To my shame, I’ve only ever done one short tour on a bike. It was B&B based, with cycling friends and great fun.

I’d love to take Mrs North and Toddler North on a short tour too, because I think it would make a nice family activity based around bikes, fresh air and hopefully fun. If we all survive, it would be nice to go further afield. One step at a time, though.

Mrs North isn’t much of a cyclist – hasn’t been much of an exerciser for a while. Toddler North is recently two, so would either be in a seat or in her trailer.

So…

Other than where I live (West Lancs), where would be a pleasant place to take them both (i.e. pretty flat)?

It would be B&B based, as Mrs North is allergic to camping (TBH she’s allergic to B&B’s…).

What sort of distances/time on the bike is reasonable with a small child? What ratio of on bike/off bike is sensible?

Anything else?

me and the mrs did a 2 week tour with the kids when they were younger.
we started at Wells next to sea, and finished at Southwold.
we stayed on 4 very nice campsites, but bnbing would be ideal in that area.
we took in the broads, cromer, gt yarmouth and adnams brewery.
weather was good and it was all on very quiet flat lanes.

bike wise, i rode a mtb with a rear rack and panniers, with a tagalong thing for the daughter, mrs rode a tourer and the lad rode a cheap merlin 15” mtb.

Get a map of the canal network? That’s gotta be mostly flat riding.

cheers both!

Trailer time with a kid depends a lot on how used to the trailer they are. Rose is happy enough doing 5 hours riding in total in a day two days running (that was only about 30 miles a day in the hilly Peak District!), and has done a 40 miler once. I know of other kids who aren’t happy after 45 minutes. She has gone in the trailer an awful lot though – at least once a week on average since about 6 months old, and quite often long rides. I would try and regularly get out with the trailer a lot now before you go. Trailers are brilliant in winter, because they keep lovely and warm and dry inside compared to a bike seat – been on rides with snow on the ground, where I was bleeding freezing, and she was sitting happily inside chatting away, still toasty warm.

Naps help too, she’ll happily do a 2 hour nap in the trailer, so starting a ride before a nap is a top tip. Other than that, obviously cuddly toys in the trailer, going interesting places so that she can see fun things and pointing them out to her, singing songs together, chatting, telling her that you’re about to zoom down a hill really fast, telling her stories as you ride (I don’t know about you, but I know all the words to at least one of her bedtime stories). Oh and plan stops for picnics and swings and wee stops obviously.

To be honest, with an inexperienced cyclist you’re probably going to be most limited by your wife’s endurance. I would be looking at 10-15 mile days maximum, which gives you plenty of time for pottering slowly, and lots of break time / picnic time for the kid. That kind of distance means that if the weather is truly minging, or the kid has a grump or whatever, you can pretty much always hammer it with the kid and the trailer to wherever you’re staying in an hour. And if she gets knackered, a taxi to the next place won’t be too expensive! Remember for a non-cyclist a 10 mile ride is quite a big challenge.

Norfolk as suggested above would be brilliant, although it is a right pain to get to. Don’t be tempted by Lincolnshire, it is mainly a bit dull, and worth driving the extra to Norfolk.

One possible short and flattish 2 day weekend tour that is closer to you would be to do Tissington Trail from Ashbourne to Parsley Hay then High Peak Trail to Cromford (do it this direction and there are no noticeable uphills – don’t be tempted to do it the other way with an unfit rider!). I’m pretty sure there’ll be some bike friendly B&B places somewhere around Parsley Hay, and there are places to stay in Ashbourne and Cromford. You’d have to bike over to Ashbourne to pick up the car once you’d finished, but it’s only 10 miles, and Cromford is a nice enough place for your family to be waiting for you (nice bookshop, tea room, canal with ducks, lovely playground etc.) You get to end the ride with a massive zoom down a great big incline which is fun with the trailer.

Also, not what you’re asking, but I can recommend trailer camping – done it twice with Rose, can easily fit a 2 person tent plus camping gear in the trailer boot of my Croozer. She loves it. I get a massive ride, plus a nights camping. What could be better.

Thanks v much joe – really appreciate that.

