by Carla Caruso
The first ride in Adelaide, as part of the global Kidical Mass movement, will kick off from your Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (Park 27) in September.
Kidical Mass is a growing worldwide body of people with the same vision: to allow children and young people to be able to safely and independently travel by bicycle, wherever they live.
The movement was started in the US by cycling advocate Shane Rhodes, who led the first ride in Oregon in 2008. In Europe, Kidical launched in Germany, where it’s become incredibly popular.
One of the organisers of the Adelaide ride is grandfather-of-four Dr Richard Lea (pictured above). He told us: “The person who has really got it going here is Sarah Cleggett [of Middle Ground Motherhood], who’s a keen cyclist and has small children.
“She was frustrated by the cycling facilities and the inadequate bike paths and the inconsistencies in the bike paths in Adelaide and thought we should be doing much better.
“We’ve got a city that’s brilliant for cycling because it’s flat. It has good weather, very few rainy days. It doesn’t get really cold. So, we really should be much more cycling-friendly than we actually are.”
Last November, Sarah ran a Babes on Bikes Protest Parade in the CBD to coincide with the UN’s COP26 summit in the UK. The Kidical ride this year builds on this.
“The whole idea of the name comes from getting a critical mass of people to both protest and keep the organisation going,” Richard says.
Inspiration also came from the crowdfunded doco, MOTHERLOAD, in which US filmmaker Liz Canning discovers using a cargo bike as an antidote to the isolation of parenting small kids. (Check out the trailer here.)
Richard says: “The great bit of that story is some of the very first people, who made bikes that were suitable for carrying kids, were here in Adelaide.
“There was a thing called the Adelaide Longbike that was made in the 1970s by a couple of enthusiastic cyclists. The guys behind it, now in their sixties or seventies, are interviewed in the movie.”
Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (Park 27) will be the start and end point for the protest ride. On the event, Richard says: “If you don’t inconvenience a few people, and make the government a little bit embarrassed about things, then they don’t tend to do much.”
The Kidical ride will “go through the middle of the city” on Sunday, September 25, at 10am, beginning and ending at Bonython Park / Tulya Wardli (Park 27). Post-event, people can stay for a picnic and meet other local families and cyclists.
“Our Park Lands are such a treasure and they’re one of the things that really facilitates cycling,” Richard says.
“We have such great potential in Adelaide for being a really strong cycling city. We should be a lot more like Holland or some of the Nordic countries. They’ve actually changed the laws [in Holland], so that cyclists have right of way in just about every situation.”
The organisers are also looking for kids’ art for its event posters. Send contributions via their Instagram or Facebook pages. (Digital illustration featured by Amelia Rofe.)
When Richard’s not cycling or grandparenting, he’s a consultant anaesthetist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
“Working in a fairly high-stress job, I find the days that I ride my bike to and from work, I feel so much better when I come home. It’s a form of mindfulness riding a bike. It’s just you and the bike, going from A to B, and there’s nothing else you need to think about; it clears your head.”
Register for the Adelaide Kidical event here. Other protest rides will be staged around the world on the same weekend.
