Kidical Mass Reading

The first bullet point I listed when drafting this write up was a very happy one, “People showed up!” This was not necessarily a given on a freezing mid-January ride on new territory for us, so we were delighted to have around 50 riders present, including several new faces. It’s great when so many families show up to celebrate cycling together, helping children to build confidence and campaigning for better cycling infrastructure. 

The new territory was the University of Reading site. I’m afraid, Dear Reader, that the pun in the title of this article is slightly gratuitous as we did not in fact have any unicyclists join us (though, going for an increase rather than a decrease in wheel count, we did have several tricycles). You will see on the list of upcoming rides that we will be back on the Uni site on Sat 18th May, and many brownie points (if not actual brownies) will be available for anyone who shows up on an actual unicycle, thereby enabling me to use this pun more legitimately.

The 4km route was probably our calmest and easiest to marshal yet, and involved lots of segregated bike paths. Where we were on the roads, they were (at the weekend anyway) very quiet, and the cars that were moving around were relatively slow and calm. We passed several other groups who were clearly out for an afternoon’s ride together. It was great to see how infrastructure like that enables families to get out and ride together even without the friendly Kidical Mass marshals present to keep traffic at bay.

There was only one point on the route we had any issue with, and that was a spot where there were a couple of bollards quite close together on a bridge – most of us could get through but some wider trikes and bikes had to take a slightly longer route around. We’ve flagged this to the university in the hopes that they might be able to make this pinch point a bit more accessible.

The quality of the infrastructure would have been reason enough to want to run a Kidical Mass ride on the university site, but we are also have another link to the University of Reading – they kindly awarded us a community grant last year. This grant has enabled us to ensure we continue to have insurance and relevant safety equipment for the rides, funded the build a bike workshop and helped us to publicise the rides more widely. We are so grateful for their support.

On the subject of insurance, Dear Reader, if you have happened upon this blog and don’t live in Reading and are thinking, “I need to get one of those Kidical Mass things in my home town” (an obvious conclusion after reading about the all the fun we have here in Reading) our own Kat Heath has helped to put together a guide to setting up a ride, which includes instructions on how to affiliate to the UK network of rides and get covered by the insurance:

Setting up a Kidical Mass event

This was a particularly special ride for Kat as her little one balance biked the whole thing independently – his first one. The younger of our Kidical Mass Interns (Mr 4) also rode on his own pedal bike with me at the back of the ride and helped me to make sure that we didn’t lose anyone. You’d think that after what is for little legs a very long ride that at the finish point they’d want to stop and rest, but nope, most of the kids got back on their bikes to ride around the square. Karen Roberts from Avanti Cycling, who joined us from the ride, organised them into a race and then very liberally declared EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM the winner. “You are the winner of the under 5’s!” “You are the fastest balance biker! “You two are the joint co-winners of the under 10’s category!” Hi-fives all round.

And indeed, as we piled into the pub afterwards with many of our Kidical Mass friends to hold the AGM, elect the committee, and discuss the successes of last year and the plans for this year (more on this in the blog next week), it did feel like at Kidical Mass we can all be winners. I’m looking forward to seeing many of our Kidical Mass friends again (and perhaps you, Dear Reader?) at the next ride on Sunday 4th February, meeting at Thames Lido at 2pm.

In many ways, building a bike is like baking a cake. Whilst lots of the ingredients are likely to be the same for various cakes, there’s always going to be a few different ways of going about it, and while some people may delight in the preparation itself, for others it’s purely the end result that justifies the effort. But whatever the case, I think for most of us, every attempt leaves us feeling a touch of pride and satisfaction when we get to say those three gratifying words ‘I made this’.

So too, for some of the half-a-dozen kids, and mums, at Saturday’s inaugural Build A Bike session, the task of assembling a bike was a process they relished, whilst for others it was really the payoff that would make it all worth it.

🛞

First we gathered and weighed our ingredients: we attached dangling handlebars and de-bubble-wrapped our frames, and began to build our bikes from the wheels up. Commence the typical wrestling of tyres, stuffing of tubes, and coaxing of wheels into frames. This happily became a group activity with mums in attendance getting stuck in too, and before long what was previously a pile of bicycle parts was becoming pleasingly bicycle shaped!

Next we mixed our ingredients together: bolting on wheels and setting up brakes had many kids and parents a bit more stretched — as it can be a fiddly job getting everything balanced and quiet at the best of times — but everyone still had a go at tackling it. Some of the more practised amongst the kids were really in their element at this stage, and it was lovely to see some of our attendees find an enthusiasm for bike building that they apparently didn’t have had for other subjects at school.

And so finally, to the baking. And to complete the build came everyone’s favourite: fitting pedals with confusingly topsy-turvy bolt threads (regular righty-tighty on the right, chain-side pedal 🙂, but backwards lefty-tighty on the left pedal 🙃), and the dark art of gears.

⚙️

Gear-adjustment, whilst pleasantly intuitive once you grasp the core concepts of it, takes some of the same patience as waiting for the magical power of heat to take effect on the ingredients that you’ve so carefully curated into a cake batter. At this stage it’s edible and you could eat it, but if you spend a little longer making sure it’s cooked through and risen, you’ll be glad you waited! Understandably, setting up our gears was a trickier task but still one that some of the kids were interested in learning more about.

