So today I got home from work half an hour early, and decided to get a wee bit of fresh air, and force my kids to do the same. I threw their bikes in the car, dropped them off at their respective day care (4 year old; with training wheels) and after school (6 year old, no training wheels) facilities, went home and parked my car, and then rode my bike to pick them up. It's only, it turns out, a half mile loop, but it was fun for them.

For me, it was fun to ride with them, but frustrating too. I bought a Trek 7.3 instead of a road bike specifically so that I can do family-type rides. But oh, so slooooow! I think I maxed at 5mph, as I had to hang back with the little one. Not exactly a work out.

So my question is, how do I make the most out of that kind of ride? I cranked myself up to the biggest, hardest gear to at least give those muscles some work, but my cadence was sooo slow in order to hang with them. Would I have been better off dialing back to really light resistance and spinning faster/upping the cadence?

By way of background, I am training for my first sprint triathlon (11 mile bike portion; May 9th) and haven't really ridden a bike regularly since I was a kid. This bike is fairly new to me and I haven't started riding it for training in earnest just yet, but I have been doing hour long spin classes during the winter to build some bike endurance and strength.