full hands

"There's No Such Thing....

2011-12-19T17:20:00.002-05:00

as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing" or so says the quotation I just Googled to see is attributed to one Sir Ranulph Fiennes. Since I heard that some years ago, I've always liked that saying, although I do believe that yes, there is a such thing as bad weather, just perhaps less of it than we may complain about.

So when it was time to head out yesterday with the morning temperature still below freezing, we were faced with the question you car-free folks don't have-- Should we take the car or the bikes? It was not much of a debate as the air was clean and crisp, the roads were clear, and we had plenty of time to make sure we were wearing well, appropriate clothing.

I contain to maintain that the best winter bike purchases we made were Bern helmets with fuzzy inserts for all the boys and a pair of ski goggles for each.

We snapped some photos on our way to church.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a lovely Jamis commuter, letting us know we were not the only ones to cycle there this morning.

Wondering why only the cable was looped around the rack.
I worried about the cable being clipped.
Do bike thieves work at 9AM on Sunday mornings?

And here: a lone wheel locked to the rack. Did someone U-lock the wheel, and not the frame, and have the rest of the bike stolen? Sad to consider.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home where the boys asked to stay outside, playing with the camera, making faces at their reflection, and introducing a stow-away stuffed lemur, R.T., to the joys of cold weather.

Later friends came over for a soup lunch. They headed home on their bikes, their Xtracycle Freeloaders laden with cut wood from our large backyard pile.

And yes, that IS a gorgeous baby bump she is sportin' .

It's a rare day we ever regret choosing the bike.

2011 Tree Haulin' by Bike

2011-12-11T20:12:00.000-05:00

Yes, we were so excited that we pulled this off this two years ago.

Gotta say that it was just as exciting this year. We now live farther away from Edgerton Park so the trip involved a longer bike ride. Lately, on weekends we've been working on the twins riding themselves on the city streets, and they happily took on the challenge to ride across town.

For his part, F was glad to be back in the bakfiets (with a few friends along for the ride).

We used a combination of street riding and, at times, had the boys go up on the sidewalk.

When we reached the park, we noticed how fee trees were left. Luckily, there was a great one waiting for us.

We loaded it on the bakfiets, well prepared this year with bungee cords.

Then we headed back home. F and I switched over to the Xtracycle (boy, it's nice to have more than one cargo bike).

Over-the-shoulder shot

This is a holiday tradition I hope our fellas will remember in all their years to come. I know I will.

Guest Post : I Love a Parade

2011-12-05T21:18:00.000-05:00

I could not be more excited to present this post by guest blogger Lynette Vann. Lynette and her family are from the States but live and cycle overseas, currently in Kazakhstan after some years in Malaysia. Many thanks to Lynette for sharing this post with us and I hope we get to learn more of her family's bike riding ex-pat adventures over the years. You may contact Lynette directly here.

Guest blogger Lynette and her older daughter while bike touring near Kakanui, South Island, New Zealand

"I Love a Parade"

Last month, we were at the end of our first full family bike-to-school morning. We’d had a lovely ride despite some wet, cold, and muddy conditions. I was so proud of my oldest daughter who had left the nest/cargo box and was riding on her own. We turned off of the highly protected pedestrian path to finish the ride on two blocks of city streets that also happen to lead in front of my husband’s office.

Everything was going great. It was a bit muddy and sloppy but we were holding tight in form with the bakfiets shielding our young solo rider and my husband bringing up the rear. The work buses were plowing down the street, there was some morning traffic honking and jostling but we were doing it and then I heard my husband mutter, “I like to ride but I don’t want to parade.” Oh, so quickly did my spirits sink and all of our calmness in the traffic slipped away and before you know it the last block was a miserable, stop and go, bump into each other slog into school. The girls didn’t seem to notice it and all in all it was a tiny hitch in our ride to school morning but it got me thinking about parades.

Let me introduce myself. I’m Lynette. Mom to two lovely little girls, A (4) and L(6). We’re an American expatriate family that recently moved to Kazakhstan with my husband’s work after living four years in Malaysia. And we love bikes. Always have. We started biking as a family when L was six months old. Our fleet of bikes has grown and changed along with our children. We started with one Burley trailer, then two trailers for an additional child or touring gear, then the Bakfiets, next a family touring package with coupled bikes and tagalongs, then a Babboe Bakfiets, and, finally, a Surly Xtracycle is soon to arrive.

The school run in Atyrau, Kazakhstan

It’s been an evolving process. We’ve done a lot of things well but generally only after lessons learned from some pretty horrible rides. We've done unsupported family touring through Australia, Portugal, Spain, and our favorite, New Zealand - three times in the winter! With our new location we hope to do more touring through Europe.

But what really keeps us going is the day-to-day biking. Here in Kazakhstan we aren't allowed to drive so it's a bit of a necessity for maintaining some personal freedom. So we bike. We bike to the grocery, the market, the parks, the coffee shop, and our friends’ houses. We bike to explore, to play, to relax, and to burn off some frustration when I can’t remember my Russian numbers at the market.

And, as in all the other places we've biked in, we find that biking with kids generally brings out the best in people and opens doors that were not previously visible.

A frosty woman's face automatically brightens and opens and we find ourselves talking in broken language for five to ten minutes with her on the street as she tries to figure out how the bakfiets works.

The husband and wife at the fruit stand pick out the perfect apple for the girls while they sit in the bakfiets so the girls don’t have to unbuckle and buckle again.

The old man who follows me for a block and then watches to make sure I lock my bike up. Giving me a thumbs up when he deems it secure.

We are on parade. We are on parade because we are foreigners in this country. We are on parade because we choose a form of transportation that is uncommon. And at different times in our family biking life we’ve had to tackle the uneasiness that comes with being on parade. There are detractors everywhere, many towards biking in general but more towards biking with children. Sometimes those detractors even come from the inside the family and, now quietly, sometimes even me.

But one of the joys of riding together is that on the day that I don’t feel like parading, my husband might, or my daughters might. The family ride pushes us to let go of some of the parental paranoia so we don’t pass that baggage on to our girls who see it as an adventure – helmets properly adjusted and strapped, of course. The family ride requires my spouse and I to work together and rely on each other in a way that spouses often don’t have to anymore.

The family ride also overcomes detractors on the outside. The woman on the street, the couple at the market, the man on the path? These four people in my town were strangers who I’m certain wouldn’t have normally paid me any attention; these four now watch for us on the path, at the market, and on the street. We’ve fast-tracked our settling period by making connections with our neighbors and townspeople. Which is great wherever you live but particularly great when your home is in a foreign land.

So we sit up tall with our helmets on snug and the girls return the waves of people as we pass by. I love a parade. And I’m pretty certain you would too.

Author Lynette Vann and her family with their Dutch Bakfiets back in Colorado for vacation.

Dashing Young Cyclists

2011-11-29T19:36:00.004-05:00

Look who got some new cycling caps.

Originally the plan was to roll them up and put them in the boys' stockings. Whoops. Looks like I couldn't help myself.

Kidical Mass New Haven Takes Off

2011-11-14T19:40:00.004-05:00

We had planned and publicized October's Ride for weeks. We were excited to wear our costumes while riding and two of the boys' costumes actually involved bike helmets (even though they were not bicycled-themed).

Praying Mantis-- C was pleased when he realized that its head was shaped a bit like a bike helmet. Good thing we are a nutty family who happens to have uh... an extra bike helmet in the garage to spay paint and affix large eyes.

S was an android. That's a salad bowl on his head but to keep it up, we cut out a circular piece of foam and then taped a Nutcase helmet inside of it.

And then came the snow. And the power outages throughout the state. We had been holding out hope that somehow the freak early storm would not dampen our Kidical Mass dreams, but at 8am that morning, we had to call it. While we usually are always willing to go for a bike ride, snow or no snow, we recognized that for our area, Kidical Mass is about trying to attract all different families to ride together, even those who are less zealous about it than we. We thought it best for the kick-off ride to be on a non-snow day (shout-out, of course, to Chicago's Kidical Mass that rides year round). We still rode over to the Farmer's Market and hang out just in case folks did not get the news about the KMNH October ride cancellation.

We were lucky that we only lost phone and internet for a couple of days. Some people in the state were without power for 11 days.

This looks like an ad for Bogs boots to me. Yup, we each have a pair.

On the up side, we did still get to participate in the Giant Puppet Parade a few hours later.

Recognizing the importance of getting a group ride in before the real winter started, we sent a quick poll to some committed local family bicyclists and it seemed that November 13 suited most. Without weeks and weeks to publicize the new event, we got word out best we could. With little idea just how well it would be attended, I was feeling a bit stressed and tried to squash the "I forgot to study for the exam" dreams that kept awakening me for numerous nights. We took advantage of a day off from school to ride and time the route ourselves. Come Sunday morning, while the sky appeared clear, might I admit to some less-than-stellar parenting moments as I tried to get the boys dressed and out for the ride early? Thankfully, my husband was still speaking to me as we saddled up and pedaled off to the meeting place.

We rode up to find one dad and toddler waiting. My boys greeted them enthusiastically and introductions were made. Over the next 20 minutes or so, 50 more participants arrived. That's right! Much to my extreme gratitude, we had over 50 riders for our hastily-rearranged inaugural KMNH ride. We had bicyclists, bikes, and wheels of all sizes. There was a nice array of kid-carrying velos from kid seats, cargo bikes, and trailers. We enjoyed the route that had us ride on a paved park path, a few urban streets, and one lovely residential one. We ended up back in Edgewood Park, many of us indulging in the most incredible almond croissants from SoNo sold at the Farmer's Market, and looking forward to our next KMNH Ride.

Our friends just purchased this Madsen from our local bike shop but are waiting on their bucket. Isn't it great that they ordered Madsen Cargo Bike Love t-shirts???

Here we are waiting for the next group to get through the green light.

Thanks to V. Balbarin for these last two snaps.

No, we do not make our kids wear helmets when climbing trees. It just happened to be a favored activity after the ride before helmets were shed.

kidical mass new haven november ride

2011-11-08T19:12:00.000-05:00

CARGO BIKE LOVE models

2011-11-07T19:37:00.000-05:00

I could not be more thrilled with the quality of Spreadshirt's printing of our Cargo Bike Love t-shirts. The shirts came just days after we ordered them and the printing is clean and bold.

Each fellow chose his own design. You can see that my older guys have custom designs with printing colors they picked out (not currently offered as choices in my shops). If you would want a shirt with custom printed colors, let me know and we can do that for you.

The teal printing on the royal blue shirt doesn't pop, but the orange really is brilliant.

Visit Cargo Bike Love at www.cargobikelove.spreadshirt.com.

introducing CARGO BIKE LOVE t-shirts

2011-10-30T22:14:00.004-04:00

Folks who know me or who have been visiting this blog know that one of the things I like best outside of bikes is making t-shirts. I started simply with freezer paper stencils and moved on to a low-tech, at-home screening system. Some years ago, I used Zazzle.com for a series of t-shirts called Boys Like Pink, Too that still manage to sell a shirt here and there.

