I’m excited to introduce a new collaboration with Sarah of Girls and Bicycles on the subject of cycling while pregnant. Sarah is currently expecting her second child and has provided a series of posts here on cycling with a toddler in tow. Over the next months, I will be writing a series of guests posts for Sarah on my experiences while cycling with a baby belly.
You can follow along here or on Girls and Bicycles and you can also read all about Sarah’s experiences and thoughts on being a pregnant cyclist on her site. I’ll be structuring my posts to read chronologically, moving from the beginning of the pregnancy to those last 38 weeks, after which I parked my bike in the garage and took a sabbatical from it.
Are you someone who is currently pregnant and still riding a bike? Have you biked while pregnant in the past? We’d love to hear from you! Send us an email or leave a comment below and let us know if you’d like to be interviewed for a future post. We’d love to have as many voices chime in as possible, sharing a wider range of experiences than the two of us can offer.
And stay tuned for the first post later this month!
Hello! Hubby and I live in SF with our 4 month old, Liam. I biked all throughout my pregnancy. I had a Surly Long Haul Trucker and an electric Pedego.
This is a pic of me and my Surly: http://www.sfbike.org/?pregnant (I have a friend at the SF Bike coalition and he asked for my pic lol)
I cycled while pregnant with #2 and am now pedalling the bakfiets while growing baby #3. I would be happy to add to the info you are providing!
I’m 22 weeks with my first, and commuting via Brompton and Amtrak between Philly and Baltimore – hoping to make it last as long as it’s feasible! And with the mild winter thus far, it’s been a real treat to bike to my appointments downtown (and faster than the bus). I’d be happy to chime in to the discussions.
My baby is just 2 months old. I found your blog to be very inspiring about staying active during pregnancy. I biked during much of my pregnancy and loved it! I did, however, have to work at remembering that each pregnancy is different. I had to slowly give up a lot of my normal activities as my pregnancy progressed – it was just too hard on my body (I could go into detail about this, but I won’t at this time). I stopped cycling at seven months, and had cut back to short weekend rides before that. But the cycling I did do made me so happy. I am eagerly anticipating the time when my daughter and I can ride together.
I don’t remember biking in my first pregnancy, but in my second I biked up to 8 months. On my first spring ride, early in the pregnancy, I had a little wipe-out on some lingering ice. That almost scared me off, but I got back on and had no more troubles. Shortly after that second baby was born, I heard a story on Canadian Broadcasting Corp’s “As It Happens” about a grocery store that had designated parking spots close to the entrance for expectant mothers. I called their “Talkback” line, and my comment was played on the air: I said I had no trouble carrying groceries to the car while the baby was still inside – I biked up to eight months – but I could sure use a convenient parking spot when trying to carry groceries, baby, and baby stuff! Shortly after that, many grocery stores began to designate spots for parents with small children.
I’m not a huge cyclist but I do enjoy it for convenience to get downtown quickly – I’m not generally an excessively anxious person when it comes to safety but I found that, after a couple of experiences, I was too stressed to bike pregnant where I live due to aggressive drivers (I live in NJ). Even if I rode defensively, I’d seen too many incidents (and heard too many stories) of flagrant disregard for cyclists and pedestrians that I felt unsafe riding, and more comfortable on my own two feet going slower and planted on the ground. And also, as I pedestrian I was at least subject to FEWER misconceptions from drivers (MOST drivers know that pedestrians have the right of way on a crosswalk with a green light…), whereas several times I have had drivers reprimand me for being on the road on a bike. Um, actually, it ISN’T safer to ride on the sidewalk, provided cars actually follow the rules of the road.
Okay, a bit of a vent, there. But it boils down to – I especially didn’t feel safe riding my bike pregnant, which is a shame.
Thank you to all who commented thus far, we’d love to get all your voices in on the discussion! Including those of you who felt nervous and wary of biking while pregnant. It’s pertinent that we hear from cyclists who didn’t bike as well to get a better picture of what prevents women from cycling while pregnant: cultural ideas about pregnancy, poor infrastructure, drivers’ role in this, etc. Please keep the comments and emails coming!
For those of you who commented saying you’d like to be involved with this, we’ll be compiling a set of questions to send out to you and we’ll be featuring cyclists’ profiles with those answers here soon!
Thank you again!!
S. & S.
I’m 32 weeks pregnant with my first, and still cycling. I work from home so don’t do a daily commute these days, but my getting-around-town (I live in London, UK) is done by bike. The geared tourer is a bit easier-going but I put higher bars on the hack-bike fixie so that’s in some ways more comfortable — I’ll see how the next few weeks go!
We’ve just gotten a Christiania trike so I’ll be strapping a car seat in that for the baby once he arrives. (I couldn’t face having to use public transport to get around for 6-7 months til he could hold his head up; plus for a variety of reasons none of the front/rear child seat options were looking good for us.) It is already AWESOME and I am testing it out to get to the shops and back (though it’s not what you’d call a speed machine…).
I’m 33 weeks pregnant with my 3rd, have really bad PGP and my daily cycle is what keeps me even vaguely functional.
I bike for exercise with a group of girlfriends. My daily commute is via car. As for the exercise form of cycling, I stopped at 16 weeks when the baby was outside my belly far enough to not be protected from crashes. My baby is now 4 months old and I recently had a bad bike accident, and thankful that didn’t happen while pregnant. I think 16 weeks was just about the right time to stop for the duration of the pregnancy.
I’d love to be part of the series and share my experiences, and I look forward to reading about others’.
You know this makes me want to have another! Keep up the great work.
Well you know I cycle while preggers too if you want any of my photos or anything let me know.
Thank you for posting all of this. It’s wonderful to hear about so many women riding through pregnancy. I rode both a recreational and road bike during my first pregnancy stopping at 36 weeks and switching then to swimming. I am currently 30 weeks pregnant with my second child and am still enjoying the benefits of riding, although for road bike purposes I am now wearing my husbands jersey and bib shorts. :) Just smile and ride on!
This made me more inspired about continuing my cycling journey. I am soon 20wks pregnant with #2 and started cycling way before we got pregnant :) I didn’t do any cycling on my #1 child because I was living in the Philippines and its to busy and dangerous over their to ride a bicycle. I do my indoor 45mins cycling mostly everyday and just get wednesday as my break. Next week my specialized bike will be arriving and finally me and soon 2yrs old toddler can go out for a few miles ride :) I love cycling and my toddler just love watching me while I’m on my turbo trainer.
I’m excited to read this series, S.! I biked while pregnant with #2 — occasionally while trailing #1 — but I stopped at 7 months or so because of the HEAT. Now I’m just hankering for a cargo bike that could possibly accomodate a safe carrier solution for our littlest one!