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"Go Ride Your Bike!"
by Richard Holloway

How often did a parent tell you to "go ride your bike" when you were a kid? If you were anything like I was as a child, your mother may have suggested this often. From "training wheels" days forward, I have loved to ride; there is nothing like riding a bike!

One of the things that I found most upsetting when I learned that my daughter was blind was the thought of all she was going to "miss out" on. To be sure, there are some things that will be different for a blind or visually impaired child, but many things certainly need not be missed simply because of vision concerns.

There are lots of ways to get a blind or visually impaired child (or adult!) onto a bike and riding. Tandems are a rather obvious choice (although I overlooked even that at first in my early days of frustration). Even if you have thought of tandems as a possible solution, you may not be aware of all the variations of tandem bikes, as well as trikes, pedal cars, trailers, and other outrageous designs that exist. I continue to learn and be amazed as I keep discovering new pedal vehicles. I see them and I want to buy them all! (My wife might suggest I have tried to do just that in fact.)

Some options are very expensive while others are much more affordable. Staying within the realm of reasonable choices that would not require a potential buyer to take out a second mortgage, for a younger rider (as young as about 3-years-old) I'd first suggest looking into a "Love Bike".

The Love Bike is probably best described as a "reverse tandem". On most tandem bikes, the "captain" sits up front and the "stoker" adds power from the rear seat. That means the rear partner has no involvement in steering the bike (except from a bit of leaning) and generally is not involved with other things like braking, etc. Also, being behind the captain, it is hard for the captain to speak well to the stoker and virtually impossible for the captain to monitor how the stoker is doing. (Is your co-pilot holding on tight or about to fall off?)

So how does the Love Bike make things better? It puts the captain in the back and wraps a set of big handle bars around the stoker. As for peddling, the traditional solution is to use "kiddie cranks" to raise the pedals for a junior-sized biker. I got my Love Bike with the optional folding pegs which allow a small rider to just park his or her feet on them. Note the "double handle bars". They let the front passenger feel the steering with their own set of bars attached to the big set. On the right side of the small bars, yes-- that is a real hand brake for the junior rider too. It is strong enough to stop the bike all by itself-- that control applies the Nexus 7's "coaster" brake. The captain has his own pair of front and rear rim brakes (on the outer bars).

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Note that the seat back (pictured above) does not come with the bike. While this was a handy addition to show my daughter how to sit on the seat, it proved too cumbersome to use when riding. This is however a nice seat back to use on a trail-a-bike among several other applications. This particular seat back is made by the Adams Company.

Remember to have your child wear a helmet-- it is the law in most places for kids to wear helmets and it just makes good sense for kids and parents alike. One difference for blind & visually impaired children when it comes to helmets is that the children's models which have pretty pictures aren't usually especially appealing because the pictures are typically embedded into totally smooth plastic. There are exceptions though, like this model below which was bought from Target. (There are some additional examples of tactile helmets on the "All About Bikes" page.) My daughter (shown below) knows she has to hear a helmet if she wants to ride. She calls her helmet her "fancy bee hat" and she especially likes to feel the wings and eyes on her hat.

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The Nexus 7 gear setup on a Love Bike is much like the 3-speed bikes many of us may all have run across in our earlier days in that you can shift at any time and there is no chance of throwing off the chain because this is an internally geared 7-speed system within the rear hub of the bike. These offer a much greater range of gear choices as opposed to the three speed units of the past offering a similar gear range to the earlier "10 speed" bikes many of us rode as children. If you do some further research, you may also run across a Nexus 8 which is now available. When I bought my bike those were not yet shipping but they will obviously offer one more gear choice if you get one as compared to a Nexus 7. Here is a picture of a Nexus 7 / 8 design.

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The Love Bike is a short version of a fairly conventional tandem frame-- about 10 inches shorter than a conventional tandem actually. Knowing that, yes, there is a trade-off in that some captains' knees have to ride a bit too far apart to be comfortable on longer rides, especially as the "stoker" gets larger. The steering is like that of a very big beach-cruiser style of bike-- no tight turns. Still, all-in-all this is a great idea and an option to look for if you want to let a small child experience biking in a very traditional way, but with a parent along for the ride. (Oh and by the way, sighted kids like these bikes just as well as visually impaired ones!)

If you are interested in getting one of these, check out: http://www.lovebike.com/ for additional information. These are marketed by a smaller company where the people I dealt with were quite nice but a bit hard to contact at times. I have also seen these on ebay from time to time. Some of the ones I saw were posted on ebay were shown under a different name, but despite the different name (I can't recall what it was), closer examination of the ads I saw showed the "Love Bike" name in the posted photos.

For more information about biking with blind and visually impaired
children, please read our article "All About Bikes".

Richard Holloway is the vice-president of the GOPBC and parent of a blind daughter,
Kendra, age 3-1/2 at the time of this writing. Richard and Kendra are shown riding
together in the photo above. His older daughter Sarah (age 12) is along for this
particular ride too-- (that's her in the pink outfit behind the tandem).