Cargo Bikes pictured in the Boden catalogue

Tucked among the mail today was a new Boden catalogue. For someone not terribly interested in fashion, I must admit that I really, really like Boden clothing. I first discovered their incredibly cool graphic t-shirts for boys (so beyond the usual stripes and trucks most companies were producing for fellas) and then fell for their amazing prints in their women's collections. I have a particular fondness for Boden's tunics.

As I was perusing its new women's collection for fall, I came upon a few photos of cargo bikes as props in their pictures, including a beautiful cargo trike with a cute dog as cargo. So the NYTimes last week and now a Boden catalogue-- Are cargo bikes becoming a widespread trend?

These photos are from Boden's website. There is a better shot of the trike and dog as cargo in the catalogue....

Summer Commute

My commute has changed this summer. While I commute with my older two boys during the school year and my husband brings my younger one to/from preschool, we have flip-flopped for the summer. This has required a bike exchange as well.

Therefore, each weekday F and I saddle up on the Xtracycle Radish which he likes to refer to as "The Rocket Bike." Bringing him to his camp increases my daily mileage. I just Mapped My Ride to learn that I am riding over 11 miles each day commuting. Our route takes us right through downtown and through parts of Yale's campus. On the bike, we have the advantage of going up a street that cars cannot currently because of ongoing construction. We hit one, long major hill which I could never pull off with the twins and bakfiets. While it's not part of the ride that I gleefully look forward to, I am happy that report that YES, I am riding up it. All the way. First gear is my friend.

When I reach F's camp, I am always extremely hot and sweaty, especially with this summer's extreme heat and humidity. I also do a quick face wash and wipe off my glasses after I get him settled. It definitely helps that I recently had my hair cut extremely short and that during the summer months, my work doesn't require me to dress in any formal manner. And happily, once I leave his camp for my work-- I get to ride down the other side of the hill. Ahhhhhhhhh.

This summer, I have seen so many bike commuters. It is great fun and makes me wish we had such an active bike commuting community throughout the year. However, witnessing the array of folks out pedaling these past two months gives me great hope for the future.

Next week, F heads off to a new camp, his first 'real' one (not at his regular preschool). He will be joining his brothers at one of my most favorite places here in New Haven for a farm/ecology program called "Sprouts." This camp switch presents a bit of a commuting dilemma. Since P is riding over there anyway with the older boys, it would make sense that he would bring F as well, especially since Common Ground is on the opposite side of town from my work. However, with the boys grown so big, we really cannot take all three on a bike anymore, especially since there is a significant hill on this route as well. Therefore, if he was going to get them all there, he would have to take the car. And this would be a bummer in more ways than one. P has loved being able to bring the other fellows there by bike this past week, especially since pick-up and drop-off are so chaotic with a flood of cars waiting in line to leave or get their kids. P's been able to zip right up the drive and put the cargo bike right up against a tree without any delay. Also, I have a hard time thinking that we must drive to get all three of our boys to this FARM for an ENVIRONMENTAL program for goodness sakes; it just seems wrong.

So.... we are going to try this which will require a bit of patience and understanding from my boss and colleagues. I am going to ride the Xtra with one. P will ride the Yuba with the other two. And then, off I will go to work. Yes, I will be later than I have been all summer. And I will definitely be sweaty. But I will get there. And the car will stay parked.

F is a TV Star... Ok, a Video Blog Star

At about the 40 second mark, you just might meet a cute pirate who looks familiar and look at that cool pirate ship bakfiets!

Cargo Bikes getting ink in the NYTimes

I have much to blog about-- three new bikes in our house (!), our bakfiets pirate ship makeover, New Haven's cycling celebration-- but wanted to share this link with my friends who haven't checked out the Sunday NYTimes yet: Hauling Cargo, No Car Necessary. The trikes that George makes are pretty darn fancy. Had to laugh when he said that "glamour moms" purchase and ride these cargo bikes. I am SO not a glamour mom, but now I have another reason to like Kate Winslet.

p.s. While getting my toenails painted today, I was perusing a certain celebrity magazine that showed a photo of Kate Winslet riding her fancy cargo trike. I had to track it down-- here it is. Interestingly, this website has blocked out the face of Winslet's son. I did note when looking at the magazine's photo that while he was wearing a helmet, it was unstrapped.... Just saying.

Please Don't Squash the Cannolis

Heading off to one of my sister's home tonight. Can't show up empty-handed, right? Stopped here on my way home from work and picked up some cannolis. While I was rigging them to my snapdeck, a fellow rolled down the window of his car to say, "Be careful with those. You don't want them falling off!" It made me laugh. For some reason, I feel less jolly when people say the same thing thing to me when kids are strapped to the back....



Happy July 4th.

