A friend shared this article on Facebook and I felt compelled to share it here:
The Real Reason Why Bicycles are the Key to Better Cities | Sustainable Cities Collective
We couldn't agree more. We just see our city so much more now that we are bicycling around it. We notice and point out and discuss and wave and connect.
However, it's not all pretty.
After feeling great stopping by the Bicycle Appreciation Breakfast at Yale (B.A.B.Y.) this morning, C, S, and I saddled up again, rushing a bit to get to school on time. The boys decided to play a travel game called "Cupcake." One person designates an objects he sees repeatedly along the route as a "Cupcake" and without telling the others just what this specific thing is, he calls out "Cupcake!" every time he sees it. The other folks need to make guesses as to just what "Cupcake" really is. Enthusiastically calling out from the longtail, the boys went back and forth, designating street signs and flowers and pedestrians as "Cupcakes." Finally, along our final stretch, S picked out the last "Cupcake" object.
"Cupcake!" he yelled. "Cupcake! Cupcake! Cupcake!" His words coming faster and faster as he saw the object repeatedly. "Cupcake! Cupcake! Cupcake!" Whatever this chosen object was clearly all around us.
C and I threw out guesses, "Grass!" "Cars!" "Water!" as we rode close to the river.
"Nope," S repeated over and over again. And then more, "Cupcake! Cupcake! Cupcake!"
Finally, all out of guesses, C and I asked S to reveal just what his "Cupcake" was.
S, pleased that he had stumped us, replied, "Oh, Cupcake is trash thrown on the ground."
Friday, May 27, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Smile List for a Rainy Week
It was a rainy, rainy week here in the Haven which thrilled our youngest because all this precipitation caused the sugar snap pea he planted to sprout. The rest of us, however, were feeling a bit gloomy and boxed in and were itchin' for time outside. Despite not enough bike riding this week, we did end up with a list of things that made us smile.
5. The sun came out this afternoon and we headed out on the bikes for a spring Friday evening loop: dessert first at Ashley's, then off to Modern to pick up the boys' pizza (or is that apizza?), a stop at Caffe Bravo for some eggplant rollatini for the grown-ups, and finally, a swing by The Wine Thief. It was one of those evenings that just makes us so happy to live where we do.
1. A local family emailed me about their search for their perfect family cargo bike. They will be coming over this weekend to test out our two longtails, the Xtracycle Radish and the Yuba Mundo.
2. I received these in the mail yesterday. So wonderful to read Elly Blue's zines focusing on women and bikes.
3. My friend V called me at work to ask a question about our Xtra since they had just purchased a new Xtracycle Radish to go along with their Madsen. Knowing other families with multiple cargo bikes makes me feel less nutty about our bike fleet. I look forward to comparing the new version of the Radish to ours. I already know that I am envious of the lower top tube...
4. Anne from CarFree Days sent me this photo. So cool to think of my handmade t-shirt participating in this rockin' Bike-to-School event in Seattle. 185+ riders and doughnuts. Amazing. It's time to do some family-bike organizing locally. See more photos from the event here.
5. The sun came out this afternoon and we headed out on the bikes for a spring Friday evening loop: dessert first at Ashley's, then off to Modern to pick up the boys' pizza (or is that apizza?), a stop at Caffe Bravo for some eggplant rollatini for the grown-ups, and finally, a swing by The Wine Thief. It was one of those evenings that just makes us so happy to live where we do.
Now that we've pretty much decided to keep the bakfiets, we've been taking it out more and more. If we ride with just one kid in it (given how big they've all grown), it works out great and there's still plenty o' room for our purchases. The boys love riding in the box bike and we are constantly overseeing negotiations as to whose turn it is to hang in the baks.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Kids' Books about Bikes
This weekend's New York Times Book Review has a quick feature in the Children's Book section called Bookshelf: Wheels that features kids' books, four of which are about BIKES.
Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) by Sue Macy.
I am especially excited about this one:
Looks like we'll be doing another favorite activity this weekend: book buying!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Cargo Bikes, Celebrity Edition
Last summer, I posted this photo of Kate Winslet riding her beautiful cargo trike.
