January 21, 2022 · 1:34 pm

Christmas tree by bicycle, year 11, belatedly

This is a very belated “Christmas” post, in that it’s now January and our tree has already been composted—unlike many tree hauling folks, we don’t have to bike our tree anywhere but to our home, because San Francisco offers curbside composting for trees. But despite another unwelcome year of pandemic, it’s over a decade now of picking up our tree by bicycle: Year 11, baby, a palindrome.

Bike-related news is that we sold the Bullitt, which our kids had definitely outgrown—our son, at age 16 and over 6 feet tall, is now the tallest person in our family—to another family with younger children earlier in 2021. For the first time in several years, we brought our tree home on a longtail, our Tern GSD. The GSD, alas, has gotten a lot less use than we anticipated when we bought it to take our daughter to school near Matt’s office downtown.

We’ve all been vaccinated, with our daughter just squeaking into eligibility, a few weeks before vaccines were approved for ages 12+. We thought that that promised more time out in the world; that only sorta kinda happened. We went to Los Angeles in July, just in time for mask mandates to return because of rapidly increasing case counts. Since then, well, we’ve been boosted. We realized that our vacations are probably going to involve visiting parks for the foreseeable future—in the second half of the year we visited both North Cascades National Park and Yosemite. Unlike last year, both kids are back to in-person school and glad to be there. I’m still teaching remotely, Matt’s still working remotely.

visiting Yosemite in October

When I return to in-person work, it will be at my new office, a few blocks straight uphill from home, and as a result, a walking commute. When Matt returns to in-person work, it will be in Oakland; his new office is right above a BART stop. Our daughter, once vaccinated, started taking Muni on her own to school with her friends who live nearby; she has no further interest in riding on the back of the bike. The only person in our family potentially taking a bike for daily commuting in the foreseeable future will be our son, who is expected to graduate from high school in June and wants a bike he can ride to college next fall. He volunteered this, which I found unexpected after he gave up bicycles for Muni when he started middle school. Go figure!

And as always, there’s more pandemic. Our cloth masks are long gone, replaced by KN95s and KF94s; at work, N95s and face shields are now required for people who still go to campus. San Francisco is handling (another) surge pretty well by national standards, but everyone is exhausted (me too, and my kids are old enough now mostly take care of themselves; I know it’s much worse for people with younger children). Outside of the pandemic, we also had a generally terrible year. I won’t say things can’t get worse, because of course they can. But I hope they get better.

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December 29, 2020 · 10:16 pm

Christmas tree by bicycle, year 10

What a year it’s been, that no one could have expected. Everything changes. But we still pick up our tree by bicycle.

Man carrying Christmas tree on a bicycle
Matt carrying our Christmas tree home in December 2020

As I have mentioned on occasion, I work as a professor at the University of California San Francisco. Nothing makes a public health researcher feel relevant like a global pandemic. My primary field of study is substance use rather than infectious disease, but unsurprisingly, what with all the stress everyone has been facing, it’s been a banner year for that too.

Some of the biggest changes for me professionally were the transition to teaching entirely online (which mostly sucks) and the elimination of all work-related travel (a mixed blessing). In addition, the explosion in COVID-related research meant that I have gotten more invitations to peer review this year than ever before; I think I served on half a dozen study sections for grant proposals in 2020, and I stopped counting how many papers I was reviewing months ago. Some of that time was borrowed from my now-nonexistent commute. We have ridden our bikes very little since March—Matt more than me, as he’s our designated shopper.

Mostly we stay very local: we have left the City and County of San Francisco (consolidated) exactly once between March and December, for a hike in Muir Woods last week. In the last few years our kids grew old enough to travel independently with us, and I definitely miss the chance to spend that kind of uninterrupted time with them. While we’re incredibly fortunate to have the kinds of jobs that can be done mostly at home, working from home definitely blurs the boundaries between work and not-work.

Before March, though, my daughter and I did take one trip; we went to Yosemite on her February break from school. For years I’d read about traveling there by transit, which is mildly complicated yet more relaxing than I could have imagined. The trip from SF took us from streetcar (Muni), to light rail (BART), to heavy rail (Amtrak), to bus (YARTS)—reverse order on the way back. The transfers are pretty closely timed so it ends up taking about as much time as driving would, except that I didn’t have to worry about chains and could stare out the windows at the scenery guilt-free. We rode the shuttles around the park itself to various trailheads—no cars allowed in the Valley, and buses get red carpet lanes outside it—and to brunch one morning at the Ahwahnee Lodge. It was a fantastic trip that I’d love to take again. I was uncertain that we’d enjoy going to the mountains in February (it was cold); in hindsight, I’m very glad we did. And I learned that Martinez (Amtrak stop along the way) is “Martinez! Martinez! Birthplace of the martini!” thanks to a particularly chatty conductor.  

