Meaning & use
biked
Last updated
“biked” is a form of “bike”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meaning
verbtransitive or intransitiveinformal
Past tense and past participle of bike: traveled or exercised by riding a bicycle.
Grammar: No object when you just ride: we biked home. With an object for a distance or route: she biked ten miles.
Patterns
- bike to somewhere
- bike somewhere
- bike a distance
We biked to the lake before breakfast.
She biked twenty miles along the coast last Sunday.
He biked to work every day until the snow came.
Common combinations
- biked to work
- I biked to work all summer.
- biked across the country
- They biked across the country in six weeks.
- biked along the river
- We biked along the river path at sunset.
- biked home
- After class she biked home in the rain.
Synonyms and how they differ
- cycled
- It means the same, but it is the more common choice in British English and sounds a little more formal.
- rode
- It is more general and needs a noun, as in rode a bike, and also works for horses.
- pedaled
- It stresses the effort of pushing the pedals rather than the trip itself.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: biked or biker?
biked vs biker
A biker is a person, often a motorcycle rider, while biked is the past tense of the verb.
Practice
Complete the sentence: Yesterday we ___ to the park instead of taking the bus.
Choose one answer.
The time word yesterday needs the past tense, which is biked. Bike and bikes are present forms, and biking would need an auxiliary like were.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “biked”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.