Bike the Night 2019 with two kids & our Tern GSD S10

This was our fourth year at HUB Cycling's annual open streets event, Bike the Night. If you haven't heard of it, the nonprofit cycling organization plans a 10km route which is closed to motor vehicle traffic. There's a two hour event in the park ahead of the ride with music, lots of free samples, food trucks, free basic bike maintenance, & other goodies.

Bronte wanted to ride her own bike & Linny chose to come as a passenger on the back of our Tern GSD S10. We met up with some Vancouver Family Biking friends & rode together most of the route. Mostly with another family at our school, with six kids between us: three on our two cargo bikes, three kids on their own bikes. The other mom or I would have to stop occasionally for a kid's stuck derailleur, or to check on someone else along the route, or for one kid to stop to scratch under their helmet, then the other mom would zip off to try to keep up with the kids who were pedalling ahead.

This was easy for me with the Tern GSD, that thing is so much faster from a dead stop than me on the Bakfiets!

So not the most relaxing evening--is it ever really relaxing with six children between two parents?--but definitely enjoyable to have the streets just for us for an hour. Every year that we go, there are more children & more cargobikes on this ride. I like how the event has evolved over the years--my kids spent quite a bit of time at the Vancouver Aquarium booth, handling at their collection of  specimens, puppets, & getting an airbrush octopus tattoo. There were many snacks to be had, with Clif Bar people roaming the event & handing out free bars from a Metrofiets cargobike.

Bike the Night allows families & slower riders to start the ride a bit early, so we all headed up out of Sunset Beach Park lined up on We definitely had a lot of fun. If your kids can stay up that late, or sleep on your family biking setup, it's well worth going next year!

I made a little Instagram story, saved to my profile, about the whole experience, if you'd like to head over there to watch the video. :)

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