Me and my daughter at Yosemite looking over the valley
In February 2020 at Yosemite National Park

Like many kids in the US, ours, who are now 15 and 11, have transitioned to online school, which is about as much fun for them as students as it is for me as an instructor. Our son, as I predicted last year, is now taller than both parents. Our daughter is hot on his heels. Until February she was still mostly commuting on the back of the Tern GSD we bought last year. A bright spot is that both have increasingly chosen to ride on their own. Our son, who had no interest in bicycles from ~6th-9th grade, only riding transit (because it was compatible with playing video games) changed his mind this year and now wants to bike with his friends around the city (not feasible in the current COVID surge, but eventually it will be). Our daughter has been collecting at-home PE credits by biking to the store with us, and around Golden Gate Park.

Like most people in the US we’ve watched our lives become much more constrained. We can’t visit our parents, who are in assisted living. We haven’t traveled since March, because that would risk infecting ourselves and others. My sister lives 1.5 miles away, but we met for the holidays by Zoom. We have a collection of cloth masks by the front door that we’ve learned to put on every time we step outside. Last year at this time I hoped that 2020 would be a kinder year, and it definitely wasn’t one. The time dilation in particular is incredibly disconcerting. It feels like it was March just the other day and it feels like the year has lasted an eternity. After this grueling year, though, I do feel hope about 2021: my co-workers who work with patients are already being vaccinated for a disease that we were all barely aware existed at this time last year, that shattered every expectation about what normal means.  

Me and the kids in Golden Gate Park
The city installed a temporary Ferris wheel in honor of Golden Gate Park’s 150th anniversary

One thing that struck me in spring and summer, though, was the sudden quiet of a city on lockdown. With no one commuting, there was very little car traffic, and Muni shut down the streetcars. We woke up to birds singing instead of engines growling, and we weren’t the only people to appreciate it. San Francisco made JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park car-free every day instead of just on Sundays, opened Slow Streets through much of the city, and turned the Great Highway on the western edge of the city into the Great Walkway. A lot of things have been terrible this year, but some days when I was riding lazily back and forth through the all the space that had opened up, it felt like better things were possible too.

Girl riding bicycle in Golden Gate Park
DIY physical education

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December 16, 2019 · 6:41 pm

Christmas tree by bicycle, year nine

Hey, it’s another year gone by. We still pick up our Christmas tree by bicycle. This year’s was a bit over six feet tall (~180cm for the rest of the world), reflecting one of the biggest changes since I started writing back when the kids were little: they are not small anymore. When they first started expressing opinions about trees, it was no big deal that each wanted a tree “taller than I am.” Now that our son is 14 and our daughter is 10, it’s become evident that this idea, which seemed pretty harmless when they were in preschool, was not the most cost-effective long-term plan. I’ve still just a little bit taller than the teen, but it won’t be long before he’s looking down on me—physically, that is, not just figuratively.

Contemplation before loading the tree

After all this time I don’t have anything like the patience to do more than hit some highlights of the last few years, but in no particular order:

  • Our kids both transitioned to new schools: our son started high school this year, and our daughter moved to an elementary and middle school combined program. They’re both really happy. Our daughter’s school is in Chinatown and nowhere near where we live or I work, but happily pretty close to Matt’s office and also extremely transit-accessible. Unfortunately the bike infrastructure around there is dreadful, which leads to…
  • We got a new cargo bike, because the Bullitt has insufficient torque, insufficient battery power, and way too wide a profile to haul a bigger kid up and over Pac Heights and back home again. So Matt’s now riding a Tern GSD for that commute. So far so good. Obviously I haven’t reviewed any cargo bikes for a while, but I guess if you were desperate to know what bike I would buy in a market that’s completely changed, now you know. (We are well out of the years when it makes sense to haul kids by front-loader. Try a Riese & Mueller maybe?)
  • Work has been the biggest contributor to this blog’s increasingly infrequent updates: a few years ago the school voted to change its curriculum from a 4-year program with summer breaks to a 3-year program that is in session year-round. None of the other schools at the university has done this so it’s been a lot. I don’t know what I was thinking, but somehow in all the planning I didn’t consider that this meant I would be teaching in two completely different programs for three straight years, which is both confusing and overwhelming. We’re in the middle of that transition, so check back in June 2021, I guess.