I enjoy my professional life, however, there are times when I would love to stay home and just make shirts. I have never had any training in the graphic arts but love lettering by hand and messing around on the computer. Recently, some of my favorite bike bloggers, Laura and Russ, from The Path Less Pedaled started posting their own shirts on a site I had not previously known.

This got me inspired. With a bit of direction from Russ, I downloaded a free trial of Adobe Illustrator and started messing around with cargo bike designs. Today, thanks to snow, yes SNOW in October, we had to cancel Kidical Mass New Haven's October Ride. While we still got out by bikes to the Farmers Market and the Giant Puppet Parade (another post on that this week), the afternoon was spent at home. I took advantage of the time and opened my very own Spreadshirt Store Front.

After contemplating various names, I decided not to name the storefront "Full Hands" and went with a name that specifically 'calls it like it is,' (and hopefully allows folks on search engines to stumble upon it).

Drumroll, please.

Introducing CARGO BIKE LOVE.

We have longtail designs, bakfietsen, Madsens, and cargo trikes.

Some of the great points about this website is that you can choose your own color and size shirt. I also think the pricing is quite good, especially for a print-on-demand service.

Do contact me if you want any of these designs printed on anything else: baby onesies, hoodies, etc. Also, if you there is some design you want tweaked a certain way (two kiddos in the bakfiets, perhaps or a different tagline), I would be open to that discussion as well.

Finally, if you like them and would be willing, please help spread the CARGO BIKE LOVE by posting the storefront on your Facebook page, Twitter account, or blog. Many thanks.

pilgrimage to adeline adeline

2011-10-20T19:32:00.005-04:00

Two weekends ago, my wonderful sis-in-law flew up to our place to hang with the boys so P and I could make an overnight trip to NYC to celebrate P's birthday. We had a great 24 hours, visiting friends in Brooklyn and walking the High Line. On Sunday morning, P asked what I wanted to do and I explained that I really, really wanted to head downtown to visit Adeline Adeline.

Those of you who obsessively follow bike blogs like I do, know that Adeline Adeline is:

... a bicycle boutique for the person who wants to rediscover the style, fun and romance of cycling. The shop is a friendly, welcoming environment that focuses on the beautifully designed city bikes and accessories made famous on the streets of Copenhagen, Amsterdam and now, New York.

Adeline Adeline founder, Julie Hirschfeld started her career far away from bikes, first as a graphic designer for the television channel, VH1, and then as partner in the New York design firm, Stiletto NYC, where she worked on fashion branding and motion graphics projects with such diverse clients as New York Magazine, Conde Nast, MTV and Nike.

Julie’s career took a turn after seeing her sister riding around the city on a vintage Schwinn. It was the design of these classic bikes that attracted her, combined with the comfortable upright ride that led her on a search for her perfect bicycle. After resigning herself to the fact that most of the city’s bike stores cater to either serious performance bikers or the enthusiast fixed-gear scene, she realized there was an opportunity for a new type of bike store that focuses on comfortable, relaxed riding for pleasure with an emphasis on the beautiful European city bikes that women ride in Copenhagen and other bike-centric cities.

Translating her aesthetic and design expertise into the world of bicycles, Julie brings a well-edited selection of beautiful, functional bicycles paired with lines of unique accessories in a stylish, welcoming environment. http://www.adelineadeline.com/about-us

It was particularly cool that next to our family's profile in Momentum Mag, Adeline Adeline owner Hirschfield was profiled. I was particularly excited to learn that she, too, is a mama of twins.

We could easily spot the storefront from down the street when we spied the bakfietsen parked out front. Because I am not a clever blogger, I, of course, did not have a camera with me so had to rely on my very unsophisticated camera phone (P and I still have 'dumb phones' as we like to say!)

It was great fun to enter this bright shop with incredible bikes and beautiful accessories, including a green Brooks saddle and Yakkay helmets. I was excited to try out the Yakkays as I have been eyeing them online for over a year. Much to my wallet's relief, it turned out that I didn't like how the Yakkay looked on me so will be sticking with my Bern helmets for a little while longer.

One particularly sweet moment we had the privilege of witnessing-- a family walked into the shop with a toddler and the father was talking to his wife excitedly about the bikes inside. While they were standing right inside the shop's door, a clerk went down the stairs and up came a bike, a Linus, I think, with a BoBike Jr. mounted on the back. Surprise! It turns out that the wife had already been to the shop and BOUGHT this bike for her husband as a surprise. It was lovely. I asked if I could take a photo as they tested out the BoBike with their little guy. Unfortunately, I managed to blur the moment:

We left the shop after lots of oogling, but I did walk away with a wonderful new find-- a gorgeous bike magazine from the UK, called Boneshaker (not to be confused with the U.S.'s Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac which is fun, too!)

I enjoyed the train trip home looking at its incredible graphics and reading about cool bikey people. I was excited to find the magazine on Facebook and now I am trying to convince my local bike shop to carry it as well.

It was so fun to be in The City (as we like to say) sans kids, watching all the bikes on the streets. We could not help but be very attracted to these-- a clever mix of subway grate, bike racks, and benches.

Next time, I'll have to remember my camera....

new facebook status update

2011-10-18T10:14:00.002-04:00

Sara
Wondering what the bicycling equivalent of a Clown Car is-- a Buffoon Bike? Arrived at school today and unpacked one six-year-old wearing ski googles, a backpack with lunch box, a tote bag with laptop computer and lunch box, a bag of soccer gear for two nine-year-olds, and one guitar. Gotta love cargo bikes!
· · 7 minutes ago

p.s. Great suggestion from "We Likes Cargo Bikes" -- Bozo Bike!

kidical mass new haven OCTOBER ride: costume optional!

2011-10-14T07:22:00.002-04:00

cargo bikes in the us-- documentary trailer

2011-10-12T20:39:00.004-04:00

Thanks to Anne over at Car Free Days for first bringing my attention to this cargo bike film trailer.

One of the cool things is that the film is not yet made. No, this is just a teaser and you can be a part of it. Liz Canning, an editor, documentary filmmaker, animator, and cargo-bike-loving mama of twins, is directing and orchestrating this amazingly cool crowdsourced documentary. That means folks can submit their own videos and still photos of how cargo bikes have transformed their lives for this collaborative film project. Check out information about (R)Evolutions Per Minute here.

fall morning commute

2011-10-06T21:00:00.000-04:00

Welcome to October. After a very rainy, but perfectly mild September, this morning felt like fall, real fall. We are starting to get into a rhythm here. After some initial excitement about riding the school bus in the morning, F has decided he much prefers to head over to school with me. Since I am going that way too, I am very happy for the company.

So as it's shaking out, C and S hop on the bus in the morning while F and I ride together. Then on most afternoons, F takes the school bus home while S and C stay after for their various commitments and I ride home one or both depending on the day. Wednesday afternoons P and I have two bikes going, as he picks up F and C by bike for their music lesson. S stays at school until I am done and then we head home on another. And this, my friends, is why we are a multiple cargo-bike-owning family!

So back to this morning's October commute. Once F felt the chill in the air, he asked for a pair of gloves. Once he had those on, he realized that it was time for his Bern helmet with the fuzzy insert that keeps ears toasty. And really, if one has on his gloves and winter bike helmet, isn't it necessary to wear the ski googles as well?

Hey, happy fall and winter bike commutes are all about warm fingers and ears.... and those stylish ski googles for some.

cargo bike article in BICYCLING

2011-10-01T12:46:00.000-04:00

I suspect anyone who is interested in the topic of family bicycling and cargo bikes may already have read this great article in Bicycling about cargo bikes called "Cargo Bikes: Coolest Bikes Ever Made?" by Tom Clines. But if you haven't, you should go and read it now.

Oh, and while you are over there, you should definitely check out their list of 2011 Best Bike Shops. Look who is there, right up top = our local and most favorite bike shop, The Devil's Gear here in New Haven. A big congratulations to Matt Feiner and all our friends at The Devil's Gear! We are lucky to have you.

And I'll leave you with the final paragraphs of this cargo bike article that you've now read:

"One Saturday, as I'm taking my boys to their soccer games, I realize that I've got the solution to the bike-vs.-family dilemma between my legs (and no, I'm not talking about a vasectomy). Rather than prying me away from my kids, this big ol' bike has brought us together.

As we ride through the packed parking lot and up to the soccer field, heads turn. Who are these people doing something so audacious as to actually arrive at an athletic event using their own muscles? Kids scamper over and demand rides (I manage to fit four on at a time), and parents gather round to see what the hell this strange machine is.

It's then that I see, in the parents' faces, what Dave Cohen calls "the politics of possibility." I could tell them all how green my bike is, how cost-effective and healthy. But in the end, what they see—and take away—is how much fun it is to carry people and things around under your own power. In the delighted faces that surround me, I can see the possibilities opening up. In practicality, it seems, there is joy."

guest post: fifteen miles on the bakfiets

2011-09-26T19:42:00.000-04:00

I am so very pleased to introduce Full Hands' first guest blogger, David, my neighbor and a cycling papa. My hope is that in the next year, you'll be hearing from a number of guest bloggers discussing their families' bikey adventures. Cheers to David for being the first to actually take me up on my offer to contribute. And thanks to David and his wife Kristin for being another local family to own more than one cargo bike, helping make the Full Hands crew feel a little less nutty....
_________________________________________________________________________________________

My name is David, and along with Kristin and our daughter L., we are a two-cargo-bike family. We own a Surly Big Dummy with Peapod child seat and a Madsen Bucket bike. We have had the Big Dummy since March, and I primarily ride for commuting to/from work and for short trips around town. We've racked up a bit over 500 miles on the Dummy so far. We got the Madsen just about a week ago but it already feels normal to have two cargo bikes. Kristin is the primary rider on the Madsen, and she prefers it over the Dummy for lower step-through height, more upright riding position, and lower perceived center of gravity. Kristin has used the Madsen for taking L. to play group and for similar trips. L. is pre-verbal, so we do not have her opinion on her riding experiences.

This past weekend was the “Moving Connecticut Day of Action” and there was a gathering on the New Haven Green. As part of this gathering, Kidical Mass wanted a representation of family bike / cargo bike options. We had Xtracycles and a Christiania trike and some trailers and a Madsen. Sara was generous to lend out her bakfiets as part of show and tell, and we got to try riding it for the weekend.