Advocacy

I started bike commuting because as a member of a one-car family, I needed a way to get from one place to another without buying another car. I wasn't looking to become a bike activist or advocate in any way. As my family started to ride together, we learned what works with biking in our community and what makes cycling here tough. Who doesn't want to make tough things in one's life a bit easier? However, taking on any such formal role of bike advocate just seemed too daunting with three young fellows and a full-time job. And there are simply logistics that don't work right now: the local community's formal bike advocacy group meets at a time I need to be home to feed my boys; the monthly Critical Mass rides also don't fit our schedule, etc. So I stayed content talking with folks whenever people asked about our bikes or riding with kids. I invited friends to join us on bike rides. I kept an eye out for bike events in which we could participate, a few Bike to Work breakfasts, a fun group ride here and there. But truthfully, I saw my truest act of bike advocacy as simply riding, riding nearly every day, riding with my kids, being out there and visible. I still think that.

But I can feel the urges, the whisperings that I must do more. I must contribute to making my community a place where more parents feel comfortable riding with their children. Where someone contemplates leaving her car parked for the day and rides downtown to the library and knows this is a valid and safe option. Where two friends might go out for the night just using pedal power to get them where they want to go.

And I must do more because my family now faces a dilemma.

We have three sons and two cargo bikes. We bike far more than we drive. We bike to school, to work, to music lessons, to camp, to church, to the farmer's market, to playgrounds, to friends' homes, etc. Both my husband and I have grown quite comfortable biking throughout our city with our kids in/on our bikes. But now-- our oldest two are about to turn eight. And they have grown. And the truth is, they are busting out of the cargo box on our Bakfiets. Yes, they are quite good cyclists on their own, comfortable riding their two-wheelers, happy to do so for some distance. However, we live in a city that simply does not have the infrastructure to make it safe for them to ride themselves most places. Our route to school brings us right through downtown with lots of impatient drivers racing to get to/from work and no bike lanes. We have no routes that would put us on quieter streets.

So what are we to do? Stop biking? We are not ready to do this and I fully resent the idea that we would have to give up bike commuting.

So right now, we are hoping that a new cargo bike set-up may solve this problem for us for the moment. We are sad that it is time to sell the Bakfiets, but excited about the orange Yuba Mundo that will join our family soon. How long will this extend our ability to be family bike commuters, I can't say. But I worry that my boys' growth will far outpace the changes our community needs to make it a truly bike-friendly city, a place where ten, eleven, twelve year-olds can ride to get to where they need to be going. And I know, I won't be able to haul them forever....

Do you live in a place where a young person can safely ride to school, to the library, to camp? Can kids do that in Portland, OR? In Cambridge, MA? In most suburban towns? How about rural communities? I want to learn more.

But the truth is, I don't want to move. Not now, anyway. So I need to get advocating in more formal ways.

This was a start.....

LGRAB Summer Games continued

We've been keeping an eye of Dottie and Trisha's Let's Go Ride a Bike Summer Bike Games. Here's a report on our second phase that included these challenges:

June 7 - June 27: Learning Experiences

• Perform a maintenance task — big or small!
• Decorate your bike
• Read a book about cycling
• Carry a load on your bike — groceries, etc.
• Test ride a different type of bike than you normally ride

We decided to pull the family card for a few of these so happily have completed each of them but with different family members involved. The most exciting challenge for us in this group was taken on by our youngest guy who decided to "test ride" his brothers' two wheelers (no training wheels) and yes, he is off and riding now. He happily checks the tires before he rides and is insistent that he pump up the flats himself so another nod to F for performing our maintenance task-- however small, but necessary! We also took care of decorating our bike with our new Zero Per Gallon ginormous patch!

Read a book about cycling. We did that, too! I've been diving into Joe Kurmaskie's family cycling adventures but the bike book we want to share here:
How can you go wrong with a story about a duck who wants to ride a bike? Truly. Fun to hear Duck's friends' reactions (and see their expressions) watching him cruise on two wheels. My boys love author and illustrator David Shannon's books in general and one with farmyard animals AND a bike= cool!

Finally-- carry a load on your bike..... Well, this feels like cheating a bit since we are family bike riders so EVERY day both P and I are loaded up with children and their stuff on our two cargo bikes. When we first became parents, I remember a friend commenting, "I am my child's roadie. I have one little bag of stuff and they have two tractor trailers worth of things like a rock star." So we decided to show some snaps of our every day haul. I don't think we have yet mentioned that with the boys taking up that much more room in the cargo box that we expanded our haulin' capacities with a set of gorgeous hot pink, orange, and red Clarijs bags.


So here's a list of what goes in our Bakfiets on a daily basis during school time:

• Two boys (roughly weighing 110+ lbs.)
• At least two books-- pictured on top of this post: a Tin Tin collection and one of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books.
  
• Three lunch boxes (mine included)
• Kids' artwork (an amazing amount after each school day)
• My school bag with laptop
• Two water bottles
• Tissues

I did want to share a snap of "my favorite load" last week....

• A 1/4 sized cello
• Small kid's chair
• A 1/2 violin in other side bag
• Music books & sheet music
  
• One cute musician
• One iced coffee for the tired dad who accompanies one cute musician to his cello lesson then hands off the first cute musician to mom (who has the box bike with their two other sons) who in turns drops off a different cute musician down to the music school for his violin lesson which dad stays for as well-- Whew!