On the Bike Blog we do wang on quite a lot about the vital importance of safe infrastructure to get more people cycling, and with very good reason. But there’s another aspect also worth considering: having people on a suitable bike.

Why did this occur to me? Because of a chat with Isla Rowntree, the eponymous founder, head and design supremo for Islabikes, who has spent 13 years thinking about how bikes can be made easier and more fun for children to ride, and is now branching into intended bikes for older people.

As a brand, Islabikes inspire strong reactions in some people, ranging from undying loyalty to disbelief that a bike aimed at a five-year-old can cost nearly £400 – though of course the latter factor is leavened by the bikes’ famously strong second-hand value.

Whatever one’s view, Rowntree is a fascinating and thoughtful person with whom to discuss cycling, and her reasons for setting up the company. It began 13 years ago after relatives and friends started asking her as “the resident cycling expert” – she is a former UK cyclocross champion – about the best bikes for their young children. She says:

At that point in time, I think children’s bikes had reached an all-time low in terms of their functionality and the riding experience. They were really heavy, because they had great big fat tubes to make them look like adult mountain bikes, but made of steel, and very often some kind of faux-suspension that added another couple of kilos, huge numbers of gears that young children couldn’t understand.

They seemed to have gone away from the shapes that fit an actual child – huge, long cranks, brakes that they couldn’t reach and with springs so heavy they couldn’t pull on them.

I was coming from the angle that as a cycling evangelist you really like to persuade people to enjoy what you love. And the thought that the children of my nearest and dearest might be put off cycling – that’s how bad I felt the bikes were – was quite distressing for me.

Her solution was lightweight machines with child-sized components, something now mimicked by a series of other children’s bike brands.

Sceptics might label this a fancy excuse to flog pricey bikes to middle-class parents, but as anyone who has watched a child learn to ride, it is very relevant. I saw friends of my son struggle to get going at all on a weighty, older-style kids’ bike, and almost give up, only to find it all very straightforward when introduced to a more suitable machine.

Rowntree says her aim is “to give a better cycling experience to children, in the hope that more of them do it more often, and some of them turn into cycling adults in some form or another”.

Getting more people on bikes is a continual passion for Rowntree, and her new range aimed at people 65-plus was inspired by watching her parents, in their mid-70s, struggle with their existing bikes:

I thought: again, there’s a group of people here to whom cycling is a really important thing, but are struggling because they can’t get the most appropriate bikes for their currents needs. It was really as simple as that.

This involve bikes which are easier to use for those with potentially creaking joints and reduced muscle power, featuring step-through frames, low gearing and reduced weight. Using the example of her mother – her parents live next door to her in Ludlow, Shropshire – Rowntree also designed wheels where it is easy to remove the tyres:

That’s the beauty of living next door to my parents. They won’t go out too far any more on their own because they can’t get the tyres off if they have a puncture to change of inner tube. I say to them, ‘Call me if it happens, I’ll come and fetch you,’ but they’re too proud.

It’s that practical detail that you only get to think about if you’re around people who are actually at that stage and struggling with it. And that’s the kind of thing I get really excited about. It might seem a bit obscure, a bit techy, but I know it’ll make a real difference to those enthusiast cyclists who are still going off on rides.”

The problem, she thinks, has been exacerbated by the spread of wheels designed to also be used with tubeless tyres. which are a notably tighter fit even when fitted with inner tubes.

These are mainly specific solutions to very particular age groups, but I’d argue that too often, at least in places like the UK, too many other people ride unsuitable bikes.

Many British bike commuters use rapid, lightweight road bikes and hybrids, which are fine for enthusiasts but can seem a bit rattly and twitchy for the novice, who will often start by going to a bike shop to purchase the sort of machines they see everyone else riding.

There is, of course, a reason for this: the feral state of the UK roads, where cyclists have to mix it with motor traffic, placing a premium on speed. This means those who pootle along on a heavier Dutch-style bike can feel even more vulnerable.

A few years ago I switched from commuting on a lightweight road-type bike to something more practical, complete with chain guard and bag-swallowing front basket, and it was something of a revelation.

Yes, I’m slightly slower – especially in a headwind, where the giant basket acts as a sort of sail-anchor – but it’s generally a liberating feeling. Perhaps we all need to think a bit more about the right bike for the right ride.