With me being used to the Big Dummy, I didn't think I would be surprised by the long wheelbase on the bakfiets, but it truly is a long bike. Turning the bike around is a little different than what I've come to expect from the Big Dummy for two reasons. The bakfiets has hard stops on the steering to prevent you from oversteering and dumping the bike over. This is a good idea, but in practice it means you cannot steer the bike as hard as you would sometimes prefer for making a tight radius when parking or backing up. The second difference is that the Dummy has a handle on the front of the deck, and when I'm trying to negotiate a tight spot I just grab the handle and drag the rear wheel wherever I want to repoint the bike. In retrospect, I just realized there is a handle near the base of the seatpost on the bakfiets, and I could probably use that handle to get the same effect.

Once rolling, more differences, and some similarities arise. Kristin especially noticed with the Madsen that the large plastic bucket acts as a speaker, amplifying the noise of potholes. You do get used to the effect but it's noticeable the first few rides. The bakfiets had the same properties, although not as substantial because the wood does deaden the vibrations. And then I realized that when riding the bakfiets on the second day I stopped hearing the sound. It turns out we had been carrying u-locks on the bottom of the bakfiets and Madsen, and when I stopped carrying the u-lock I stopped getting the loud bonk on the bumps. We will try putting some cloth between the u-lock and bucket with the

Madsen and see if this reduces the bump noise.

Photo credit: Maria Tupper

At speed, the bakfiets remote steering is intuitive if you can relax enough to let the bike teach you. If you carry enough speed into the corner you can do some subtle leaning, but you also have to do some steering. I did a lot of minor wiggling back and forth while I first felt it out, and by the end of the second day riding, it felt natural. The internal-geared 8-speed hub was more than enough for around-town use for fairly flat to minor hills.

On my second day of riding I gave myself a bakfiets challenge. New Haven has a neighborhood referred to as Science Hill (a lot of Yale science labs are housed there). I decided to try riding up Munson, onto Prospect, and down Edwards. I do not know the actual altitude gain and loss or the grade, and will leave that to somebody with GPS skills. I started uphill from Winchester in fourth or fifth gear. Just past Mansfield I was down to third and soon went down to second and first. By the end of the hill I was cranking as much as I could in first and doing a lot of weaving. The bakfiets can climb hills, but I recommend going around instead.

I did this in sandals on flat pedals, with no toe clips as a realistic test of the Dutch bike experience, where people bike in their everyday clothes. Now we were ready to go down Edwards, which is about the same slope, with glassy smooth pavement. The bakfiets does not have a speedometer, but we were over 20 mph. The Shimano drum brakes front and rear did a splendid job of bringing the bike to a smooth halt at the bottom. Something not entirely unexpected happened with the steering at high speed, and there was a noticeable shimmy. The shimmy is not in any way a dealbreaker, and in normal usage I never noticed this.

We rode up the Orange St. bike lane en route to East Rock Park, and got some smiles. Riding cargo bikes, we are used to getting laughs and smiles and waves. Riding the bakfiets brought this experience to a higher level. I believe this is due to the front-box design where people can spot a very different bike, compared with our Dummy and Madsen, where the front of the bike looks 'normal' to oncoming traffic or casual observers. We had people wave, we had people point, and on the ride back from the park, we had somebody come alongside in a car with the passenger shooting an iPhone video while saying 'that's one cool bike.' When parked we would get questions, and a lot of people assumed the wooden box meant we had made the bike ourselves. Almost home, a kid yelled that he wanted to try a ride in the box.

We also got to experience something very practical about having the cargo in front of the rider. On the way back from the park, L. started crying. My first instinct was to pull over. Then it occurred to me that I could reach her pacifier without having to stop, and this calmed her down. I had already placed her sippy cup and her snack container on the bakfiets seat bench, and by having her in front I could see if she was tempted to throw them overboard. It was really great to try the bakfiets for a weekend.

Photo credit: Domingo Medina

Cali: Cargo Bike Jubilee

2011-09-21T20:34:00.000-04:00

I am on Xtracycle's mailing list, in particular the one that sends out notices about Car-Lite and Car-Free Living. Scrolling down the page from today's e-mail blast, I got excited reading about Marin County's upcoming CARGO BIKE JUBILEE. Reading about the event made me realize the brilliant pairing: similar to our Touch-A-Cargo-Bike event WITH Portland's Fiets of Parenthood. It got me excited about next summer. Yes, we need to plan one of these.

Imagining our take on the Family Bike Obstacle Course, I could not help but be drawn to "Mommy needs a fix: buy & carry a double espresso from Java Hut." Yes, of course, I have a coffee carrying ring installed on my handlebars!

Finally, browsing through the accompanying photos, I couldn't help be drawn to a picture of two cute fellas sitting in a polka-dotted box of a bakfiets. Hey, we are spreading the cargo bike love-- even in Cali.

success! touch-a-cargo-bike

2011-09-19T15:49:00.001-04:00

Our recently formed family bicycling group gathered on Saturday, September 10, to join in the CT Folk Festival and Green Expo festivities. Teaming up with kidHaven.com, we set up our own booth at the Expo and gathered together as many family biking set-ups that we could. While other cities may call similar events "Cargo Bike Roll Calls," we rifted off those popular kid events called Touch-a-Truck.

I present to you photos from the New Haven area's first ever "TOUCH-A-CARGO-BIKE!" event:

What an amazing time we had! We were thrilled with the cargo bikes represented: multiple Xtracycles, two Madsens, a Yuba Mundo, two different cargo trikes, a family tandem, etc. We had back and front-mounted child carrier seats and some bike trailers. Lots of people stopped by to test out the bikes and talk family bicycling and cargo bikes.

It was an affirming day for those of us who have been riding with our families. Interest is high and true community is forming. A highlight -- riding to and from the park with other cargo bicycling families as we had a line of seven cargo bikes cruising across town. Thinking back to our first solo days out on the streets with our bakfiets nearly three years ago, this felt BIG.

momentum mag: sept/oct 2011 edition

2011-09-09T19:18:00.002-04:00

Hey! Recognize anyone on page 33 of the newest edition of Momentum Mag?

	Sept/Oct 2011

pages 32-33	Table of Contents

We also appreciate the mini-feature on Momentum Mag's blog. Thanks, Anna Bowen.

TOUCH-A-CARGO-BIKE! saturday, 9/10, in new haven

2011-09-03T08:39:00.000-04:00

It's our first attempt at a full gathering of local cargo bikes. And it's next weekend. To share that I am a bit nervous about it all, would be an understatement. School begins Tuesday. Some local areas are still without power almost a week after Hurrican Irene. I don't have a complete sense of who will be there and with what bikes. But we are going for it!

Three years ago, such an event here would be unthinkable. But now, we've seen such an increase of interest and equipment in/for family bicycling 'round these parts. Now, we are not the only nutty family with multiple cargo bikes in the area. So we've made an attempt to organize and entice others to see what fun can be had as a family getting around town on two (and for some, three) wheels.

Check out Kidical Mass New Haven's Fb page.

family bike date

2011-09-01T20:07:00.002-04:00

Somehow the summer got away from us. We spent loads of time together as a family but I just looked up and it is September 1. School starts for four of us in a few days and life takes on a new rhythm, quicker, more frantic, just far busier. While I so appreciate the idea of making time together just as a couple, P and I managed not to go out on a lone date, not once, this summer (not since this rockin' weekend anyway). He's still my guy and we just marked 15 years of hanging together, but we didn't get our act together to find a summer babysitter nor make plans to sneak away, even for a few hours. But, it was lots of good family time, spending loads of time outdoors, swimming into the evenings, visiting siblings and cousins and parents.

On Wednesday, though, the five of us went out on a great family date. Two terrific local businesses-- The Devil's Gear and Kitchen Zinc-- teamed up together and we didn't want to miss the official launching of Kitchen Zinc's new bike racks. Really, who can resist bikes and really good pizza coming together? And we are talking really good pizza.

We took out the bakfiets and Yuba and navigated the streets filled with new and just returning university students and head downtown. (Quick aside and public service announcement: Please avoid death by cellphone. Stop texting and look up while you are jaywalking across a busy street at rush hour.)

We popped through the alley with this and found this:

New bike racks right next to Kitchen Zinc's outdoor patio

We got a great table outside and the boys drank yummy fresh lemonade while P and I enjoyed beer and wine. After ordering our pies, the boys ran around a bit outside of the patio, making friends and oogling an awfully cute small dog. P and I realized what a rare thing this was as our boys are far from adventurous eaters and have particularly limited diets. Going out to real restaurants all together has not been something we've done much as it has tended to cause more stress and unhappiness than enjoyment and good memories. However, we rocked it this night! Gotta give props to our server who was super kind to the fellas and didn't blink an eye when we requested the plainest pie possible despite all the wonderful, amazing choices. And damn, the special pizza with peaches, carmelized onions, apple-smoked bacon, gorgonzola cheese, and a drizzle of honey that P and I wolfed down was truly incredible.

Other bonuses of the evening-- We ran into our neighbors. A and J (and their cute daughters!) who it turns out do the coolest graphics and marketing for Kitchen Zinc. Thanks, A, for sharing these photos. And, of course, there was Matt from the Devil's Gear

who did the honors of christening the bike racks.

We then pedaled off to finish the evening at Ashley's Ice Cream with happy boys and high-fivin' parents, glad to live where we live.

today's fb status

2011-08-23T19:33:00.000-04:00

No, it wasn't about the earthquake felt by many here on the East Coast.

Instead...

Sara
To the zippy driver in the blue Honda this morning on Elm Street who liked using her horn and gesturing meanly--> There are many things in the world in which to be incredibly outraged and irate about. Being behind a bicyclist in a lane with no shoulder for one block, especially when the traffic signal right up ahead is red, just does not have to be one of those things.
10 hours ago ·

a new bike's in town

2011-08-22T21:31:00.001-04:00

While riding home from work hours later than I have these past weeks, I was trying to wrap my head around the idea that my summer really IS over. Feeling a bit of melancholy, I decided to take a different route, one somewhat longer than my usual ride, but that did not have me go right through the center of downtown. It was rush hour and the Yale campus is burgeoning with newly-arriving students, and I just didn't feel like riding with that much traffic as I was far more in a 'moseying' mood.

The later hour and the different route combined for a wonderful moment of serendipity as I pulled up to a red light, only to look across the street to see the most wonderful sight-- a gorgeous red cargo trike complete with adorable young passenger! The cyclist turned and headed north before my light turned green so in a moment of enthusiasm-- and I guess, a bit of cargo bike craziness-- I decided to forget riding home and followed the trike.

I ended up calling out to the rider who looked at me and responded, "Sara?" It turned out to be a friend- of-a-friend-of-a-friend with whom I had some email exchanges about cargo bikes and then a quick impromptu meet-up at a Saturday's farmer market. R had headed down to Rolling Orange in Brooklyn where he had a grand time test riding their many cargo bikes and ended up purchasing the floor model of this incredible trike, a De Fietsfabriek FF 16.

If only I had a real camera with me I would have loved to capture this beauty in all of her glory. However for a first glimpse, you can see what my very un-hip 'dumb' (as opposed to a smart phone!) cellphone caught:

Stay tuned though because I do plan to find out LOTS more about this new addition to New Haven's ever-growing cargo bike population.

