Our other car is a bakfiets

It has been a long month. It turns out that our youngest got sick as well so we spent a third week caring for a miserable-feeling little guy and struggling tremendously with childcare coverage. It now appears that one of the twins is moving into his second round of illness as he now has a dry, hacking cough with a fever. We are going to just hang this weekend, hoping, just hoping we can all recover and get back on schedule this coming week-- the week of admissions decision making for me and a week of mid-terms for Peter. Is my desperation coming through in this post?

One wonderful bright spot, however, has been the arrival of our bakfiets! She (I am hoping to christen her a girl's name but we are in negotiation at the moment) arrived on Thursday and is absolutely gorgeous. P and I have each taken her out a few times. Yesterday, P went for a long ride on our local bike path with F for about 1 1/2 hours and then this morning used it for the bagel run and to get S to his guitar lesson. Even though I read this on the numerous reviews of bakiets I tracked down, I am still amazed how smoothly this bike rides and no, it is not hard to balance. I still need to figure out just how wide a turn I need to make, but I do think this investment (and yes, it was a hefty one) will allow us to remain a one-car, well--minivan family for at least another year.

One reviewer said you should not buy a bakfiets if you are not a social person because he gets stopped and engaged in conversation constantly about his cargo bike. I see this already with the number of folks who have asked questions while I was out riding. It reminds me a bit of when the twins were babes and we had the awesome double decker carseat stroller that gave me such a measure of freedom with the boys. People always got a kick out of seeing us, walking along the streets of NYC, and often commented or stopped to chat. The bakfiets does get a similiar reaction, but I am happy to discuss it because maybe some other folks will get inspired and soon New Haven will have a fleet of family bikes.