The moment when a child wobbles away for the first time on a bicycle stripped of stabilisers is a rite of passage for the young cyclist and often the harbinger of a new dawn for the rest of the family. The era of the family cycling expedition has arrived.

After all those Sunday afternoons spent walking at half-speed behind a clattering contraption incapable of negotiating a tree root poking through the pavement, suddenly the world speeds up and your horizons expand dramatically. You can all saddle up and head into the sunset.

The appeal of cycling is that it is something we can all do together. No boring car journeys. No standing around watching one person participate (team games). No arguing over who won (all other games). There is a wonderful family democracy about cycling, just as long as nobody tries to overtake my five-year-old son.

Walking with children can be tortuous, an endless struggle that always ends up with piggybacks. But put them on two wheels and you give them the ability for the first time to transport themselves over a serious distance and an opportunity to realise their sense of adventure. Cycling is satisfying enough for an adult, but imagine how it must thrill a child who can suddenly propel himself along at speed.

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It is possible to underestimate how far a child, intoxicated by the new, can ride a bike. A few months ago we promoted our five-year-old from his starter Ridgeback to a larger version of the same bike. Even with the saddle lowered as far as it could go, he could barely touch the very tip of his toes on the ground.

He waved aside our concerns and shot off along a path in Richmond Park. To him the most exciting thing about this new bike was that it had gears, something to brag about to his pals still riding single speed bikes. On this first outing he ran through all the gears up to fifth in ten seconds and disappeared out of sight.

He had insisted, as five-year-olds do, that the most appropriate footwear for cycling was a pair of over-sized wellington boots. His parents, as parents do, had tried to dissuade him but gave up trying to win the argument. We were also slightly concerned that his little hands struggled with the brakes, so his preferred method of slowing down was to ride off the path. After five miles he finally decided to stop.

When we caught up we congratulated him and remarked on how liberating this all was. The only problem was that we were now five miles from home. It is also possible for five-year-olds to overestimate how far they can cycle. The return journey was harder work and involved a fair amount of bribery. There was a difficult moment when the ice-cream van we had been talking about for 20 minutes was not in its customary place.

Now such rides are not uncommon. We are park and towpath riders. I have yet to find a road I wanted to cycle on and have no inclination to involve my children in the battle to reclaim the streets for bicycles. We are fortunate in southwest London that the Thames is an alternative arterial route. If you live in this part of the capital, I recommend a loop starting at Ham House or Kew and riding the towpath to Mortlake.

The only road (or pavement) bit of the ride involves cutting up here to Richmond Park. Then up to the top of Richmond Hill and down to Ham where you can rejoin the towpath. A round trip of about ten miles, with plenty of ice-cream potential on the way and a playground in the park at the Ham gate.

Towpath cycling has its own etiquette. It is a complete no-no to ride off the path. It’s wet if the tide is in and a long way down if it’s out. One must be courteous to pedestrians. And I’m afraid even on a towpath you can’t escape that small minority of aggressive, self-righteous cyclists who give their fraternity such a bad name with their antics on roads and pavements.

Recently my son, spotting a loony hurtling towards him down the path, got a little flustered and swerved to the loon’s side of the path rather than ours. The nutter came to the side I was on, clearly expecting me to get out of the way. Instead, I stopped to let him past and for my effort received a stream of invective.

“I came over to this side to let YOUR SON get past. What the f*** are you doing?” There’s no answer to that sort of behaviour except to tip the idiot into the river. This I did, but sadly only in my fantasy existence.

My wife and I ride ten-year-old, cheapo mountain bikes that have seen few mountains. On family expeditions our three-year-old daughter still rides on a seat on the crossbar in front of my wife.

This seems so much more sociable than sitting on a seat at the back. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before she too ditches stabilisers. Then the whole process of measuring out our cycle rides in ice creams can begin afresh.