ICUH: Precious Cargo: Cycling, Care, and the City–An E-Bike Excursion into Parent-Centred Urbanism

Join us for an e-bike excursion along Wellington’s scenic waterfront and cycleways, designed to bring to life current research on new parents’ mobilities in sub/urban spaces. This excursion invites participants to explore features of everyday journeys of parents who cycle with their children, and reflect on how these experiences shape, support, and challenge their wellbeing as caregivers in the city. In collaboration with Frocks on Bikes we further seek to illuminate the active ways in which they support more women onto bikes. Their work contributes towards being seen on the roads riding bikes in everyday life and dressed like “regular” people is steadily mainstreaming and normalising cycling as transport.

Framed by the emerging concept of parent-centred urbanism, this trip is grounded in research that positions caregiving mobilities as a vital but often overlooked dimension of urban life. Drawing on care theory, we centre the embodied and emotional aspects of mobility, asking: what does it mean to move through the city as a parent, carrying both literal and metaphorical cargo? How can cities better support these journeys, not just in infrastructure, but in values?

After a relaxed e-bike ride (though likely without the precious cargo) suitable for those with basic cycling skills, we will gather at a local brewery for refreshments and conversation. The first speaker will share findings from the Precious Cargo study, drawing on interviews with cycling parents about how biking affords them sub/urban care-full mobility. A second talk, led by members of Frocks on Bikes, will expand the discussion to broader questions of inclusion, safety, and joy in urban cycling.

This session is designed for planners, health promoters, researchers, and advocates interested in more equitable, inclusive, and care-attuned cities, parents and non-parents alike. It offers not only theoretical and empirical insights but also the embodied experience of moving through space as a collective, echoing the shared, relational nature of parenting itself.