Today, I came across photos of another talented British actress riding a different cargo trike. Shout out to Helena Bonham Carter for not only being a woman who seems comfortable doing her own thing, but also for being a momma who rides a cargo bike.
Today, I came across photos of another talented British actress riding a different cargo trike. Shout out to Helena Bonham Carter for not only being a woman who seems comfortable doing her own thing, but also for being a momma who rides a cargo bike.
Photos re-posted from imnotobsessed.com
Friday, May 6, 2011
Rock to Rock, Year Three
Last weekend we participated in our third Rock to Rock ride, an annual event to raise money for local non-profits, many focused on environmental education. We had so much fun on the past rides, we convinced lots of friends to join us for this great event, riding across the city from West Rock to East Rock..
It was so inspiring to see the numbers of people who turned out for Rock to Rock. It was also very affirming to see so many families participating and yes, there were multiple cargo bikes!
As the ride takes over the city streets with police on motorcycles stopping car traffic at intersections, it felt so freeing to ride along, chatting with friends, watching C & S on their own bikes cruising along. As the boys pedaled happily, it highlighted the fact that they are extremely capable cyclists and the issue of my sons being unable to ride for transportation here in New Haven is not about the mileage-- all told, they rode 15 miles that day-- but it is clearly about a lack of bicycling infrastructure and far too many impatient car drivers in our midst. So we continue to haul them on our various cargo bike set-ups so we can get to school and go shopping and go off to music lessons, but darn, how I wish the older guys could ride on their own. But it's just not safe. Not yet, anyway.
Our friend Domingo Medina, a Yuba rider, joined us at Rock to Rock with his camera. He took loads of wonderful photos, many that I include here. But if you want to see all his snaps of this great bikey-ness (and not just of my crew), you should check them out here.
I didn't pull off making our own shirts this go-around, so each of us chose a bike-themed tee for the ride. Needless to say, this was no problem in our house as I seem to have a slight obsession (oxymoronic?) with finding or making bike t-shirts.
A group of friends gathered at our home and then we rode over to Common Ground together. Here we are setting up for the ride. There we so many riders, we waited for all to line up in front of us so we could ride in the back. You can't see it here but we started with two Xtracycles, one Madsen, one Dutch bakfiets, and two Yubas. We were joined later in the ride by two more Xtras and ran into another Yuba.
J's dad rode our bakiets with his two-year-old twins, Q & S. I rode the Xtra Radish with F on the back. We also towed F's bike with the front wheel strapped in our Freeloader bag. F really wanted to ride himself but the mileage was too much for him to complete the whole ride so we took it along for later....
We love having photos of S & C riding themselves.
It was great fun to run into this family on their Xtra. We had met C in the fall when he stopped us while riding home with the kids. He was moving to town and wanted to hear about other family bike riders. Well, they live here now and look at this awesome set-up! Welcome to New Haven.
This is one of my favorite shots Domingo captured, F and I cruising into Edgewood Park, trees a'bloom.
When we reached the final stretch of the route, F and I pulled over so we could take his bike out so he could finish the ride on his own. By the time we got him up and going, we were the very last riders, with only the two wonderful support volunteers cyclists behind us and the support vehicles. F pedaled furiously, commenting with amazement that this was the first time he ever rode on the street. He wobbled a bit and had to put his feet down. He was having a rough go starting off himself so a few times, I hopped off my bike, pushed down the kickstand, ran to him and gave him a push-off, and jumped back on the Xtra. He was determined though to get to the end of the ride by his own pedal-power and just kept riding. On the final block, he even got his very own police escort who cheered him along saying, "Come on, buddy. You can do it!"
He reached East Rock Park to great cheering as many of the volunteers lined the path, clapping and calling out. The police escorts kindly joined in. This was one proud little guy.
It was so inspiring to see the numbers of people who turned out for Rock to Rock. It was also very affirming to see so many families participating and yes, there were multiple cargo bikes!