    Riding rental bikes in Himeji

  • Other than that work is great. After my promotion last year I started getting a lot more invitations to teach overseas. So I spent a month in Japan in 2017 and again in 2019, and Japanese bicycle culture is awesome despite having very little of what I think of as good infrastructure, such as protected bike lanes (or really any bike lanes). Everyone bikes on the sidewalk and so did I. Everyone bikes everywhere, in fact, to the point that the campus bicycle parking is about the same size as the car parking—which obviously means a lot more bikes, given how much smaller they are. Drivers are very, very courteous so I got used to cruising around safely late at night (and then got rapidly un-used to that lovely feeling of safety on my return). I also got used to riding without a helmet, which it turns out really is much nicer than riding with one. Not only do people in Japan skip helmets, they don’t have seats for babies. They just carry them around in slings and backpacks and hop on and off their bikes. And then once kids start toddling around they ride in seats that are basically recliners with rain covers. By 2019 the majority of bicycles I saw were assisted, although not my junky university loaner, which is fine. Anyway: same planet, different worlds.

    University bicycle parking in Kobe

  • Other professional trips included: (1) a trip to Seoul, where people also ride bicycles mostly on the sidewalk, also without helmets, which increasingly seem like a “colony where the British dumped a lot of prisoners” affectation by world standards. However unlike Japan, where drivers are cautious and street parking is illegal, drivers in Seoul are terrifying and like Americans, unapologetically park on sidewalks. Seeing 7-Elevens sell individual glasses of wine, though—and they all did—was memorable. (2) I also visited Switzerland, where the thing about the trains running on time is absolutely true. Geneva has amazing public transit and is crammed with bicycles—like in Japan, these are mostly assisted, and not the little boost that Japanese bikes offer, but serious assists for serious hills. Even better than that was that in the middle of the city there was very little car traffic. My hotel was across the street from the main train station and a huge intersection and at 7:30am when I woke up I’d hear birds chirping over the faint whoosh of electric streetcars because it was so quiet. It was like that all day. Experiences like that were why I chose “hum of the city” as a name so I adored it.

    Separate bicycle path in Seoul

  • Lots of other stuff has happened but most of it was at best less than awesome and at worst terrible, so I will skip it.

One more thing: a question that comes up repeatedly from families with young kids is whether the kids will keep riding once they’re not cargo anymore. I have only two kids, so I can’t speak universally or anything, but our experience has been sort of mixed. Part of being a teenager is forging a new identity, and that means discarding things your parents like to do because that’s what you’re trying to change. Our son, now 14, gave up commuting to school on his own bike part of the way through 6th grade and hasn’t returned to regular riding. On the other hand, his rebellion against the hopelessly uncool bicycle is… riding transit and walking. And over time I’ve come to see the appeal for him: he can talk to friends (most of whom don’t have bicycles) and play games on his phone, and no one is bugging him to do anything in particular. From his perspective it has a lot going for it; it’s really just being chauffeured or wandering around without any sense of urgency or direct parental attention. So a couple of years ago we sent him to SF Rec and Parks Transit Camp and rolled with it (no pun intended). By contrast our daughter, now 10, is still essentially cargo, but nonetheless prefers riding a bicycle for now.

But there are, it turns out, some unique advantages to having an older kid who’s competent with public transportation and has given up riding a bicycle solo. The main one is that he’s capable of picking up his sister when we’re busy, and that is something that he could not do on a bicycle. That’s something that he started doing occasionally at 12 and it became a regular expectation at age 13. I only really thought about this recently when another parent—outside the city—mentioned that when their oldest reached 16 they’d finally be able to ferry around their siblings. As an official public health killjoy I would never, ever, ever allow a 16 year old child in my care to drive (or even ride as a passenger with a teen driver), because teenagers are phenomenally, hideously, appallingly bad drivers, and training and practice do not improve these outcomes at all. In fact a colleague of mine did a large study for Congress a few years ago showing that teen driver education increased collisions because it made it possible young people to drive earlier. Teen drivers can’t accurately assess risk, are easily distracted by passengers and music, text constantly even when they swear they don’t, are responsible for at least 80% of the car crashes in which they’re involved, are more likely than matched controls to use alcohol and other drugs, and have higher rates of sexually transmitted infections. The safest age to start driving is 25 (this is also a reasonable minimum age of legal access for alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, for similar reasons). The thought of actually encouraging a 16 year old to get a license so that they could drive around their siblings, who are like the biggest possible distraction because most siblings argue all the time, shocked me speechless. However. Once I got over that I realized that a kid who can confidently ride transit is far better, and so that’s what I say now: my oldest started getting his sister places a full four years earlier than any kid the same age who drives, and public transportation is one of the world’s safest ways to travel.

