It's the cheap way to get your kids into the fresh air and wear the blighters out ? but where, and how, to do it?
Family cycling holidays are not only a budget-friendly way of getting away together in a recession, they also deprive kids of access to screens and handheld gadgets and thoroughly wear them out, which is never a bad thing. Geoff Husband of Brittany-based firm Breton Bikes reports kids as young as five who go on his holidays are not only sleeping through the night for the first time, but even have to be woken up in the morning.
Some of my own family's best holiday memories have been on two wheels (or four if you include the toddler trailer). We've cycled as a family all over northern France, in Amsterdam and elsewhere in the Netherlands, in Lancashire and the Lake District, on traffic-light roads and in the grounds of farms, campsites and wooded holiday villages.
But our preference is naturally for off-road trails ? even on a country lane in the back of beyond, where you're worried about a tractor lurching over the next hill. In France, they're lucky enough to have the extensive network of voie vertes or "greenways" and newer voie bleues or "blueways" (the latter alongside urban rivers and canals).
Our favourite, so grand that it's been named an "avenue verte", is the 45km Dieppe?Forges route from the Channel port to the heart of the Normandy countryside (one day, they say, it will be part of a mighty "avenue verte London?Paris"). Its current endpoint, Forges-les-Eaux, is not only a designated green holiday resort but also a "station famille plus" for its family-friendliness. As well as tot-friendly cycling, there's a forested nature reserve with lakeside discovery trails, horse-riding, giant outdoor chess, and a family-friendly spa-hotel.
In the UK, there is a relative scarcity of off-road trails for families and beginners. But this is changing and has been a big factor in the opening of the �1.5m National Cycle Centre in the National Forest, with 13km of off-road trails, a bike-hire and repair shop, a caf� and a play area, all in an building with impressive eco-friendly credentials.
Now, the National Forest is not actually a forest ? it's a "forest in the making", created in 1990 in the Midlands to regenerate an area left scarred both physically and economically by the demise of its mining industry. But it's already a great place to cycle in a safe natural environment with young kids. Even before the centre opened, we spent a fabulous weekend in the National Forest ambling around the Rosliston Forestry Centre on bikes, hopping off at will for bug-hunts and pond-dipping sessions, or just to sit and soak up the peace, before heading back to the sanctuary of our onsite timber lodge to refuel over a barbecue.
As for practicalities, we usually take along a bike for my middle son, who finds many hire bikes for his age/height too heavy ? something that can put a severe kibosh on our plans. But with two-day bike-hire averaging about �60 for all of us, and set to rise when my toddler can pedal himself around, we'll soon have to start looking at a five-bike carrier and taking our own gear.
In terms of where we'll go, I'd like to build up to a dedicated cycle-camping holiday offered by the likes of Breton Bikes, where you cycle on quiet safe roads along a string of rural campsites. Unlike most cycling holidays, this is suitable for any age. Or the Adventure Company's Malta and Gozo trip, which includes exploring trails and paths on Gozo by bike, and is open to kids as young as three.
Less ambitiously, I've earmarked the two family cycle trials starting at the wonderful Rendlesham Forest Centre in Suffolk, and the circular family route in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. Forests aside, other good spots for cycling with young'uns are old railway tracks and reservoirs ? an invaluable source of information and inspiration is Sustrans' Near You section, which suggests a good selection of easy rides all over the UK.
Do you have any other tips for family cycling?
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/may/24/tips-family-cycling-holidays
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