As the ride takes over the city streets with police on motorcycles stopping car traffic at intersections, it felt so freeing to ride along, chatting with friends, watching C & S on their own bikes cruising along. As the boys pedaled happily, it highlighted the fact that they are extremely capable cyclists and the issue of my sons being unable to ride for transportation here in New Haven is not about the mileage-- all told, they rode 15 miles that day-- but it is clearly about a lack of bicycling infrastructure and far too many impatient car drivers in our midst. So we continue to haul them on our various cargo bike set-ups so we can get to school and go shopping and go off to music lessons, but darn, how I wish the older guys could ride on their own. But it's just not safe. Not yet, anyway.
Our friend Domingo Medina, a Yuba rider, joined us at Rock to Rock with his camera. He took loads of wonderful photos, many that I include here. But if you want to see all his snaps of this great bikey-ness (and not just of my crew), you should check them out here.
I didn't pull off making our own shirts this go-around, so each of us chose a bike-themed tee for the ride. Needless to say, this was no problem in our house as I seem to have a slight obsession (oxymoronic?) with finding or making bike t-shirts.
A group of friends gathered at our home and then we rode over to Common Ground together. Here we are setting up for the ride. There we so many riders, we waited for all to line up in front of us so we could ride in the back. You can't see it here but we started with two Xtracycles, one Madsen, one Dutch bakfiets, and two Yubas. We were joined later in the ride by two more Xtras and ran into another Yuba.
J's dad rode our bakiets with his two-year-old twins, Q & S. I rode the Xtra Radish with F on the back. We also towed F's bike with the front wheel strapped in our Freeloader bag. F really wanted to ride himself but the mileage was too much for him to complete the whole ride so we took it along for later....
We love having photos of S & C riding themselves.
It was great fun to run into this family on their Xtra. We had met C in the fall when he stopped us while riding home with the kids. He was moving to town and wanted to hear about other family bike riders. Well, they live here now and look at this awesome set-up! Welcome to New Haven.
This is one of my favorite shots Domingo captured, F and I cruising into Edgewood Park, trees a'bloom.
When we reached the final stretch of the route, F and I pulled over so we could take his bike out so he could finish the ride on his own. By the time we got him up and going, we were the very last riders, with only the two wonderful support volunteers cyclists behind us and the support vehicles. F pedaled furiously, commenting with amazement that this was the first time he ever rode on the street. He wobbled a bit and had to put his feet down. He was having a rough go starting off himself so a few times, I hopped off my bike, pushed down the kickstand, ran to him and gave him a push-off, and jumped back on the Xtra. He was determined though to get to the end of the ride by his own pedal-power and just kept riding. On the final block, he even got his very own police escort who cheered him along saying, "Come on, buddy. You can do it!"
He reached East Rock Park to great cheering as many of the volunteers lined the path, clapping and calling out. The police escorts kindly joined in. This was one proud little guy.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Yee-Haw! Ride 'Em Cowboy
I am convinced that now, not only are we getting our kids around town by bike, but we are setting them up for numerous wins in the mechanical bull riding contests in bars down the road.
OK, let me explain.
Yuba came out with a Rumble Strap. What's that? It's a rather simple, yet very clever idea that solves a problem we've been discussing, but doing nothing toward solving. Gotta love me some Facebook because one of my Fb friends is Travis of bike, noun, verb who posted photos of this sweet Yuba accessory that had previously been unknown to us.
We need the Yuba for two passengers. With one passenger we are good with the Xtra Radish, but when we need to take out two fellows, or three if we are both riding, we rely on the Yuba Mundo. The front passenger has the stoker bars to grab onto, but the back passenger hasn't been so lucky. If his brother was feeling generous, he might get to hold on the front guy's shoulders or waist. Since that wasn't always the case (feeling such generosity), the back rider might grab the back of the longtail frame behind him with a hand or two. Truthfully, more often than not, our back passenger just held on with his thighs, keeping his hands in his pockets or sometimes waving them around when his mother wasn't yelling at him to stop.
