Pirate Ship Bakfiets

This summer has been lots of riding, very little blogging. I am far behind in sharing some of our bikey highlights, including anything about our new orange Yuba. However, I figured it was time to get photos of our pirate ship bakfiets up since we have since dismantled the ship and the bakfiets will soon be decorated with a For Sale sign...

With a nod of thanks to all the other pirate-ship-decorated box bikes out there (here, here, here), we finally fulfilled F's long-time wish and turned our box bike into a pirate ship for New Haven's Summer Cycling Celebration. P rigged an awesome mast that was well-placed so one could still see while riding. I wish I had gotten better photos of the bike but I bet there are a number of pictures of it floating out there since people stopped us a bunch of times to take pictures. F, who constantly likes to dress like a pirate, happily stayed in character. We were able to put his pirate hat right over his helmet and taped on a red feather for an extra touch. The pirate hat covering has been abandoned but he is still wearing his red feather on his helmet, which is quite cute.

The Summer Cycling Celebration was sponsored by the city's local Street Smarts campaign. In keeping with this, we attached a sign to back rack of the bakfiets that said, "Even Pirates Need Safe Streets." The weekend after the Cycling Celebration, I was riding F to a birthday party in our still-decorated pirate ship when I heard the sound of pedaling and puffing over my left shoulder. A voice suddenly said, "Oh, even pirates need safe streets, huh?" Glancing to my left at the fellow bike rider now riding parallel, I replied, "Oh, that's right, Mr. Mayor." So Mayor DeStefano does ride even when not courting votes.