Family Bike Ride Spring Events

2024-03-08 705 words 4 minutes

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Family Bike Ride is inviting you to join two events in April: the Family Bike Ride Spring Ride on Sunday, April 28th, and the Cargo Bike Test Drive Event on Sunday, April 7th.

Spring Ride

Family Bike Ride’s Spring Ride on April 28th is a 2.1 mile family-friendly group ride, featuring a cookie potluck. The ride will begin at the Sekler Playground along Memorial Drive, then proceed along a route with no car crossings or conflicts to Artesani Playground in Brighton. April 28th is the first Sunday of 2024 that this section of Memorial Drive is statutorily closed to cars, and we’ll be celebrating in style by bringing together a crowd of hundreds to enjoy it!

Family Bike Ride’s group rides are community focused event to bring together families and bikes, and highlight bike infrastructure that can help connect families to public community resources throughout the region. Past rides have included the Somerville Community Path and recently opened Community Path Extension, the Fitchburg Cutoff and bike infrastructure near Belmont High School, the Boston Harbor Walk, and playgrounds in Boston, Belmont, Arlington, Cambridge, and more.

These rides are joined by all kinds of riders. Families arrive in bucket bikes and on long-tail cargo bikes with kid seats; kids will ride in baby seats, on the backs of bikes, or riding on their own. All are welcome to join, including adults looking to share in the joy of cycling. Our most recent fall ride had a crowd of more than 400 attendees!

Each season’s ride has a theme: the summer ride has ice cream, the fall ride has Halloween candy, the winter ride has smores, and starting this year, Family Bike Ride will be starting a new tradition of cookies! You are encouraged (but not required) to bring cookies to share for the cookie potluck.

You are invited to join us on April 28th, gathering at 3:30pm at the Sekler Playground on Memorial Drive. For more information, see the Family Bike Ride Spring Ride website.

A large crowd of people gather along a road with leaves changing colors on the trees nearby.

Family Bike Ride Halloween 2022 event, at the Sekler Playground along Memorial Drive in Cambridge.

Cargo Bike Test Drive

If you’re looking to add a cargo bike to your life for the Spring Ride, or for the rest of your riding, Family Bike Ride has also got you covered. Family Bike Ride is hosting our upcoming Cargo Bike Test Ride event on April 7th, at Danehy Park. These events bring together community members with cargo bikes across the area to help folks try out a range of different options in a safe, no-traffic setting, in order to get a feel for a wide range of bike options.

The Cargo Bike Test Drive event is an opportunity for current cargo bike owners to come together and act as a resource for future cargo bike owners, discussing what they enjoy and don’t enjoy about their bikes. It’s also a great opportunity to see a wide range of community bikes: community members bring a wide range of bike models from a wide variety of brands – more than you’ll find in any single bike store. We will have several bike shops on site, but the majority of bikes are brought by community members like you, who can answer questions from personal experience about how they use their cargo bikes on a daily basis in the community.

These events also feature an area of toys for kids, so adults are encouraged to bring their young ones even if they aren’t comfortable riding a bike with them quite yet: like Family Bike Ride’s group rides, the Cargo Bike Test Drive event is a community focused event working to bring together the cycling community in support of helping get more folks on bikes!

For more information on the event, see the Cargo Bike Test Drive website.

A large crowd of people gather along in a park, surrounding a large number of cargo bikes.

2023 Cargo Bike Test Drive event, Danehy Park.

Primary financial support for Family Bike Ride’s events is provided by Bicycle Belle and E-Bikes of New England. On-site maintenance and technical support is provided by NEMO. Additional funding for Family Bike Ride is provided by Somerville Youth and Recreation Foundation. Family Bike Ride is part of Community Pedal Power, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and donations can be made at the Family Bike Ride website.