Riding Muni when they were much smaller

Maybe our son will return to riding a bicycle in college or beyond and maybe not. He hasn’t shown any interest in driving, despite the fact that I hate the idea of him doing it, which seems like it should make it more appealing, but there you go.

Back to the tree though: as the video shows, carrying big things by bicycle is also the best way to escape murderous auto traffic. Happy holidays, and may 2020 be kinder to all of us.

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December 10, 2018 · 1:47 pm

Christmas tree by bicycle, year 8

This year’s tree, dumped into the box as usual: it’s like a 30 second job to load it.

I don’t post much anymore, OBVIOUSLY, but we continue doing our thing. Another year on and things are not bad, personally speaking: I got promoted to full professor earlier this year, which was cool, and we have seen a lot more of the world than we ever anticipated over the last couple of years. Our kids are older so we’re spending a lot more time on transit, which appeals to them because they can play games on phones when someone else is in charge of getting around. We haven’t purchased a car and it seems increasingly unlikely we ever will again. I have ridden some new bikes recently but so far, the thought of writing reviews sends me into paroxysms of ennui. Perhaps that will change, but if not: try some out, there are many exciting family bikes out in the world these days.

We continue to buy our tree by bicycle. It no longer seems unusual at the lot we frequent. Every year there seem to be more people living in San Francisco, and this year the line to buy our tree was over 50 purchasers deep. The lines to park a car stretched down the block. This kind of thing is why the prospect of buying a car seems increasingly inconceivable.

Time moves on and we’ve had to give up our children’s ambition to buy a “tall” tree, relative to them. Our son has grown taller than his grandparents and it seems likely that he’ll be taller than both his parents by next December. Happy holidays!

Taller every year

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December 4, 2017 · 4:24 pm

Christmas tree by bicycle, our 7th consecutive year

Has it been a year? It kind of has.

One of the first cargo-type things we did with our first cargo bike, other than carry our own kids (typically one at a time), was to pick up a Christmas tree on it. It was only later that we added odds and ends like game tables and other people’s children (in value-pack combinations.)

It’s getting harder to take pictures of the kids.

This year we headed to the tree lot early, because I am heading out of town for a while to visit my mom, who has been ill. Our son is now 12, and has glumly resigned himself to the prospect of having to go to the tree lot in the company of his parents and younger sister, which he finds embarrassing. Our daughter (now 8) is still delighted by the prospect of running around looking at the turkeys and running through hay bales, which I have come to appreciate because I now have evidence that it will not last forever. On arrival, however, both kids were charmed by the usual collection of things on offer that kind of freak me out: trees flocked in neon colors and inflatable snow globes. Their demands to get a flocked tree this year got them my usual public health killjoy response: “no toxic flame retardants in the house!” Ho, ho, ho.

Loading up the tree

We are no longer the only people to ride to the lot, although I wouldn’t say that it is packed with bicycles. We are certainly no longer considered bizarre by the lot workers, who cheerfully heaved our tree into the bucket of the Bullitt, clearly pleased not to have to carry the tree out to the parking lot. However given that once again we ended up riding past a line of cars stretching back for two long blocks, it seems that most other people still haven’t figured out how much easier it is to ride. This remains one of the many household trips that I cannot fathom doing by car, because between the waiting to get into the lot and the strapping of the tree onto a car, the whole endeavor turns into a multi-hour process. We are not exactly decisive when it comes to picking out a tree, yet we still managed to ride away before some of the families waiting in cars had even reached the lot. That’s no way to live.

Heading home by longtail bike, with two kids on the back whose legs are really too long to sit together anymore, followed by a front loader carrying a Christmas tree, well, it seems that this is still the kind of thing that stops traffic—at least what little car traffic was moving. The other bicycle riders on the street, though, just waved. We all know what’s possible.

