OPINION
Family cycling has changed. Are you keeping up?
By Karen Gee F
ourteen years ago, I started Cycle Sprog as a small blog about cycling with my own two children. It has since grown into the UK’s leading independent resource on family cycling - a place
where parents come to figure out which bike fits their four-year-old, whether a cargo bike will actually survive the school run, and how to persuade a reluctant nine-year-old to get back in the saddle. That gives us a front-row seat to how family
cycling is changing, and this is backed by data from our Family Cycling Survey, which we ran in 2023 and 2025, and have now run again in 2026. Compared with our 2023 survey, some of the shifts are striking. At a time when the industry is facing yet more headwinds - brands under pressure, supply chain challenges, a difficult economic backdrop - understanding exactly who is buying, what they need, and where the growth is coming is more important than ever. So here is what our readers are telling us.
Family cycling is no longer just a summer weekend hobby One significant finding from three years of data is this: family cycling has moved from a leisure activity into everyday life, and it is doing so quickly. In 2023, around half of the parents we surveyed used their
bikes for transport (school and nursery run, commuting, shopping, and everyday errands). By 2026, that figure had risen to 70%.
The school run tells the story particularly clearly. The
proportion of families cycling to school rose from 58% in 2023 to 70% in 2026 - a 12-percentage point increase in three years.
Leisure cycling has remained consistently high across both
surveys, at 83% in 2023 and 84% in 2026 - families aren’t swapping leisure rides for the school run, they’re adding transport cycling on top. Winter cycling to school increased from 65% to 81% over the same period.
40 | May 2026
www.bikebiz.com
These are not fair-weather cyclists - they are getting their children on bikes even in the colder, darker months. Parents are motivated not just by
enjoyment (though that remains important) but by a growing set of practical and values-led reasons. Those saying cycling is quicker than driving rose from 33% to 46%. Environmental motivation increased from 58% to 72%. “Cycling makes me happy” from 73% to 85%.
What does this mean for the industry?
These are not customers who browse in April and disappear in September. These are customers who have made a lifestyle decision, not just a purchase. They are becoming year-round cyclists who are building cycling into the fabric of their daily routines.
The bikes tell the same story E-bike use among our respondents increased from 35% in 2023 to 51% in 2026 - a majority of our readers now ride electric. Cargo bike ownership rose from 26% to 37% over the same
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