Of course, I was worried about how safe the back rider was. We always make our younger guy sit up front and continually nag the back rider to move his bum up on the seat to make sure his tail is not hanging over the longtail. I have to admit that while I've been pretty confident in my boys' ability to hold on, even with no hands and just a good thigh squeeze, I am always aware of how the no-hands-hold-on thing for the back passenger opened us up to yet more criticism by outsiders concerning how unsafe our choice to ride our sons by bike is. I know I should not care about this, but I am sensitive to it, so often when riding in busier parts of the city, I will say to the guys, "Well, at least make it look good, like you're holding onto something."
And now they have a something to hold onto! I know there are also sorts of wonderful problem solvers out there that jerry-rig their cargo bikes in cool ways so both passengers are set up well, but we hadn't gotten that far. We are glad that Yuba did. And now, our back passenger has a strap to hold on to, attached to the frame of the bike so it is strong and secure, but small and soft enough that it won't get in the way of any non-kid cargo we may need to strap to the longtail while say, moving furniture or perhaps huge bags of chicken feed and screen doors (I kid you not).
So here are some shots of P attaching the Rumble Strap to the frame (we didn't even need to take off our Freeloader side bags, just unclip one part):
And here are shots of the boys testing out the new Rumble Strap:
I didn't manage to get a shot of S doing the full rodeo bull riding thing-- one hand holding onto the Rumble Strap, the other hand up in the air while gleeful shouts of "Yee Haw!" emanated from his mouth-- but it was happening. Yee Haw!
OK, let me explain.
Yuba came out with a Rumble Strap. What's that? It's a rather simple, yet very clever idea that solves a problem we've been discussing, but doing nothing toward solving. Gotta love me some Facebook because one of my Fb friends is Travis of bike, noun, verb who posted photos of this sweet Yuba accessory that had previously been unknown to us.
We need the Yuba for two passengers. With one passenger we are good with the Xtra Radish, but when we need to take out two fellows, or three if we are both riding, we rely on the Yuba Mundo. The front passenger has the stoker bars to grab onto, but the back passenger hasn't been so lucky. If his brother was feeling generous, he might get to hold on the front guy's shoulders or waist. Since that wasn't always the case (feeling such generosity), the back rider might grab the back of the longtail frame behind him with a hand or two. Truthfully, more often than not, our back passenger just held on with his thighs, keeping his hands in his pockets or sometimes waving them around when his mother wasn't yelling at him to stop.
Of course, I was worried about how safe the back rider was. We always make our younger guy sit up front and continually nag the back rider to move his bum up on the seat to make sure his tail is not hanging over the longtail. I have to admit that while I've been pretty confident in my boys' ability to hold on, even with no hands and just a good thigh squeeze, I am always aware of how the no-hands-hold-on thing for the back passenger opened us up to yet more criticism by outsiders concerning how unsafe our choice to ride our sons by bike is. I know I should not care about this, but I am sensitive to it, so often when riding in busier parts of the city, I will say to the guys, "Well, at least make it look good, like you're holding onto something."
And now they have a something to hold onto! I know there are also sorts of wonderful problem solvers out there that jerry-rig their cargo bikes in cool ways so both passengers are set up well, but we hadn't gotten that far. We are glad that Yuba did. And now, our back passenger has a strap to hold on to, attached to the frame of the bike so it is strong and secure, but small and soft enough that it won't get in the way of any non-kid cargo we may need to strap to the longtail while say, moving furniture or perhaps huge bags of chicken feed and screen doors (I kid you not).
So here are some shots of P attaching the Rumble Strap to the frame (we didn't even need to take off our Freeloader side bags, just unclip one part):
And here are shots of the boys testing out the new Rumble Strap:
I didn't manage to get a shot of S doing the full rodeo bull riding thing-- one hand holding onto the Rumble Strap, the other hand up in the air while gleeful shouts of "Yee Haw!" emanated from his mouth-- but it was happening. Yee Haw!
Friday, April 15, 2011
Momentum
It's happening, folks. I see it and feel it coming on. The whispers are getting louder. Momentum is building.
