the text of Jo’s petition: The petition asks that the House recommend a change to the New Zealand Road Rules to allow cycling on the footpath by children under 14 years of age (and accompanying …
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