And I'll leave you with a far better image of the trike....

photo credit: http://www.defietsfabriek.nl/nl/nl/147/model_am/21/ff_16

Ride, Families, Ride!

kidHaven.com post #3

2011-08-11T20:02:00.001-04:00

Really, I Can Ride with Kids?

originally posted at kidHaven.com (final post of a 3-part series)

courtesy of fullhandsx3.blogspot.com

Family Biking Tidbits from One Family Bike Commuter

1. Find a bicycling friend. When figuring out your family riding, go ahead and reach out to another bicyclist. Perhaps you two can go for a ride together before adding the kids. Maybe this bikey friend can help you plan a good route to get to the library that doesn’t take you on streets too busy with auto traffic. Ask to try out another’s cargo bike. Ride together to camp or school drop-off. Even if you cannot find a cyclist right down the street, go ahead and reach out to others via the web. When we first started family bike commuting, the folks we met through the Internet were invaluable. We asked their advice and looked to them for inspiration. It helps to see what others are doing and sometimes their example makes you stop and think, “Hey, maybe we could do that, too.” We have found fellow bike folks, both local and virtual, to be extremely generous and open to our many questions.

2. Find a bike shop that makes you feel comfortable. I admitted in my first post that I don’t wear padded bike shorts and have never fixed a bike flat on my own. Sometimes it can seem intimidating to be around folks with far more technical knowledge about bicycles than I have, who race bikes, or train hundreds of miles each week on their skinny, fast cycles. However, find a bike shop that makes you feel like you belong, too. Many shops see the growing interest in bike commuting and everyday utilitarian cycling so they carry items beyond those skinny, fast road bikes. Some shops are starting to cater more specifically to commuters or even specifically, cargo bikes. We are extremely fortunate to be supported in our family biking adventures by one local shop, The Devil’s Gear, here in New Haven. The folks who work there have always been enthusiastic and friendly with our family, helpful about ordering bikes/parts we need or want, and patient with our many questions and my sons’ desires to test out every bike horn in the shop, numerous times.

3. Check out New Haven’s Street Smarts Cycling Manual. The New Haven area has a strong group of bike advocates in Elm City Cycling who have worked for years to make our local community a more bike-friendly place. They have been aided by some solid partners in the city government, and in particular, those who work for the Street Smarts Campaign. Recently, Street Smarts published a helpful manual called “Smart Cycling: A Handbook for New Haven Bicyclists.” It is worth it to read through this manual, perhaps more than once, and if your kids are an appropriate age, share it with them. Learn the rules of the road and to use the words of Travis Wittwer, a committed family bicyclist from Portland, Oregon, “Be a visible, safe, competent, and courteous family on bikes for others to see that it is, indeed, safe.”

4. Start small. To quote from the U.S. Secretary of Transportation’s blog, Fast Lanes,

“High gas prices are hitting American families in their wallets and pockets pretty hard these days. But did you know that more than 40 percent of urban trips in the United States are less than two miles, yet 90 percent of those short trip are taken by car?”

Go ahead and plan to take a bike ride once a week to start. Think about one of those less-than-two-mile trips when you normally might take a car. Find a route on streets where you are comfortable riding. The more you are out there on your bike, the more you’ll feel comfortable doing so on your bike. Likewise, the more family bicyclists out there on the road, the safer it is for all. So take that one trip to start. Make sure your gear is in good working order and you have all those provisions you need, kids’ snacks, sippy cups, etc. including a U-Lock (really, make this a part of your investment). However, it doesn’t matter how long you ride for or how far you go, just give it a try.

courtesy of fullhands on Flickr

5. Have fun. My family has had tons of adventures getting around town by bike. Some of those seemingly onerous parent errands suddenly became joyous when we did them together on our bikes. So allow yourself to rediscover the joy you may have experienced pedaling out there as a kid or discover this joyful experience for the first time. And if you need to reassure yourself, read Totcycle’s wonderful post “Is Family Cycling Safe?” But mostly, mostly, have fun!

guest post #2 at kidHaven.com

2011-08-10T15:55:00.002-04:00

I realize that when I blog here at Full Hands, I am writing for an audience of other biking enthusiasts, often family bicyclists and cargo nuts like myself. However, when writing for kidHaven.com, I knew I would have a much bigger and much more general audience.

Here is my attempt at doing a round-up of family bicycling options out there for folks not necessarily acquainted with cargo bikes, etc. I recognize that it is not an exhaustive list and I am sure you all know tons of other cool options for families interested in bicycling. The post contains a load of links, photo examples (mostly from Flickr), of just what I am referring to. I expect that only the most intrigued will bother clicking on all the links....

______________________________________________________________________

What’s Out There: Family Biking Options
Sure, I had seen baby seats on the back of bikes and even the occasional Trail-a-Bike. But beyond bike trailers, I was stumped by any biking options available to me as a momma of twins. Feeling uncomfortable riding on city streets with the boys sitting low and far behind me, I didn’t think there was any way we could get around by bike. Thankfully, I was proved wrong and since our discovery of cargo bikes nearly three years ago, it is clear that the family biking options out there have grown.

Here are various family bike set-ups that accommodate a number of different aged children (click the links to see examples).

Child Seats

Back: for toddlers and even for bigger kids up to 75 lbs
Front: like this iBert, the BoBike Mini, and the Yepp Mini
Gotta love the mamafiets (mama-bikes) that have both front and back seats like this one and this one even equipped with a windshield. The Japanese versions or “mamacharis” are incredible.

Bike Trailers

Burleys are a brand many know but there are lots of options available out there, including ones that convert to strollers.

Trail-a-Bike/ Tag-Along

These go by various names but they look like this and this and kids get to pedal along.
Here’s a different take on this, where you can purchase a bracket to attach your child’s regular bike to your own and tow him/her around this way.

Convertible bikes

There are now products out there like the Zigo and the TrioBike that convert from a regular bike to a bike with front child carrier to a stroller. I was especially excited to see a Taga bike at the Wooster Square Cherry Blossom Festival this year. This local family had double seats (if only I had my camera with me).

Box Bikes/ Bucket Bikes/ Cargo Trikes

This is the cargo bike that started it all for us. Think of it as the minivan of bikes: space for multiple kids and all the stuff we schlep around with them.

Bakfiets: The Dutch wheelbarrow-type-bucket-in-front bike like this, this, and this. Here’s a couple of USA-made versions like the Joe’s Bike’s and Metrofiets (hers even has an electric assist!) and Copenhagen’sBullitt. Small tidbit: pronounced “bak-feet;” plural is “bakfietsen.”
Madsen: US company with the Tupperware-like bucket in the back. There are a few local families riding Madsens and New Haven’s Devil’s Gear Bike Shop is a Madsen dealer.
Boxcycle/Christiana Trikes: Some folks are more comfortable on three wheels instead of two. Originally harder to find on the East Coast, these trikes are really popping up all around! I was excited to see a few parked along the sidewalks last time I visited New York City.

Longtail Bikes

These cargo bikes have an extended tail that allows a rider to carry passengers and/or a whole lot of freight (like large furniture!).

Xtracycle kits allow people to convert their existing bikes into longtail cargo bikes. Also, Xtracycle has ‘full’ bikes like the Radish and Big Dummy. Xtracycle owners can customize their bikes to fit their passengers, like here, here, here, and here. There are a number of Xtracycles in the area and more arriving each week it seems. The Devil’s Gear bike shop here in New Haven is an Xtracycle dealer.
Yuba Mundo: This cargo bike is heavier than an Xtracycle and has a longer tail with built-in ‘running boards.’ See here and here. Like Xtras, Yuba owners can customize their bikes to fit their families’ needs: some add toddler seats, others stoker bars (handlebars for a back passenger). Mundos can also be equipped with electric assists to help ride up hills or with extra heavy cargo.
Kona Ute: An example here.
Sun Atlas Cargo: This is a relative newcomer in the longtail cargo bike family. It is especially intriguing because it seems to be one of the more affordable options out there.

Tandems/Triples

Some families ride with their kids using bicycles-built-for-two or tandems so the children can help with the pedaling. One can lower seats and/or raise pedals to fit younger riders. The triples are most impressive. Here’s a version you see less in the States with the stokers (riders not controlling the bike) up front and another example here, too.

I would be remiss not to recognize, that yes, the initial sticker shock on some of these cargo bikes can seem extremely prohibitive. People continuously ask what we paid for our family bicycles. Since we use our cargo bikes as an alternative to buying a second car, we figure with the cost of a car, insurance, gas, upkeep, and parking downtown, we’ve invested well. However, if you are put off by the costs of these bikes, do not despair. We’ve met a number of folks who have found their Xtracycles or Madsens on Craig’s List for a reduced cost. Also, as the demand for family cargo bikes grow, the market gets more competitive. I suspect we shall see lower-cost options, like the Sun Atlas Cargo, out there more and more.

And now for some photos of my favorite family bike set-ups where folks cobble together what works best for their crew like this, this, and this!

guest posts at kidHaven.com

2011-08-09T15:37:00.005-04:00

Kim, a local momma (and Returned Peace Corps volunteer), runs an incredible website called kidHaven.com that serves as an amazing resource for parents all around the New Haven area. She kindly asked if I would write a three-part series of guest posts about Family Biking which she is publishing this week.

So here goes, post #1 for kidHaven.com:

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Our Story: How One Family of Five Became Family Bicyclists

Upon meeting me, away from my bike, your first thought would not be, “Oh, she’s so clearly a cyclist.” I am an overweight, 42-year-old mama of three boys: twins, aged nine; and a nearly-six-year-old. I own no Lycra cycling jerseys nor even padded shorts. While I understand the concept of replacing a punctured bike tube, I, in fact, never have. As a kid I biked around the various suburban neighborhoods where my family lived. As an adult, however, throughout my twenties and thirties, I never rode a bike– with one exception, and that was during my Peace Corps service in the Philippines. Even then, I didn’t have a bicycle at my site but only hopped on two wheels when visiting my now-husband, a fellow volunteer. Peter had purchased a bike to get around his coastal Luzon town and would borrow another from his host-brother whenever I could make the eight-hour trek to his site. But the truth is that I had not ridden a bike, not once, for ten years when I became a family bike commuter.

It was really about avoiding the purchase of a second car for our family of five. We had lived car-free or with one car throughout our marriage and arrival of sons. When we moved to New Haven in 2007, we looked for a rental apartment that would allow us to remain a one-car family. After a year in New Haven of full-time, at-home parenting, I was offered a position at a school about two miles away from our apartment. My older sons, then six, would join me there as students. Two miles was too long for two sets of six-year-old legs to walk to and from school daily, but it seemed, well, silly to drive just two miles every day, hogging the one car we owned for four measly miles to-and-from work. With no public transportation options available, I began telling friends, with a joking edge, that I was going to buy a rickshaw, a pedicab to get the three of us to school. I actually did begin researching pedicabs on the web, seeing only commercial options, and knowing we could never quite pull this off.