After a couple hours of twisting, turning, tightening and tweaking, the anticipation of getting on a working bike and actually taking it for spin was tangible. And so, with our bikes all bicycle shaped and ship-shape, a small amount of huffing and puffing with bike pumps later, and it was time to taste the fruits of our labour and take the bikes out for a ride!

🚴

As you’d imagine, it was endlessly rewarding to see a group of kids so eager to go out and ride have a hand in actually putting together their own bikes. Whilst some of the build may have been slightly daunting at times, or perhaps just not of particular interest — after all, not everyone is as besotted with building bicycles as I am! — I think hopefully kids and parents alike left with a bit more confidence in doing some basic bike jobs, and sense that bikes are something that we shouldn’t worry too much about when they have problems, because more likely than not, and sometimes with a guiding hand, they’re things that we can fix and feel self-empowered by in the process.

Disclaimer: any comparison between bikes and cakes is purely for illustrative purposes, please do not attempt to put bikes in the oven or consume any bike parts or products no matter how delicious they may appear!

I have very good memories of the Kidical Mass Christmas ride last year. We often expect lower turnouts in the cold months, but December was an exception and lots of families turned up to ride with Santa. The weather, though cold, was clear and the sunshine beamed down on us.

I’d love to say that we had similar luck this year  – in which case this article would perhaps twist towards claiming that the universe is clearly on our side and in favour of us campaigning for safer bike lines and helping kids build confidence on the rides whilst building a community of cycling families. However, I’m afraid, Dear Reader, that the day started out looking like the universe was kindly giving us a chance to prove our dedication to the cause.

The weather forecast had deteriorated overnight and looked totally miserable. Heavy rain was predicted for the whole afternoon, with the possibility of temperatures that were close to freezing. There were many messages flying around the WhatsApp groups as we tried to work out how best to weather proof an outdoor bike ride for an unknown number of children. Several people collected up all the spare gloves they owned to bring with them (it’s surprising how many gloves one child can accumulate, though mine now mostly own many many single gloves rather than pairs). There was very little shelter at our planned end point (Thames Lido) so we discussed a change of route to a shorter ride that could finish at Forbury gardens (which is a short walk from the Lido but a rather longer bike ride if you don’t want to navigate the Vastern Road roundabout), where the now-renovated bandstand would offer somewhere dry to stand. We battle planned how to make the hot chocolate mobile, as having promised it in all our communications we didn’t want to let any children (or adults!) down.

In the end, however, we got pretty lucky with the weather as the worst of the rain held off and the temperature did lift. Perhaps the universe is on our side and wants better for Reading!

I think everyone else was reading a different (and more accurate!) weather forecast to us, as we had one of the best turnouts we’ve had to date. Just under 70 riders showed up to ride with Santa and his elves. Santa rode at the front on a tandem with ride leader Simon, and the marshals were identifiable not only by their hi-vis vests but also by their reindeer antlers. The children were delighted to see Santa, and of course he had to say hello to most of them (with many hi-fives exchanged) before we set off.

I had another issue that almost made me late for the ride, which was that my kids decided they ABSOLUTELY HAD to wear their elf hats. These do not fit over a bike helmet, so I was in our kitchen duct taping hats to helmets and muttering “argh, we’re going to be late,” just fifteen minutes before the ride. Thankfully the kids were pretty motivated to get there in time and see Santa, so we positively flew over Christchurch Bridge and along the towpath (with due care for pedestrians, of course) to join the crowd.

I think we made quite a spectacle riding through town, with many people stopping to watch, take photos and smile and wave. The younger Kidical Mass Intern (Mr just-turned-4) did the first part of the ride on his own bike then came up onto mine at the back of the ride when he got tired. I tasked him with calling out “Merry Christmas” to the people and town, which he did in between yelling, “Look! I’m an Elf!” He got a very high hit rate on friendly replies.

At Forbury gardens Santa’s grown-up elf set up shop to do free bike maintenance for anyone who’s bike needed a tune up. I was personally particularly grateful for his patience with Mr 4 who hung round persistently determined to chat to his fellow elf about all things North Pole related – he got some quite inventive answers!

Santa congratulated all the children on how well they had ridden and passed out presents (bells, lights and reflectors) and a little book that we’d put together as a sort of Christmas card from us to the kids (see next week!). We plied them with hot chocolate and cake and then quite a lot of them decided that what they really wanted to be doing after a long, damp, cold bike ride was to… ride their bikes around Forbury Gardens. I love the energy that children bring (except when they’re mine, at bedtime, when I would rather they bought a little less of it!)

All in all, it was a very successful and happy ride, and I’m feeling all Christmassy after it. So I know it’s a little early, but I’ll take this opportunity to wish for a very happy Christmas season to all of the Kidical Mass People – the kids, the grown ups, the marshals and the organising team. You’re all brilliant!

If you missed out on this ride (or even if you didn’t) don’t forget our next rides: Wokingham will be holding a ride on Saturday 16th December at 2pm, meeting at Elms Field. The next ride in Reading will be around the university campus at 2pm on Sunday 14th January.