I’ve walked on a short stretch of the Tissington Trail years ago, which seemed to be filled with tourists passing on de rigeur overloaded Orbit bikes.

You make a good point about trailer time. We don;t use it that much – mainly because the weather’s been dreadful and, well, for a whole host of reasons.

I’ve never (knowingly) been to Norfolk before. Could be just the thing for a long weekend away.

PS camping tips noted. Oh, and we have a Croozer too…. 😉

While not exactly ‘touring’ we did a good few 30+ mile rides when we were down in Hampshire, was quite hilly but unless you REALLY want to go touring we found that we could ride 5 days out of 7 and do different routes every day but had the option of going back somewhere that we really liked (pub with an enclosed garden, multiple climbing frames, other kids to play with, horses nearby and good food!)

It also meant that on the day we did 6-7 miles and my gf was really pissed off we had the option of cutting it short. As it turned out, all she needed a packet of crisps and a pint of cider

You make a good point about trailer time. We don;t use it that much – mainly because the weather’s been dreadful and, well, for a whole host of reasons.

The magic of the trailer is that the weather is always good inside it (except for the one time when we had a flash flood and the water was so deep it came up from the bottom and was up to the seat, leaving Rose not entirely impressed, oops!) As long as you own a waterproof, you can pretty much always go out in it. Loads of room for jumpers, waterproofs, spare clothes etc. in the boot too.

I always tell Rose that we’re going on an adventure, wherever we are going, so we have shopping adventures, going to cafe adventures, park adventures, picking up dry cleaning adventures, camping adventures, swimming pool adventures. She seems to fall for it too – as long as you make it sound exciting, she believes it will be!

Some excellent info on the Tissington trail there. I’m going to look into that. I’m at the next stage along from OP, which is even more tricky, in that I’m looking for a route that is cyclable and safe for 5 and 7 years old kids.

So the key question is: Does the Tissiington route you mention have loads of those loathsome bike crush things which prevent you getting through on a trailer?

scaled- that’s a good idea. Pick a nice place and explore around it. Could go for that.

We’ll start small – prob just two days of riding, which ought to work well all round.

I can never tell if Bea likes the trailer – she never cries, nor does she smile. Time to make it more fun..!

So the key question is: Does the Tissiington route you mention have loads of those loathsome bike crush things which prevent you getting through on a trailer?

Nope. I’ve cycled that entire route with a trailer (Tissington -> Cromford) and it is all fine. They hire bike trailers at both ends of the Tissington and High Peak trails. Downhill from Middleton Top is quite steep, but fine.

The Tissington Trail is a slight upwards incline, but really very slight, you don’t notice it at all. There is one slight bump right outside Ashbourne, but nothing else.

Don’t be tempted to take what looks like a shortcut between the Tissington Trail and the High Peak Trail, goes across somewhere around Biggin, I think it is National Cycle Route something. It is quite rocky in parts and has a big section of loose massive gravel, was quite an experience on a road bike with 23mm tyres towing a trailer. Much quicker to cycle up to the junction at Parsley Hay.

Anglesey would be worth a good look.

There’s a 70 mile route, not too hilly, on mostly very quiet roads that goes clockwise from Llanfair PG.
You have the option of beach stops and detours too.
Follows the two major cycle routes.

Plenty of b n b’s and not too far from home if it rains all the time.

Cheers Rusty. Will investigate.

Makes a nice day ride if you fancy a recce.
Couple of steep bits, but not too bad.

Bit of a trek but how about a Devon coast to coast, take in the Tarka trail and some other Sustrans bits.

Tell me more midlife…

could try Cycling without Traffic <Region> range, we use them to get building block tracks

also

we loved Somerset, http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=334990&y=127395&z=120&sv=334990,127395&st=4&ar=y&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf&dn=582&ax=334990&ay=127395&lm=0 cycled pretty much anything we wanted (paths, white tracks), could combine with taunton canal

pub – http://www.stokestgregory.org/business_tourism_rosecrown.html recommended

Ta! Am on blackberry now, so tricky to read links. Will havw a look.

Loads of food for thought.