In October of 2008, I spent a weekend away with a friend from Maine. Andrea, a committed environmentalist (think twins, cloth diapers, Maine winters, and no clothes dryer), heard my story of the two-mile commute and my aim to remain a one-car family, and replied, “You should buy a bakfiets.” As I had never heard of such a thing, she explained that it was a type of Dutch bike seen around Portland, Oregon, that had a wheelbarrow-esque front with a bench seat for kids. I remember asking her to write out the name of such a contraption, which she did on a scrap of paper that I then slipped into my jeans. When I returned home, I typed ‘bakfiets’ into a Google search and seeing the initial photo, my first exposure to this thing called ‘a cargo bike,’ I suddenly became a woman possessed. I reached out to anyone on the web I could find that sold or owned a bakfiets (pronounced BAHK-feets and meaning ‘box bike’ in Dutch), and I became convinced that this was just what my family needed.

It took four months of research and discussion about investing in such a bike before ours arrived on a cold February afternoon. We had no idea that we had just found our new passion. Initially, we started with the school commute. Then we discovered we could load the bike with the boys and their instruments and head down to the Neighborhood Music School for their Saturday morning lessons. Suddenly, we realized that the majority of our errands could be done by bike and the more we rode, the more we found we were able to do by bike. When the kids’ schedules took us in opposite directions, Peter and I began to jockey over who got to ride the bakfiets and who was stuck driving the car. Investing in a second cargo bike, this time a longtail one, an Xtracycle Radish, allowed us both to take bikes and leave the car parked at home.

We still own a car. We drive it when necessary. But whenever we have the option, we take our cargo bikes. We’ve loved the greater connections we’ve developed in our community, heading out on two wheels, noticing more, interacting with different people, easily pulling over to experience something or someone we would have missed while driving. We’ve loved saving gas money, making a small dent in our carbon footprint, and the quick exercise we get just getting to places we need to go. We love the easy and free parking and we love showing our sons that there are alternate ways beyond driving to get around town. And while all these reasons are why we ride, the truth — neither noble nor self-sacrificing — is that the primary reason we are family bike commuters is that it is just plain fun.

inspiring mamas: sarah gilbert, cafe mama

2011-08-05T15:58:00.002-04:00

I was looking for something else, when I came upon this.

15 Sarah Gilbert: Hacking life with kids, but without a car

View more presentations from igniteportland

I am such a fan of Sarah Gilbert and her blog, Cafe Mama. It is so inspiring to come across parents and families who have committed to the biking lifestyle. I thank them all for their examples and the way their words and photos make me stop and think, "Hey, maybe we can do that, too."

Perhaps the Full Hands family will, in turn, do that for some other family out there as well.

my sis's new ride

2011-07-24T20:27:00.000-04:00

Check out my little sister hanging out on her new pink Schwinn.

Perfect for her summers down at the Jersey Shore, no?

I think that bike is almost as cute as she is.

a sunday family ride

2011-07-18T19:23:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago while out riding on the back of the Xtracycle, F somehow lost his red feather from his bike helmet that had been attached for nearly a year, a remnant of his pirate helmet from last year's Cycling Celebration.

There's a bike helmet under yar pirate hat!

Feather and feisty attitude seem to go together well.

As he was missing it tremendously and reminded of the loss each time we took the bikes out, we promised him that we would purchase a new plume.

Enjoying a rare morning of not rushing to get somewhere, we suddenly found it after lunch and felt that we now needed to leave the house and enjoy the wonderful sunny day and move our bodies after such a lazy A.M. We decided to ride to Hamden Plaza, some six miles north of us, where we could hit the craft store and find a new feather.

In the past, it never would have occurred to us that we could take this trip by bike, not just because of the distance, but because the Hamden Plaza sits on an incredibly busy road with multiple lanes. However, the more we spend time out on our bikes, the more we realize what we can do by bike.

Most excitingly, both S and C decided to ride themselves which was made possible because our route took us on the Farmington Canal Trail for much of the trip. The boys had to ride downtown to get to the Trail which is far more do-able with the roads quieter on a Sunday than on a regular weekday. While we asked them if they wanted to ride directly on the street, flanked in front and back by P and me (riding the Xtracycle with F), they both decided they were not yet comfortable doing so. Instead, P and I rode on the street, parallel to the boys on the sidewalk, giving directions and making sure no cars making right turns would hit the boys as they crossed the street from one sidewalk to the next, a reason that make sidewalk cycling dangerous. This process, while it can get us to where we need to go, takes a looonnng time and constant communication and highlights why we are not yet at the place where the boys can ride regularly for transportation (as opposed to for pure recreation).

Once we hit the Canal Trail, we all felt much more freedom to enjoy the ride. Yes, there are plenty of places the trail crosses the street where you must stop and look out for cars before crossing, but once we rode into Hamden, the Trail opens up and the boys could pedal off in front of us without continuous direction, outside of the intermittent shouts of "Hey, wait for us!" as they sped along happily.

When we reached the part of the trail that sits behind the Marketplace at Hamden, we exited the trail and walked our bikes through the back parking lot and around to Modell's to return some ill-fitting sweatpants. We had a moment of pause when we realized that we had nowhere to park and lock our bikes outside of this sports store, but these shopping plazas are absolutely set up for drivers and not cyclists. We then walked our bikes through the huge parking lot and reached the sidewalk where we could push the pedestrian crosswalk light, the only way it would be possible for us to cross Dixwell Avenue. After our quick feather-getting errand was completed, we slipped around the corner to enjoy a respite of Ashley's Ice Cream, took our time getting back through the parking lots and across the busy avenue to the Canal Trail.

Some time later, we rode up our driveway, quite pleased with ourselves for making the 12-mile trip, leaving the car parked at home, and adding another thing to our list of just what we are able to do by bike.

another 3-kids cargo bike story

2011-07-14T11:26:00.000-04:00

ps. We, too, have the Dinosaur on a Bike tee-shirt that the dad, Zak, is wearing in this video.

sum-sum-summertime!

2011-07-12T21:43:00.001-04:00

It is full-out summer 'round these parts! The sun is out. The humidity is high. Lots of cyclists are out on the streets.

The Full Hands family has tried to take full advantage of events that come with the season. Somehow riding our bikes to such happenings seem to add that much more fun to the outings.

Take, for example, our weekend.

On Saturday night, there was a free concert on New Haven's Green; the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO) played Peter and the Wolf and had a wonderful storyteller accompany the music. We had spent a busy day swimming but came back home for a quick dinner and hopped on our bikes for the ride downtown. As with other big events with large crowds, the cargo bikes come in handy as we don't need to worry about finding parking, can often navigate in areas that cars cannot, and don't need to schlep our stuff from the car to the site as we ride right up to the Green with all our things on board. We arrived after many folks had already staked out and set up their spots. Fortunately, through a lucky incident, we had VIP tickets (it was a *free* concert, mind you) that allowed us to sit in this fenced-in area right near the stage. Unfortunately for many, there were some technical difficulties that I suspect made hearing the music and storytelling a bit hard, but there we were--- right up front, hanging out on our batik spread from our Peace Corps days, lounging in our Crazy Creek chairs. We could watch the individual musicians which our beginning string instrumentalists loved and were able to see the storyteller with all his incredible props. (Gotta say that the cat made from the handbag was my favorite!) When the concert ended, we gathered our belongings, donned our helmets, chatted with some folks interested in our cargo bikes, and zipped off easily, heading home.

The next day, we decided to go car-free to our very first Bridgeport Bluefish minor league baseball game. We rode to the train station, parked our bikes alongside many others (an excellent thing), and took the short train ride to Bridgeport. Despite it being another really hot day, we could all easily walk from the station to the ball park where we enjoyed great seats, good action, a low-key, fun crowd, an especially popular mascot, and even time for the kids to run the bases after the game. We did have to wait about a half hour for the train on the way back to New Haven, but the boys held up well, and we felt great about leaving the car parked at home.

cycling around lakes in minneapolis

2011-07-06T12:57:00.001-04:00

Outside of one blog post last summer about our time at the NJ Shore, Full Hands has never taken its show on the road. Perhaps this is due to the fact that with three younger fellas, we haven't been so great about getting out on the road beyond New Haven. However, a big milestone occurred at the end of June-- P and I got on a plane sans kids to attend the wedding of a Peace Corps friend in Minneapolis. We spent Friday night through Sunday afternoon with a couple of other RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps volunteers) from our group, making it a wonderful mini-reunion on top of a truly fun wedding celebration.

Of course, reading in advance about Minneapolis's cycling reputation, we wanted to spend some of our limited time there out on bikes. So Saturday morning we headed off to Calhoun Bike Rental to rent bicycles for a couple of hours and went on a self-guided tour around some of the Chain of Lakes, including Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles.

I, of course, had no camera with me so relied on the good will of our friend D who kindly snapped photos so I could include some on this post.

Riding on a separated bike path-- separated even from a walkers/runners path-- was quite an experience. Lots of folks were out this day enjoying the paths and it was incredibly apparent how thoughtful infrastructure moves a city beyond livable to downright incredible! While I imagine that only the truly hardcore and hearty are out on these paths in Minnesota winters, the throngs of walkers and runners and cyclists were proof that if 'you build it, they will come.'

Looking constantly from right to left, enjoying gorgeous lake views on one side and some wildly impressive houses on the other, I found myself relax, breathing deeply. It made me wonder what it would be like to bike commute in a city that had real biking infrastructure. Regular readers of Full Hands know that I am out on the streets every day riding with cars, but this lone Saturday, in a state far away from my own, I was on a bike, pedaling along, feeling calm and relaxed.

D and I couldn't bring ourselves to pose near this sign. Wasn't it nice of P 'to volunteer' for us?

P and I went for the Specialized Hauls that have their rear racks built right in to the frame.
I had a full step through.
Shortly into the ride, I did miss my Brooks saddle tremendously.

One lovely detail about Calhoun is that each of their rentals have names. It was fun imagining the bike-naming process as these cycles had some sharp names. Meet Barnaby and Ruth!

Rafferty and Adele!

And this lime green ride....

yes, Ophelia!

D rode a women's Crossroads.

P and I with his temporary steed.

City riding! Not a bad view....

Pickle-on-a-stick and CHEESE CURDS: a great snack to stop for halfway thorough our bike ride.
The cheese curds, my friends, were RI-DI-CU-LOUS!
We are talking amazingly good. Ahhhhhhhhh.

continuing to learn new tricks

2011-06-21T09:57:00.002-04:00

I loved this article in The New York Times about a bike class for adults who want to learn to ride. I so appreciate the reasons why these folks did not learn to ride as kids and I really applaud their courage for taking it on now.

