My Bicycling Teen

The advantages of raising a self-propelled teenager

By Wong Wing-Siu

It’s 7 a.m. on a frosty winter’s morning when I open up the garage door for my 14 year old son, Andy. He dons his helmet and his “kakashi” mask to keep his face and ears warm, but insists on wearing his shorts. I turn on his lights for him and he gets on his bike to ride down to his high school for early morning band practice. Practice starts at 7:30 a.m. and I am sure happy that I don’t have to drive him to school at that hour. Instead, I get to watch him as he rounds the bend of the back alley before I go back inside to clean up the breakfast dishes and start my day.

Andy rides the eight kilometer roundtrip to school by himself. He has also started riding all over town on his own; he rides to his friends’ houses, the library, the book store, the community center, the pool – everywhere. And I know I can trust him. He has great road sense, and often exercises better traffic etiquette than me.

When I asked him: “Off the top of your head - what are the five things you like best about riding your bike?” he said

1. “Freedom.”
2. “Getting to go fast and not having to wait for the bus.”
3. “Not having to ask for a drive.”
4. “Being able to go somewhere and being free to leave when I want to.”
5. “It’s a great workout.”

It wasn’t easy to get here. To get to the point where we have this independent self-propelled kid, we started early. At 10 months he was watching the world go by from the bike trailer. To and from pre-school, he rode on the back of the trail-a-bike with me. And then for most of his elementary school years, either my wife or I would ride with him to school every day. Riding together was often a high point of my day. During the ride home, Andy would often tell me about his day.

It was easy to stop at the playground on the way home. We taught him the rules of the road. And as he got older, we started getting him to take the lead as we rode. In grade 6 he started the short commute to his elementary school by himself.

Now at 14, he is self-propelled and able to find his way around the city using a cycling map.

For me there are several benefits to be reaped from fostering a self-propelled teenager, and many of them have little to do with the obvious necessity of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. My son is really independent and also amazingly responsible both on and off the road. He takes pride in his achievements and accepts responsibility for his actions. I believe that his sense of freedom has given rise to his well-developed sense of responsibility. However, it wasn’t always a smooth ride.

I remember the first time Andy got on a tricycle. It was in the driveway of my parent’s home in North Vancouver, BC. Those great scoot bikes weren’t invented yet so being in control of a tricycle by himself was a new experience. He hopped on the trike, and being used to riding with me on the back of the trail-a-bike, he just put his head down and started to pedal. He went so fast that he surprised us all, headed straight forward like a bullet, and before any of us could react he crashed head first into the door of my parent’s garage. There was no detectable damage to my son, and the aluminum door of the garage was only slightly dented. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I still like to open up the garage door for him in the early mornings.