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.

Beach Bike Culture

We just got back from an excellent week at the Jersey Shore. When I posted "JERSEY SHORE" to my Facebook status, I was quick to clarify that I wasn't talking about that Jersey Shore but the actual beach, ocean, and three boys with boogie boards. Funny enough, just hours after I'd updated my status, my husband went to buy dinner fixin's at the local market only to be surprised at how swamped it was for a Sunday evening. It turns out that yes, that Jersey Shore had intruded a bit upon our vacation as two of the cast members were also 'shopping' at that local market, accompanied by camerafolks.

Anyhoo, we had discussed bringing our bikes with us on vacation. The beach generally is a great place to have a bike, but after realizing that it would take a whole lot of advanced planning to get our bikes to the beach (especially our cargo bikes), advanced planning that we just didn't have in us, the bikes stayed locked up in the garage at home. I couldn't help but see some irony in this decision as we passed car upon car on the NJ Parkway laden with brimming bike racks. Here we ride bikes in our everyday life, yet were bike-free on vacation. I couldn't help but wonder if most of the biking vacationers are the opposite: bike riding on vacation but never in 'normal' life. Who knows? Happily, our rental was well-located. We could walk to the beach, market, ice cream shop, and my sister's so we didn't need to take the car out daily.

It was great fun to see all the colorful bikes out and about in our vacation town. Beach cruisers everywhere. I especially love the ones rigged with racks to carry surfboards and couldn't help but think that someone selling longtail cargo bikes at the Shore would have a real market. However, I didn't see an Xtracycle or Yuba among the crowd. I did love the bright blue tricycle adorned with front and back baskets that a local clearly used for grocery fetching. I liked that there was a huge range of bike riders-- people of all ages, pedaling away, enjoying the sun and salt air. I've long recognized that every day I ride my bike is like riding in a convertible, no need to put the top down.

One thing that struck me is the total lack of bike helmets among the beach bike riding crowd. I've read bike blogs long enough to know that the mention of helmets can set off a firestorm of pro vs. con comment debate. Thankfully, I don't have enough blog readers to set off such a firestorm and truthfully, I am not interested in doing so. Ultimately, wearing a helmet or not is your business. As a parent, I feel it is important that I wear a bike helmet. My kids are required by law to do so, and I personally would have a hard time with the whole, "Do as I say, not as I do" thing around bike helmets, married with the fact that I have a brother-in-law who is still alive after being hit by a van while he was out on a long ride. He spent many months in the hospital and now sports a multi-inch scar on his head, but his bike helmet saved his life (and thanks, too, that the next car passing was filled with doctors). Now if I lived in a European city where bike riding was the norm and bike helmets were not, I am not sure if I would wear a helmet. But I don't live in a European city with a strong bike infrastructure or culture. I live in a city where there is minimal bike infrastructure, where drivers still aren't terribly accustomed to sharing the road with bike riders, and where a number of cyclists pay little attention to road rules. It isn't a great combination. So always a helmet.

Yet at the Jersey Shore, while bikes were abundant, helmets were a rare sight. New Jersey state law requires any rider under 17 years to wear a helmet, but this was clearly not enforced in the beach towns we visited. There were a few times we saw kids on bikes with helmets but they were not strapped. My husband speculated that maybe beach bike culture predates the whole bike-helmet-safety thing. It wasn't as if the streets were terribly bike friendly, many riders on the shoulders of two-lane highways that run north and south in town that see cars whizzing along between spaced traffic signals, with nary a true bike lane. A high school friend who lives year-round in one of these towns said that at the end of this school year, a letter from the local police was sent home saying it would enforce NJ's bike helmet law, but she sees no sign that this is actually happening. I can't help but wonder if the 'different rules for vacation' thinking is at work with the no helmets on bikes at the beach. You know-- folks traveling engage in activities they would never thinking of doing while at home. I won't mention examples like *cough* *cough* riding helmet-less and in flip-flops on a motorcycle across a certain small island in Thailand to get to town for fresh watermelon shakes or sitting atop a sack of rice on top of an overly-crowded public bus as it speeds its way on a narrow, windy road in Laos.

So, I'll leave that just as an observation with no criticism or conclusion.

And yes, I DID so love in today's NYTimes the photo in the left-hand corner the page of rich party-goers happenings, captioned "JUDY and JACK HADLOCK, who came on bicycles to avoid the wait for car service after the event." No, they aren't wearing bike helmets but damn, you've gotta love Mr. Hadlock's frilly shirt, bow tie, shorts, and long socks combo, and of course, ultimately the fact that he and his wife traveled to the shindig by bike. Brilliant.

What to Do With a White Bern Helmet When Mom is Not Wearing It....

Play Storm Trooper, of course,with water telescope and rocket-shaped bubbles container. We ARE supposed to encourage imaginative play, aren't we?

** I must say that F, our nearly five-year-old, has never seen any of the Star Wars movies yet (nor have our older fellows) yet he seems to be able to speak about it with some authority that I find quite unnerving.

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.