I could not help but be reminded of my mom. Thinking about this now, I can't recall ever seeing my mom ride a bike nor have I seen pictures of her on a bike (I may need to reach out to my sibs to see if they have different recollections). However, long after my mom became an adult, well after becoming a mom of seven children, after tons of hours taking each of us to swimming lessons and watching some of us compete in numerous swim meets, my mom decided to take swimming lessons.

Growing up, she had spent time in the ocean but did very little swimming in pools. So while she learned to bob up and down in the waves, she never learned how to put her face in the water and stroke. As a kid, while she was insistent that we all learn to swim, I remember watching her in a pool, always carefully keeping her head out of water and I am sure it was *not* because she was worried about her hair.

I can't even quite guess how old she was when she decided to sign up for swim classes, not at our local YMCA, but one a few towns over so she wouldn't be apt to run into people she knew. I was already out of college though so she had to be well into her 50s or perhaps even in her 60s. I wish I go back and interview her about this choice. I remember that I greeted the news with some mild enthusiasm but now, I think this is perhaps one of the coolest things ever. My mom, well into middle age, decided to learn to swim. Wow.

And a big WOW to all the folks spending time at the Brooklyn Bridge Park learning to balance and pedal and set themselves free.

bike bus

2011-06-16T15:28:00.002-04:00

It is so much more fun to ride to school with friends.

Here is our very own Bike Bus riding across the city from the west side of town.

Thanks, V, for the photo and the company!

thanks for the shout-out

2011-06-15T20:37:00.000-04:00

Sending a big THANKS to Kathleen over at "Families on Bikes" on Momentum online. Full Hands was thrilled to be included in her post titled "Awesome and Inspiring Family Bike Blogs." I really appreciate being included on this list, especially because many of the other blogs listed get a lot of credit for helping the Full Hands family become a family that bikes.

When we started investigating cargo bikes, there were no local families riding them. We looked to web to find information about our options and reached out to mama/papa bike bloggers for help, reviews, and inspiration. We found so many of them completely generous when we emailed them directly and hope that we pass that on to others.

I am always thrilled when someone else tells me/ emails me that our family's example made a difference for them. Recently, a colleague at school began riding her bike. This is a true commitment because she lives well outside of New Haven so she rides from her home to the train station, loads her bike on the train (and it is not a folding one!), and then rides from the New Haven train station to school. She told me that we were her inspiration and she made herself buy a month-long train pass to make sure she would ride daily. How cool is that?

And I promise not to do this in every post until June 28, but if you think of it, consider going to Circle of Mom's "Top 25 Biking Families" and give a click for Full Hands. Cheers!

pizza delivery bike

2011-06-13T14:16:00.001-04:00

Did you know that New Haven has a reputation for great pizza?

Did you know that we added a front rack to our Yuba Mundo?

Check out my cute delivery fellows. Lucky me!

Every Day Adventures, Indeed

2011-06-12T15:03:00.002-04:00

Those of you who follow Xtracycle know that the company's blog is called "Every Day Adventures." Well, that certainly proved to be true today.

After a few days of oppressive heat around these parts, we awoke to a grey day in the 60's. Going hand-in-hand with our obsession with biking has been our compulsive checking of weather.com. Given that we are not a car-free family, rather a car-lite one, there are days that the weather forecasts cause us to leave the bikes at home and take the car.

This morning, knowing that we had an extremely busy schedule and the weather looking quite iffy with predicted rain showers at various times of the day, P and I had a lengthy discussion about our mode of transport. Bikes? Car? We kept going back and forth, checking and re-checking the weather. He made the first decision: he would head off to the morning music lessons with C and F and break-out the rain cover for the bakfiets which we hadn't used in many months. I worried that there wouldn't be room in the box for the two ever-growing boys and their violins, but they were all game so off they rode.

S and I had our morning own task-- buy the birthday present needed for a 2:00 p.m. party. Our favorite local toy store is five + miles away in a town just north of us. The skies were growing darker and it seemed like it would be easy to hop in the car, buy the gift, and get home. But S really thought we should go by bike. "So what if we get wet!" he exclaimed. We grabbed sweatshirts and hopped on the Xtracycle.

It was good fun pedaling along with just S on the snapdeck. He chatted amiably, making observations and jokes. At some point, we rode around an intersection closed to cars thanks to the unending construction that seems to go on around here thanks to the university. We had to go up on a sidewalk, through a narrow path, and past a temporary fence. Coming down off the curb, I somehow caught my tire strangely and squeezed the wrong brake. Suddenly I felt the bike go out from under me and in that moment, I knew I was going to dump both us-- the first time I had wiped out on one of our cargo bikes with a kid passenger.

I felt a flash of fear as we went down but quickly, S and I seemingly-simultaneously yelled, "Are you alright?" Thankfully, we both were. Assessing the damage, we found a few scrapes, one slightly sore wrist, and a small, but lovely, hip bruise. However the back wheel on the bike was rubbing and making a strange sound. Thinking that I had done something to the back brake in the fall, we lifted the Xtra bags to get a look at the back tire, almost sure that our ride would be over. However, S noticed that it wasn't the brake rubbing, but instead, one of our jerry-rigged* Footsies had slipped and was pushing against the tire. We were able to wiggle it back in place, leaving the tire rotating smoothly, and allowing us to push off again on our way.

[*Since we have the Kickback (double kickstand) that fits in the same tubes designed for the Footsies, we had to figure out a different way to attach our Footsies. Ours are simply tied down with double plastic ties which have held up pretty well.]

We felt pretty good about ourselves when we returned home, having pedaled over 10 miles, picking ourselves up and getting back on the bike after our spill, and scoring one cool gift for a friend. So what did we decide to do next? Why, even with the predicted rain showers, head out again by bike, all five of us, over to the birthday party, and from there to downtown for a quick dinner, and off to the music school again for the boys' spring violin recitals.

And the rain did fall.

But we decided we didn't care. The violins were protected by the box bike's rain cover and two of the boys had clothes to change into for their performances. We got to where we needed to go and the parking was easy.

The rain cover back in action!
Stuffed in the box, protected from the rain-- one boy, two violins,
and three hand-built wooden ships made at the birthday party.

Back at home, after a long day and some rainy rides, the boys' spirits were not negatively affected.

So what's the saying? There's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.
I somehow was the only one who wasn't wearing a raincoat.
The garbage bag we adapted after the birthday party did the trick well.

And so I guess that's what caused eight-year-old S to remark this morning as we rode to church, "Just think if we had never found out about cargo bikes, we might have been like a normal family, probably driving everywhere. But we're not normal. We're unique."

Inspiring Human Being and Cyclist

2011-06-10T18:25:00.004-04:00

This weekend The New York Times is running a story, photo slideshow, and video about Damian Lopez Alfonso. Damian's story is one of incredible resilience and strength.

Damian is currently in the States thanks to an amazing community of cyclists who have embraced him. I have to give a special shout-out to my brother-in-law, sister, and nieces with whom Damian has been staying while recovering from his operations.

I so appreciate much of this story: Damian's own determination, outlook, and talent, but also this group of cyclists who stepped up to help a guy they hadn't met. As the article's author, J. David Goodman, says, "Whatever the reason, the cyclists who have rallied around Mr. Lopez took their common interest and used it to turn the big city into a small town, a place where bonds form by chance and compelling need is met with overwhelming generosity."

Don't we all need to hear stories of human kindness and generosity?

You can read The NYTimes' article here. I expect we'll be hearing more about Damian come the 2012 Paralympics.

Ride, Damian, ride.

Circle of Moms: Top 25 Family Bike Blogs

2011-06-07T23:07:00.000-04:00

So it seems that the Circle of Moms website is compiling a list of the top 25 family bike blogs.

Here's what Circle of Moms has to say:

Top 25 Biking Families

Whether they're trying to reduce their carbon footprints, stay fit or engage in fun weekend activities, these families know it all about biking. Help us find the Top 25 Biking Families by Jun 28, 2011 at 5pm PST by voting once every 24 hours for your favorite blog.

So while I've never been particularly good at promoting Full Hands beyond some family, friends, and a small core of other mama and papa bike bloggers, I am excited about the possibility of having some new folks interested in family biking stumble this way.

I am also excited to see some 'old' friends in this list, family bike blogs that I have followed and looked to for inspiration and support, and some blogs that I am newly discovering. Looks like I have a lot of good reading ahead of me.

So without being overly obnoxious I will simply say-- consider clicking here to vote for Full Hands.
(And yes, you may vote every 24 hours if the spirit so moves you.)

And take some time to look through this great list of other blogs focusing on family bike riders.

But click or not, ultimately, just Ride, Families, Ride.

Accessories

2011-06-03T18:18:00.000-04:00

I admit that I am a woman who likes accessories. I go for squared-toed shoes, fun eyeglasses, cool bags, leather cuffs, and my brand-new awesome fedora.

I recently noticed that my love for accessories seems to have spilled over to our bikes....

So love the Nutcase watermelon helmet.

Our front rack on the Yuba carries 28 books home from the library.

One boy. Three bikes.

F wanted his rainbow umbrella instead of the bakfiet's rain cover.

S's orange hair stripe peeks out from beneath his helmet. Is an orange racing hair stripe considered an accessory?

Now ALL our bikes are sportin' the ZeroPerGallon stickers!


Don't we all aspire to a little flair? This fella's helmet feather suits him perfectly.

Gorgeous Danish Cargo Trike for Sale

2011-05-30T22:45:00.000-04:00

MamaVee over at Suburban Bike Mama is selling her beautiful Danish trike. Here are the details:

Sorte Jernhest Cargo Trike Fire Sale

Original price $4299. For Sale for $2000.

Rear steering

5 speed internal SRAM hub

Red canopy perfect for rain or cold windy weather

Padded mat to sit on and back rest

Carries up to 350lbs in the box

Cateye bike computer on rear wheel

Bike rides smoothly and handles large weight surprisingly well. Can fit two children happily and four kids if they sit criss cross. I have happily had one eight-year-old, one seven-year-old, and two five-year- olds and biked easily along flat lands. Great for school runs and groceries or anything else you'd need to haul.

This bike is happiest in flat lands and with suburban streets and bike trails to take one's time going along.

Would prefer Northeast pick up (Trike is near Boston).

Bike fits in a pick-up truck.

Contact allen.vanessa72@gmail.com for more info.

"Cupcake!"

2011-05-27T18:15:00.003-04:00

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."

Smile List for a Rainy Week

2011-05-20T18:24:00.012-04:00

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.

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 zine s 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.

Remember this, this, and this? Stay tuned for a new look soon....

Kids' Books about Bikes

2011-05-14T08:25:00.003-04:00

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.

I am especially excited about this one:

Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) by Sue Macy.

Looks like we'll be doing another favorite activity this weekend: book buying!

