Tree Haulin' By Bike 2012

One of the things about not having a smart phone is that we do not get cool bicycling photos when we are out and about. Today, I would have liked to been able to document our adventures pictorially.  It was one of those great New Haven days: church, coffee and biscotti, tree picking out and hauling, Shake Shack, and the Nutcracker at the Shubert-- all by bike.

These year, I got to ride the tree for the first time. Wild to think that we started this four years ago.  It amazes me to see those photos because the boys are so young! For our past Christmas tree hauling adventures, we used our bakfiets. Since that bike is now living semi-permanently with friends, this year we used the Xtracycle Radish.

It didn't take much to load the tree. Our tree place does not wrap trees so we used a few pieces of twine to pull in some of the branches and then the amazing Freeloader straps did the rest.  The stem of the tree sat far enough away from my left pedal that I didn't bump up against it at all.

It was fun riding along, the five of us, with me bringing up the rear with tree-- getting looks from other folks out on a Sunday morning. We got some great smiles and nods as we made our way downtown.  We had about an hour before the Nutcracker show so P took the fellows off to the Shake Shack for burgers while I zipped home and dropped off the tree, turned around, and met up with them again.

I would have loved to get some family Christmas tree bicycle pictures but alas, here are the lone shots of the Xtra loaded with the tree. Ho Ho Ho.

What We Look Like When We Ride Now....

This is what we look like most weekends nowadays...

We have almost fully gone to the boys riding themselves.  We ride to music lessons, birthday parties, church, whatever comes our way on weekends.  The guys are mostly on the sidewalk while P and I ride the street, doing a lot of communicating and blocking, particularly at street crossings and intersections.

The boys have become great city cyclists. They are pretty steady and hearty and mileage does not seem to be much of an issue.  They are good at sharing the sidewalk with pedestrians, taking turns, slowing down near others, and kindly announcing, "Bike left" when coming through. 

Sidewalk bicycling, of course, is not ideal and watching the boys get around by their own pedal power highlights how different life would be if we had real bicycling infrastructure 'round these parts with things like protected bike lanes. The fellows, and others, would so easily be be getting around by bicycle.  For instance, right now we have no ideal bicycling route to school. My older guys are very dedicated bus riders. My youngest is not a fan of the AM bus so while I am headed to school too (I work there), F acts mostly as a passenger on my bike, and despite the years I've been doing this, I can still feel uncomfortable at times riding through downtown with anxious morning commuters.

Due to the change in our riding, we did make another bicycle change.

Oh yes, we did.

We got a Yuba Boda Boda. We'll have tons more stories to tell about that but we're downsizing-- the Yuba Mundo is for sale. Know any families on the East Coast looking to haul two kiddos or significant cargo that you can point our way?

The Boda Boda is tons of fun because it feels like a 'single bike' but I still have the ability to haul one kid when needed. I feel so quick and zippy on the Boda Boda! I had become so accustomed to hauling tons o' kid cargo weight these past four years, it was just the way it felt to bicycle. Now-- now's a whole 'nother story.

UPDATE 1/22/13
We did find a new home for our Yuba Mundo. It's close by and will be well-used by a family with two younger children. 

Xtracycle Hooptie in Action

One of these days, I might just write about what's going on with the Full Hands Family and our newest bike adventures.  However, for now, I can not help but share wonderful family bicycling videos that are popping up on the web.

Who doesn't want to hop on a bicycle after watching this lovely video of the MacRhodes crew out on a family ride? Yes, folks they have three kiddos-- a singleton & twins-- and they are a multi-cargo-bike-ownin' family. We might just have a few things in common :). Shane, of course, is the founder of the Kidical Mass movement.

Here the MacRhodes family is trying out their new Xtracycle Hooptie. You can tell that the kiddos are loving getting around Eugene, OR this way.

 

Kidical Mass New Haven October Ride

Video: "A Family That Bikes Together..." from Public Bikes

I realize that I have done very little writing but a whole lot of sharing of family bicycling videos on this blog of late.  I do have a few things to write about but less time outside of parenting and work to do so these days.  However, good stuff in the family biking world is out there.  I am often astonished, and truly delighted, to see how this has grown, both locally here in New Haven, and in many other places as evidenced by a thriving internet presence of family bicyclists.

So here you go-- another day, another blog post of another great family bicycling video. This one comes from Public Bikes, featuring a family that bicycles to school in San Francisco.  What I like most about this piece is the focus of the FUN of riding bikes.  We can talk about exercise, lessened impact on the environment, dodging daunting gas prices, forming community connections, always find good parking, etc. which are all great reasons to cycle, but truly, we should not overlook the message that bicycling is just darn fun. 





p.s. See that title, "A Family That Bikes Together...,"it  kind of reminds me of one of my earliest cargo bikes t-shirt designs.  Great minds, I tell you :)

Video: To School by Chrisitana Trike in Washington, DC

Here's a great video out of Washington, DC put out by a bike shop there, BikeSPACE.  There's great footage of the biking-commuting Showalter family as they tried out a Christiana trike.

Come on, doesn't this make you want to commute with your kids to school by bike?!

In Emily's Own Words: The Biking Family Speaks

It turns out that super bike riding mama Emily Finch, highlighted in this post, was a presenter at the recent Women's Bicycling Summit.

And this is what she had to say: