If your child's school has signed up to Love to Ride - Students, you might already be seeing the posters, hearing about it at the school gate, or fielding questions from your kids about logging rides. Good! It's working.
But remember, Love to Ride isn't just for the kids.
We've got a free and fun platform for adults — and getting involved yourself is probably the single most effective thing you can do to support your child's journey to school.
Why? Because kids copy what they see, not what they're told.
Research backs this up, but honestly, you probably already know it from experience. If cycling or scooting to school feels like a normal, everyday thing in your household — something adults do too, not just something children are told to do — it sticks. It becomes part of the routine rather than a battle.
So here's how to actually get involved, beyond just cheering from the pavement.
Log your own rides
The main Love to Ride site is where adults track their rides — commutes, weekend trips, the school run, a spin round the park on a Sunday. All of it counts. You don't have to be doing anything impressive. The point is building a picture of how you travel and watching your achievements grow over time.
It's genuinely satisfying in a low-key way. You'll be surprised how quickly those short trips add up.
Join in with challenges like Roll & Stroll
Throughout the year, Love to Ride runs campaigns and challenges that give you a reason to get out — and something to aim for. Roll & Stroll is one of them: a celebration of active travel that includes walking, scooting, and cycling, not just hardcore bike rides.
These challenges are a nice way to get the whole family moving with a bit of shared purpose.
Check what's currently on — timing varies, but there's usually 4 big challenges a year.
Add "ride with kids" as your purpose — and get on the leaderboard
This one's a small detail that makes a bigger difference than you'd expect. When you log a ride, you can add a purpose to it — and "ride with kids" is one of the options.
Do that, and you'll appear on the Ride with Kids leaderboard alongside other families doing the same thing. It's not competitive in a stressful way — it's more like a reminder that you're part of a community of parents making the same small, consistent effort. And your kids will absolutely want to check where you rank.
Tell the community what the roads are actually like
Here's one that goes beyond your own household. Rate My Routes lets you flag how safe — or not — different roads and crossings feel when you're cycling or walking with children.
You know your local streets. You know the junction where cars never give way, the cut-through that's actually brilliant, the road that sounds fine on paper but feels horrible with a seven-year-old. That knowledge is useful — and Rate My Routes turns it into data that local planners can actually act on.
It takes a few minutes and it's one of those small things that can genuinely make a difference over time.
You don't have to overhaul anything
None of this requires becoming a cycling evangelist or committing to something you can't sustain. One logged ride. One challenge dipped into. One route rated. That's enough to start.
What tends to happen — and this is what Love to Ride is quietly designed around — is that small things build on each other. You log a few rides, your child notices, you do one together, it becomes a Saturday thing, and six months later it's just part of how your family gets around.
It starts somewhere. It might as well start now.