Cargo Bikes, Celebrity Edition

2011-05-09T18:55:00.005-04:00

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.

Photos re-posted from imnotobsessed.com

Rock to Rock, Year Three

2011-05-06T19:27:00.015-04:00

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.

P rode with our friend J.

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.

Yee-Haw! Ride 'Em Cowboy

2011-04-27T22:43:00.012-04:00

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!

Momentum

2011-04-15T20:00:00.004-04:00

It's happening, folks. I see it and feel it coming on. The whispers are getting louder. Momentum is building.

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.

Mitch

2011-04-03T17:58:00.010-04:00

Last week I participated in New Haven's Critical Mass for the first time. I don't have a firm stance about how I feel about Critical Mass. I can understand both sides of the debate concerning cyclists taking over the street en mass. Truthfully, though, I never rode a Crit Mass before because frankly, 5:30pm on a Friday is a *really* bad time to be anywhere but hanging at home with my three sons, who, tired from the week, just need downtime in the solitude of our own home.

But last Friday, I had to ride. P stayed at home with the boys while I bundled up and headed down to New Haven Green. I was looking for connection and community. I needed some place to gather with others who also were experiencing profound heartbreak. And riding with many people who cared about bikes throughout our city seemed like a fitting tribute to a sweet young man who, too, loved bikes and had lost his life the night before in a horrible act of violence.

There are few stores one ever wants to go into towing three little boys. I shiver thinking about grocery shopping with the guys and, malls-- well, I don't do malls by myself (hate 'em!)-- but the thought of entering such a shopping 'mecca' with my boys makes my head throb. But bike shops, well, bike shops are different-- especially this one. From the day we decided to start riding bikes, The Devil's Gear has been a big part of our journey. We spend a lot of time there. All of us. And there is something freeing about being in a bike shop with little boys because it is one place that the boys can look and touch and ask their numerous questions. And the folks at The Devil's Gear have been nothing but kind and open and patient with us.

And Mitch was always one of these guys. Extremely enthusiastic, he cheered on our family biking adventures, helping us out with our cargo bikes, and last summer, fitting the twins with their first new bikes ever (as they had started with wonderful hand-me-downs). He was helpful and kind and happily engaged with the boys as they asked how this thing or that thing worked and he never rolled his eyes or gave a pointed look as the guys discovered yet-another cool bike horn or bell they needed to test out-- multiple times. Last summer, we stopped by the shop on our way home from a cycling celebration. Mitch loved that we had turned the bakfiets into a pirate ship and asked if he could take a photo, mailing to others, calling us 'the coolest family in New Haven.' OK, so maybe his judgment on that one was a bit off, but this incredible positivity radiated out from him in all interactions. And when we gathered for his memorial service outside the bike shop last Sunday night, we heard stories over and over about his positivity, enthusiasm, and kindness, not only from all the bike folks who knew him, but a huge community connected with the underground music scene he belonged to as well.

This week P went to pick up the Yuba from The Devil's Gear, having dropped it off for a spring tune-up. When I got home later, I glanced down at the service ticket on the kitchen counter. There, written in all capital letters, was Mitch's name and his description of our bike ("LONGTAIL!!!" enthusiastic even in writing). And I smiled. And then I cried. I cried as I have done many times this week. I cry for Mitch's family and Mitch's friends and his co-workers at the bike shop, and I cry for the rest of us because he was someone the world needs. And I think of how gun violence has taken so many lives, and how it has forever changed Mitch's family and friends and my family as well, taking some innocence away from my sons.

But when I feel the freedom I experience riding our bikes and the joy watching my boys ride theirs, I will think of Mitch and I will work on sending out positivity into the world as he had done. His life made a profound impact. And if my sons grew up to be as kind as Mitchell Dubey was, I would be most proud.

Mitchell Dubey

Nothing to See Here, Folks. Move Along....

2011-02-05T17:09:00.006-05:00

It has been snowy, like, really snowy.

It has been icy. Icy like this....

We have hardly been on our bikes. And it is depressing. Last winter there were only two weeks where we could not ride at all. We commuted by bike to school throughout much of the winter, with happily protected ears thanks to our Bern winter helmets, and happily protected eyes thanks to the addition of cool orange-hued ski googles.

But this winter has been a different story. We have gotten hammered by wintery weather. There have been an unprecedented EIGHT snow days. New Haven has had nowhere to put the snow so there are crazy, high snow banks and very, very narrow roads. And we just have not been riding. And it has not been good for my mood.

Twice. That's it. In the month of January, we were only out on our bikes two times. I was insistent that we ride on New Year's Day. It was a cold, blustery day but for almost purely symbolic reasons, I felt it most important that we HAD to get on our bikes on the first day of 2011. We had to set the tone for the rest of the year. We took a loop up around near our friend's house. It felt good to pump the legs, to breathe in the cold air. It was a positive sign when a family out walking watched us ride by and shouted out, "Hey, an Xtracycle!" We gave them a wave, feeling good, feeling free.

Last Sunday, the sun was out. The snow was still piled high. The roads were still narrow. But the ice had not yet come so I took advantage of less car commuting traffic and took my youngest fellow to his friend's house by bike. It felt good.

But there has been too little riding. So there has been no blogging going on. I feel like saying, "Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along."

Hoping the weather turns. Hoping the ice melts and the snow lessens. Hoping to get back to everyday biking. And when we do, we'll surely have adventures. And then, we'll have something to blog about.

Personalized Bike Art

2010-12-17T08:31:00.012-05:00

I am not into tchotkes. While life with three boys and my own overly-relaxed attitude about cleaning cause us to live with a certain degree of clutter, I tend not drawn to little things that sit on shelves. I am, however, pretty addicted to Etsy. I love the idea of all these artisans working away at home, knitting and painting and sewing and silk-screening and baking. There are times I get on Etsy, not because I want to shop, but I simply want to see what people out there are making. And I find all sorts of cool stuff.

Some weeks ago, I was drawn to an Etsy shop. It wasn't because these artisans were making things that I was particularly searching for. No, I went to their shop because I learned that the artists behind indigotwin are identical twin sisters from Maine. And I have identical twin boys. And we had lived in Maine. So as I was perusing indigotwin's very cool folk art, I got an idea. How about a family Christmas gift? And wouldn't it be cool to have those personalized portrait statues? And while it was really personalized, maybe we could include something really personal, like one of our bikes?

So I emailed indigotwin, and they were totally up for the idea of creating our family portrait complete with bakfiets. I filled out the questionaire and mailed them a few photos. They emailed me a sketch of their design and we had a nice back-and-forth about a few changes. And then, a package arrived on our porch. And no, I couldn't wait until Christmas to share it with my family.

So now on one of our shelves, sits this very cool portrait statue of my family and our Dutch bike and I love it:

Cortney and Kristen totally got it right. They even included the polka dots on the bakfiets, the first set of removable wall stickers we used to decorate the box of our bike:

And here are a couple of close-ups so you can really admire indigotwins' work:

Yup, that's me. Complete with purple eyeglasses, blue hair streak, essential coffee mug,
and orange hoodie with bike graphic.

The Ethicist takes on Family Biking

2010-12-11T11:22:00.003-05:00

Randy Cohen, a.k.a The Ethicist, is an avid bike commuter. Look at his response when a parent asks about the ethics of transporting his kids by bike.

Could you ever imagine a parent asking about the morality of transporting a child by car?

The Path Less Pedaled Visit to New Haven... On their blog

2010-10-27T20:40:00.004-04:00

So I last posted on The Path Less Pedaled Laura and Russ's visit to New Haven. Here is their posting on their time in New Haven with some amazing photos, including a shot of the Full Hands family in its entirety (a very rare sighting given that I normally like to be the one taking the pictures).

Image copyright: Russ Roca of PathLessPedaled.com

You can find more photos by Russ at his photography website.

The Path Less Pedaled Visit

2010-10-17T16:36:00.017-04:00

I'm not sure how I discovered Laura and Russ's blog, The Path Less Pedaled, but I found it early on when they were selling off most of the stuff they owned and started packing for their across-the-country bike tour. While I have yet to bike tour, I was immediately drawn to their unfolding story. Travel and bikes are two things of which I am incredibly fond and Laura and Russ are both creative people, a jewelry maker and photographer respectively. Their blog is more than an awesome adventure story, it is also filled with stunning photographs of people, places, and food. Reading their posts, brought me back to my travel adventure days and make me yearn for the time when I am back out there.

Therefore, it was exciting to see that, now 14 months into their journey, Russ and Laura were going to ride through New Haven. P and I happily offered them a bed in our home, thinking of all the times kind strangers helped us out along the way during our years living and traveling abroad. The boys were really excited to have them as guests and each night before they went to sleep asked, "Will Russ and Laura be here when we wake up in the morning?" S and C quizzed them on all the States they had ridden in and loved checking out all the electronic gear that the duo had with them.

Here Russ is going over a blank map of the United States so C can draw the route
Russ and Laura pedaled this past year.

I like knowing the guys saw one more example --up close-- of people making different life choices than the mainstream. Who knows? One day they may decide that they, too, want to take off on a year-long bicycle adventure and they can tell the tale of when "The Path Less Pedaled" (as C referred to them, often instead of their names) came and stayed at their home.

Russ, a Southern Cali native, braved some chilly temps to join me at Elm City Cycling's
monthly Bike to Work Breakfast

The boys are excited to meet Mona, Laura's 'pet' skunk who has traveled this journey as well.

Laura checks out the map before departing on their next leg. They'll make it up to Boston, then take a train back to Oregon, where they'll work, save money, and strategize where they'll bike to next.

You can imagine how much this pedal powered phone charger really intrigued the fellas.

The boys walk Russ and Laura out as they head off after three days in New Haven.
Yes, we have a lot of firewood that needs stacking!

Off they go!

Check out Russ and Laura's Facebook page. You can see some photos of their time in New Haven, including a great portrait of the FullHands family.

Our Turn-- Beer Bike!

2010-10-16T12:57:00.008-04:00

We found the perfect keg holder for our backyard bash a couple of weeks ago...

Awesome or Ridiculous?

2010-10-16T12:10:00.003-04:00

On Thursday, both C & S had school fields trips to go bird watching down near the Long Island Sound. For school trips that the kids can't travel by city bus, parents volunteer to drive so we needed to bring the boys' car booster seats with us that morning.

Packing the bike for the commute to school, I couldn't decide if we were just so awesome for pulling this off (two booster seats, two backpacks, my lunch bag, my laptop) or just plain ridiculous....

Picture two sets of legs hanging over these sides....

"No Ridiculous Car Trips"

2010-10-01T06:48:00.002-04:00

Please take the time to watch this video of one city's brilliant campaign to get folks out on bikes. It not only is exciting for its message about choosing a bike to get around, but for its pure marketing genius.

No ridiculous car trips from Martin Lang on Vimeo.

