Springtime for bicycle bubble children

Just try to navigate the paths and streets of Columbus, and parents drag children around everywhere.

But the actual dragging is indifferent - they deposit Jacob or Emma in the stroller sporting mountain bike-treaded wheels or the enclosed bicycle trailer that without its wheels would bear a vague resemblance to tents that held children too young for gas masks during the First Gulf War.

That has to be a great experience for the kid, getting left in a tiny tent on wheels and pulled along the trails

During the Arnold Classic 5K - race time temperature stood at 25 degrees with gusty Alberta winds --- a half-dozen yuppie yahoos still lined up with loaded strollers. I counted just one plastic windshield.

The bike trailers clog the paths some days, as their widths exceed the bikes propelling them.

I can't condemn the child attachment onto the adult's bike, since it includes pedals and the kid actually take something away of the ride. Families of four sometimes ride a tandem, and that's mostly fine - the headsets for communication were excessive, though.

But the super-stroller and bubble dome trailer don't leave Jacob and Emma without any recourse, but to go along while their parents get their exercise.

Those isolation bubbles for the active parent aren't for the betterment of the oblivious children they ferry - they only exist because of selfish adults.

Maybe the riders, usually oblivious themselves, are just ensuring their children grow up as they did and have no problem bundling away their kids for safekeeping while they run or ride.

Well, it is a lot simpler than, say, leaving them home until they're old enough to join in.