Eliza Martinez keeps cool under the shady roof of her dad Shawne’s cargo bike. (Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland) — by Family Biking Columnist Shannon Johnson. She previously wrote about when summer bike adventures go awry . I’ve recently been reflecting on why I started biking with my children, and how we have evolved as a biking family over the last three-and-a-half years. Biking has improved our lives and also prompted us to change our lives, a process that continues as we grow as a family that rides. Today, we bike for many more reasons than when we started. I often think, “the more we bike, the more reasons we discover for doing so!” As I was mulling over our own family’s biking journey, I asked some other local biking families to share their stories: “Why do you bike as a family?” and “Have those reasons changed over time?” A common thread immediately emerged in the answers I received: Local families who took up biking as their personal contribution to fight against climate change. While this was not the reason I started biking, I found these family bike stories to be edifying, as members of the community explained their personal commitment and major lifestyle changes to fight for a healthier environment for their children and future generations. I hope you are as encouraged to read their stories as I was. Please feel free to share your own story in the comments, or email me longer answers at shannon4bikportland@gmail.com (If you email me your own family biking story for possible publication, please include a photo of your family biking.) Rachel Philip Rachel at a group ride to a farmers market in Beaverton back in August. (Photo: Tina Ricks/BikePortland) Our original “why” for biking as a family was that we don’t want our […]