Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Bikes at Work & Play

While birthday shopping for our favorite now-four-year-old, we were delighted to come across this:




It's a toy cargo bike, hard at work carrying mail, brought to you by the folks at Playmobil. Gotta to admit that our older guys were never Playmobil fellas so I didn't know much about this toy company. However, I immediately suspected it was European: mail carriers, readying to distribute their mail by bike and by foot, and nary a helmet in site (although the gentleman's plastic cap on the right just may do the trick). Sure enough, Playmobil is a family-owned company from Germany, and while I was checking it out on the web, I found this interesting article.

As for the present buying, we ended up going for the pirate ship as F has become quite obsessed with these sea-faring vandals. Mostly I think he likes wearing hats and eye patches and yelling "Arrrr!" but perhaps I will head back to the store for a toy just for me.

11 comments:

MamaVee said...

I love playmobile. Love it. If I could only buy the kids playmobile I would. And I really got into it two winters ago when all the plastic toys were coming back with lead etc. I knew Playmobile was going to be safe.

I totally want that bike set.

Dottie said...

Awesome :) This is a good antidote to all the car and truck kids' toys.

Matt in Tacoma said...

I have a Playmobil set with a helmeted mom riding a city bike with a front basket, towing a helmeted child in a trailer...I don't let my kids play with it, though... ;)

sara said...

Ohhhh Matt-- Got to find that set!

Jennifer said...

I love Playmobil! My favorite toy when I'm working with kids.

Jennifer said...

I have that set that Matt has-it's very cute.

Andrea said...

Cute! I'd love to see more cultural items that normalize non-motorized transportation (I'm still waiting for you to write that series of children's books about a biking family). And while playmobile has never reached the level of obsession that Lego has in our home, the boys enjoy playing with a modest collection of them now and then (but beware teeny-tiny pieces to keep track of!) I am a little disturbed by the CEO's comment in the article that the shiny gold paint does have lead, but they monitor the levels to make sure they're safe. Argghhh!!! There is no safe level of lead, especially for children who already may be living in lead-painted homes, with lead-contaminated soil from a century of denial of lead's problems.

Miss Sarah said...

Oh, you might like this!

http://www.doniveson.ca/2009/06/08/a-lego-urban-design-primer/

maori4 said...

i use to play with that toys when i was a child... i had the pirate ship... 30 years ago... uppppsss!!! cuanto tiempo!!!
kisses from Spain

bikejuju said...

Awesome! Kind of reminds me of the toy bikes I have collected in Africa - little bikes are fun to play with! http://www.bikejuju.com/2009/toy-bikes-from-africa/

Trisha said...

I LOVED Playmobil as a kid. Great to know they're still around -- and making bike-related toys. Too cool.