Finally, a friend met us at the Cherry Blossom Festival, enjoying a brief respite from caring for barfing kids. She had walked to Wooster Square and we invited her back to our house for some backyard hanging and beer drinking. Good thing for the two longtails as we had an extra seat! C was game and hopped on the back of the Yuba with one of the boys. When we reached our house, C gave the two longtails test rides and decided that an Xtracycle Radish just might be just what she is looking for. Later that evening, I took her home. For a brief moment, I was tempted to hop the car as it had been a long day and there would be a hill involved. But we decided to keep it a truly car-free weekend so set off via Yuba once again and it was fun.
Two and a half ago I began my obsessive reading of family bike blogs, looking for information, for community. I drooled over family bike events chronicled on Portland, OR bike blogs, on Seattle-based ones. I researched bakfiets dealers and owners, emailing them directly, asking their advice. I couldn't find much East Coast presence, save one lovely, bakfiets-owning, blogging mama in Massachusetts.
And then, two years ago, we bought our bakfiets. Had it shipped from Clever Cycles in PDX, feeling a bit guilty about all the gas it took to get it to us, but beyond excited by its arrival.
We started riding. We started noticing bikes with kids' bike seats attached, and sometimes a bike trailer, even some tag-alongs.
Then the two of us started jockeying over who got to ride the baks and who had to take the car. So we invested in an Xtracycle so we could both ferry kids by bike and leave the car parked for days and days.
People stopped and asked about our cargo bikes. Friends bought a Madsen. Our local bike store became Madsen dealer. We watched an Xtra with two kids perched on the snapdeck go by our home.
A year later, another set of friends bought a Joe Bike box bike.
People were talking. Conversations about kids as cargo-on-bikes became more frequent. A family on a bright blue Yuba Mundo rode up to school.
The boys grew bigger and heavier. The bakfiets could no longer hold three FullHands boys. Alternatives were researched. An orange Yuba Mundo joined the party. Friends got us in contact with another family researching cargo bikes and another orange Mundo appeared on the local streets.
Last Saturday, we joined a local clean-up day. We arrived on two longtails. Another family rode up on theirs. A third family stopped us, sharing that they had just been at Devil's Gear researching cargo bikes and ran into one of our neighbors, now proud owners of a Big Dummy Xtra.
On Sunday, at the farmer's market, a number of folks commented on our bikes, some asking for more details. We met another local Xtra-owning family. Later, at the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, there were few cherry blossoms (too cold!) but suddenly tons of bikes were blooming all around us.
One highlight of the Festival was meeting another local family and seeing their new Taga Bike, fitted with two child seats. It was a delight to speak with V and most fun to step back and watch as curious festival-goer after curious festival-goer stopped to ask her about her cool trike. (Darn, total camera fail as I asked permission to snap a photo of her wonderful bike with two sleeping kids strapped in but cannot find the picture in my phone. Ugh.)
Finally, a friend met us at the Cherry Blossom Festival, enjoying a brief respite from caring for barfing kids. She had walked to Wooster Square and we invited her back to our house for some backyard hanging and beer drinking. Good thing for the two longtails as we had an extra seat! C was game and hopped on the back of the Yuba with one of the boys. When we reached our house, C gave the two longtails test rides and decided that an Xtracycle Radish just might be just what she is looking for. Later that evening, I took her home. For a brief moment, I was tempted to hop the car as it had been a long day and there would be a hill involved. But we decided to keep it a truly car-free weekend so set off via Yuba once again and it was fun.
And just this week, another local family who found this blog reached out to Facebook friends looking for us-- they did!-- to ask about our cargo bikes as they researched possibilities for their family of five. Yes, momentum is building. As more local families discover cargo bike options, as more parents transport their kids on two-wheels (and three!), as others witness this and think they too may give family bike riding a try someday, we all will benefit. And yes, looks like it time for some serious bikey family fun event here our city.
The boys sportin' some sweet face paint with their helmets. And no, just because, C's face is painted as a cat, doesn't mean he IS a cat. And if you don't know what I'm taking about,
you must go here and watch this now.
you must go here and watch this now.
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