Kids love their bikes. And two events last Saturday demonstrated this point clearly.

The annual Madrona Mayfair kicked off with a decorated bike and trike parade. Hundreds of families showed up for the sunny parade down 34th Ave. Some kids rode on their own, while many other younger ones were accompanied by parents.

I would say that the highlight of the parade for me was the father teaching his daughter to ride during the parade (see photo above).

Later that day, I volunteered at Bike Works’ 16th Annual Kids Bike Swap in Columbia City. Basically, the Kids Bike Swap is this incredible opportunity for families to affordably trade outgrown bikes for ones that fit. Keeping a growing kid on a safe and comfortable bike can be quite a financial burden, so the Kids Bike Swap is vital to keeping kids of all economic levels rolling safely.

My job was to watch over the test ride area, which was a lot of fun. There were definitely a few crashes (kids are really good at aiming for bushes or grassy areas when they wreck), but no injuries! A couple kids crashed because they took off riding before realizing that they didn’t know how to use their new bike’s brakes. But by the time they took a couple spins, they forgot all about the heartache of trading in their old bikes as they cruised on their new, cooler bike.

I didn’t take a whole lot of photos for some reason (if you took some, feel free to post links in the comments or email them to [email protected]), but here’s the volunteer and staff mechanics working frantically to get traded bikes in shape to restock the bike corrals:

After the swap, I rode with Morgna Scherer and her Family Bike Expo back to their Rainier Beach home. They have this incredible electric-assist recumbent cargo trike that was hauling six (!) other bikes (two of which were Xtracycles) and a passenger. I followed on a tandem hauling a multi-gear recumbent trail-a-bike.

It was a blast. Watching a pedal-powered machine haul more bikes than most cars can is incredible and empowering.

There are so many different cargo and family bike options out there, and the Family Bike Expo offers an incredible opportunity for interested people to try different things out until they find the one that best fits their lives, styles and needs. They bring the Expo out to six or so events every year, so definitely stop and try their awesome bikes if you happen upon them at a fair of some kind later this year (and, of course, I’ll try to keep y’all updated on where they’ll be).