2010 Xtracycle Freeloaders & Our Yuba

2010-09-27T19:47:00.005-04:00

Hey-- go on over to Xtracycle's blog, www.everydayadventures.com, and check out our posting about Xtra's 2010 Freeloader bags on our Yuba.

Yup, they work well together. Really well.

Bike Geekery

2010-09-21T18:44:00.006-04:00

This summer I bought another fabulous bike-themed t-shirt on Etsy by Loftymornings. I have a few other shirts from this wonderful seller, Kate, and they are soft and fun and people always comment on them. I fell in love with this graphic immediately.

Every time I wear this tee, my boys comment that the drawing actually looks like me a bit-- it's not quite my hair and I do always ride with a helmet, but I wear glasses and yes, I have been known to let long periods go by without shaving my legs (great detail on the shirt that I don't know if you can see in this photo).

At some point in school today, I looked down and saw this.

Yes, I was wearing my right pant leg still clipped.

I was spoiled in the past. Given that our bakfiets had a fully enclosed chainguard (and skirt guard), I never needed to worry about what I was wearing while riding. When we switched over to riding the Yuba this summer, I either sported shorts or capri pants so I never thought much about the pants-getting-stuck-in-the-chain thing. Last week, I had a rude awakening within a block of leaving the house when the bottom of my pants caught in the chain. I was lucky that I held on and didn't dump the fellas in the back. I had to quickly pull over, ask the boys to dismount, free my pants from the chain, and tuck and roll the right pants leg so we could continue the ride.

I now clip my pants when riding. Yet when I arrived at school today, I forgot to liberate my pant leg from this oh-so-attractive neon orange binding so was walking around just so.

Bike Geekery at its finest....

p.s. Any Yuba owners out there adapt some sort of chainguard for your bike? Would love to see some examples.

Ride, Families, Ride.

2010-09-19T17:48:00.004-04:00

After my fun making box cargo bike/bakfiets t-shirts and then adding another long-tail bike to our fleet, I have wanted to try my hand designing a new shirt representing our Xtracycle and Yuba bikes. These weekend, I pulled out my EZScreen Print and set to work. We went for simplicity for the saying, simplicity in the bike design.

While they are not quite up to professional quality silk-screened shirts, I was pretty pleased with the results. We did have a bump in the purple shirt when we pulled the squeegee over the screen so we did blur the silver bike some. F declared that this one is a bit "squidgy, " which sounds right to me. We just decided, however, that once it dried, it just looks like the bike is in action. We'll take that.

And we did it all by bike....

2010-09-12T16:50:00.013-04:00

As soon as it came out of his mouth, I turned my head and looked directly at him. I couldn't stop the huge guffaw from escaping before I asked, "Did you just say what I think you said?"

"Yes," he confirmed, half-laughing himself, half-chagrined.

We have become one of those family. We swore we never would. We had held off pretty well for eight years. We met in the Peace Corps. He was the volunteer traveling with the smallest bag. I was impressed. We've valued simplicity and loved down-time, hanging out together, reading, sitting on porches. We had no car. We had a set of twins. Then one car. But we kept to one car and had a third son join the party. Then we began riding bikes. We took turns being the at-home parent, paid work being necessary but not the main focus. We've tried to be thoughtful and intentional in our parenting. And we never wanted over-scheduled kids and held off on joining outside school activities for a time. We've believed in unscheduled time and running around and riding around on bikes and seeing what adventures we came upon.

But here we were in the kitchen, early yesterday morning, gearing up for our first Saturday morning of the new season, when I heard him say, "So you don't wear the cleats now. First you have your cello lesson and then we'll head off to soccer practice." And so it begins....

Despite the idea of one activity per season sounding quite good and something we stuck to in the past, life has changed around these parts. Thanks to visiting an open house at our local music school four years ago, the boys became intensely interested in playing instruments. We held off for a year but then started with the older two. Music lessons suddenly meant one individual lesson, one group lesson per week... x2. OK, four commitments outside of school. And then the young guy began begging to start playing an instrument. And he and one older brother got really into backyard sports and made a plea to try soccer this fall. Do we tell them at ages eight and five that no, you already play an instrument so that's it for right now? I guess we could have but that wasn't sitting right with us. And so we have signed up for local recreation soccer, thankful that it isn't one of these crazy intense ones gearing toddlers for World Cup Play.

And so this is what our Saturday looked like:

8:30AM: Sara on Xtracycle Radish with F off to soccer practice across town (even though there's simultaneous practice at the park across the street from our house, but it's farther away from the music school). ~4 miles
9:00AM: P on the Yuba with S & C off to the music school. S's individual cello lesson begins. Fifteen minutes later C starts his group lesson ~ 2 miles
10:00AM: S leaves park to ride to the music school. Locks Xtracycle near the Yuba. Transfers S's soccer gear from the Yuba to the Xtracycle. Brings F to the end of C's group music lesson. (Next week, F's group lesson will start right after C's; we had a bit of 'reprieve' this week) ~ 2.5 miles
10:05AM: P leaves music school with S, now riding the Xtracycle, and heads to the site of his soccer game. ~1.5 miles
11:00AM: Sara and F and C ride the Yuba downtown and then head home the next hour. ~ 2.5 miles
Sara pulls up the high curb going to our driveway and blows out the back tire on the Yuba. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Damn, the front tire we could deal with at home. The back tire is more complicated....
11:30AM: P and S on Xtra, downtown then home. ~ 4 miles
1:00 PM: Sara and F back together on the Xtra, off to a birthday party, again on the other side of town. ~ 4 miles
P loads the twins and the Yuba in the minivan and brings it to the bike shop to have the back tire fixed.
3:00 PM: P, now on the Yuba with two functioning tires, rides C & S to a different birthday party, this one at the local natural history museum. ~3 miles
3:15 PM: Sara and F leave birthday party and hit downtown local coffee shop for Sara's much-needed iced coffee. Then they are off on to the Farmington Canal Trail, heading north, in order to get to Old Navy so they can buy a blank t-shirt. Sara needs to make F's "5" birthday shirt that night since F's birthday is the next morning. ~ 7 miles
5:00 PM: Yuba, P, C, and S arrive home from museum. ~3 miles
5:45PM: Xtra, F, and S arrive home from successful bike trail, t-shirt shopping excursion. ~ 5.5 miles

With the exception of bringing the Yuba to the bike shop, we did this all by bike. If my math is correct, P and I rode about 39 miles on cargo bikes with our boys, ferrying them to two soccer practices, two music lessons, two birthday parties, and one shopping excursion . How's that for simple living?

1st Days of School and Race Day

2010-09-08T21:26:00.010-04:00

We had TWO first days of school with F, our youngest, starting preschool last week and the twins, C & S, beginning second grade on Tuesday. We, of course, had to take first day snaps of both days, including gearing up on our bikes for the commute. Our new daily commuting set-up look like this: P takes F to school on the Xtracycle Radish while I ride the Yuba Mundo with the older fellas (with the bakfiets retired for daily commuting).

F's first day of his last year of preschool

Notice our sweet new Xtracycle Freeloaders on our Yuba. While we did purchase these sharp-looking Yuba Go-Getter messenger-style bags, we found them too big for daily commuting with boys' legs hanging over the sides. They will be great for big shopping trips, serious hauling, etc. but when we saw that Xtracycle was looking for Yuba and Kona owners to test out their 2010 FreeLoaders, we jumped at the chance and were chosen to participate in the testing, much to our delight. We will be posting a review of how these bags work on our Yuba on the Xtracycle blog, but want to get through a couple of weeks of school commutes, music lesson hauling, and soccer practice runs first to see how the FreeLoaders fit our needs. Initial reaction though = awesome.

C & S's first day-- second grade! Clearly, a chillier morning than F's first day of school.

Labor Day brought New Haven's big running race. C and S ran the kids' fun run and Peter completed the 5K. Our bikes served us extremely well as streets were blocked off all over downtown and parking for cars was hard to come by. We happily zipped straight down to the Green and found a nice tree to lean the bikes up against, U-locking them twice together. Our long-tails received lots of attention and we especially loved it when the races were over and we could get right out of Dodge, getting nods from the policemen manning the streets, allowing us to ride down roads where no cars were allowed. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. We had a vision of a world where streets were for bikes first, cars second, and it was good.

Friends & Bikes

2010-08-30T19:20:00.011-04:00

We are quite lucky that we have friends who put up with our crazy bike love. More than that even, our friends often are fully supportive of our bike habit.

Case in point-- this weekend, we had good friends from Maine visit. When they asked what they should bring, we listed bike helmets and bathing suits as the two most essential items to pack. We never want to pressure folks into riding with us, but we do want to give them the opportunity to see the city the way we do if they wish. At any point, if we had a visitor say that they were uncomfortable cycling here in our city, we would make other transportation decisions. However, the E-J crew was game, leaving their car parked in our driveway and getting around New Haven on two wheels. All-in-all, we had five kids, four adults, four bikes: three cargo and one English roadster (it turned out to be great thing that we haven't yet sold the bakfiets).

On Friday night, J gamely went with me to pick up pizza here, braving the nutty traffic as parents were dropping off their kids off at Yale this weekend. J rode P's 1968 Rudge while I took the bakfiets, perfect for carrying multiple pies. Even though downtown was extremely crowded, we could zip right up into Kitchen Zinc's alley, getting a great view of the cool perspective installation called Square with Four Circles.

Image courtesy of: http://www.archidose.org/Jun10/21/dose-image01.html

Three of the restaurant's staff came out to check out our box bike, admiring it with much praise. As we turned our bikes around to head back home, a wedding party was just coming up the stairs to pose on the side of the Shubert Theater. It was just a great moment watching the purple-clad bridesmaids and decked-out bride, and it made me be glad, yet again, to live here.

The next morning, we had a school picnic to attend. This time we needed to get the whole crew to the other side of town, with a stop to pick up coffee and supplies. B was willing to ride the Xtracycle with one kid, I took the bakfiets with two, P on the Yuba with the other two. We got to see how our Yuba handled with a much bigger passenger (a tall 8th grader!) than we are used to riding, It was an unqualified success although P's thighs got an extra good workout. When we reached Willoughby's, we loaded the big box container of coffee into the bakfiets. I was glad that I had over a year of experience riding the twins in the box because I was able to handle the weight of a four-year-old, a ten-year-old, and coffee for 50 people. And then, we cycled off to the park, pleased that we arrived by bike with all of our guests and supplies without using any gas.

R and A, our two younger visitors, remarked on what a friendly city New Haven is. I must say that being out on bikes definitely helped cement this impression for as we rode, many along the street called out and greeted us. We were happy to wave and return their greetings. And for all the times we come across impatient or irate drivers unhappy about sharing the road, these other interactions-- the positive words and friendly greetings-- make us feel like we really belong to a great community. And I am glad our friends agreed.

Back at home; Smiles all around!