Heading home

Like last year, our return home this year coincided with the return of our next door neighbor, also on his bicycle, from grocery shopping. The world is changing fast, in some scary ways, yet some things stay the same. Sometimes that’s all I can ask.

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January 4, 2017 · 2:28 pm

We tried it: Riese & Müller Packster 60

The Packster 60

The Packster 60

Over the winter break, we got the chance to test ride one of the recent new entrants in the front-loading cargo bike market, the Packster. The New Wheel in San Francisco loaned it to us while the EdgeRunner was getting a tuneup. Thanks, New Wheel! This is the first front-loading cargo bike they’ve stocked. Back when we were shopping for a family bike, the front-loading options were pretty limited, at least in the United States: a Bakfiets.nl (inappropriate for San Francisco hills, as are all of its European knockoffs); a Metrofiets (fun bike, but oversized for our needs); and a Bullitt (what we ended up getting.) Since then, we’ve tried out new entrants like the Urban Arrow and not-exactly-bikes like the Butchers & Bicycles tricycle, and been unable to try some of the new ones like Douze. And there have been various now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t attempts to enter the market, which have permanently put me off reviewing bikes that are not yet in production. It’s still a pretty thin market.

The Packster 60 is one of two Packsters; there is also a Packster 80 (bigger,) and a similar model from the same company, which is higher-end and more expensive, called the Load.

Riese & Müller is a German company, and the bikes have Bosch assists, which are also German. The Jewish half of our family has been slow to make peace with German cars, and Bosch did not exactly win their hearts and minds during World War II either, however in the last decade or so there has been something of a rapprochement, enough of one, at least, that no one was scowling at the prospect of seeing their grandchildren on a German bike. Personally, while I have continued lust in my heart for the German postal and baker bikes, I have found most of the assisted bikes from Germany to be unsettlingly large and sort of overwhelming. Until last week, I guess I should say. My feelings about the Packster in six words: German engineering applied to a bicycle.

What I like about this bike:

  • In short: German engineering. This is a term that can mean different things to different people. One of the most obvious indications for us was when I was riding with the kids and my daughter complained that we were going “too fast.” And I thought, “What do you mean we’re going too fast, we’re going maybe 9-10mph.” Then I looked at the controller and realized we were actually booking along at about 17mph. It’s the German way. When I was an exchange student in high school my host father was driving on the Autobahn and I said something about how I thought people were allowed to drive faster, and his daughter looked over at me and said, “We’re going 180kph.” Which we were. I had mixed feelings about this for a while until I got back on the EdgeRunner and realized I didn’t feel the speed on the Packster because the bike is pretty impervious to external shocks. The suspension fork on the front wheel helps with that. It glides over rough pavement. The parts don’t rattle. The frame doesn’t twitch. Everything is stable. I never noticed the shifting or the pedals. We just rode, and the bike didn’t get in the way. It is subtle, but once you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to go back. I could spout a bunch of details about the quality of the parts, but why bother when that stuff is on the company’s website. The parts are awesome. Everything works better than you would expect. It’s great.

  • Here we are loaded up: two kids, groceries, and my stuff.

    Here we are loaded up: two kids, groceries, and my stuff.

    The front box is great, wide enough but not too wide. We still haul our two kids in the standard Bullitt box, which is narrower on rainy days. Four years ago I would not have imagined that this was possible with them now at the ages of 11 and 7 years, but what did I know? It can be done and it’s what they want. That said, there was way less drama about “get your ELBOW out of my FACE!” with both of them in the wider Packster box. And although I was initially concerned that the wider box would interfere with our ability to get through tight spaces, it’s not so wide that it limited our mobility much. Front loaders in general are fantastic because it’s easy to talk to the kids and see what they’re doing.

  • Quick release adjustment on the seat (there's a similar one on the handlebars)

    Quick release adjustment on the seat (there’s a similar one on the handlebars)

    The Packster has a number of features to help riders of various heights feel comfortable. These include a low step over (nice in general, necessary if you want to do something like put a child seat on a rear rack) and quick-release adjustable height handlebar stem and seat post.

  • NuVinci gearing on the right

    NuVinci gearing on the right

    The integrated NuVinci gearing and Bosch middrive assist work together seamlessly and go pretty much anywhere. (For some reason Bosch ranks its levels of assist from lowest to highest as “Eco,” “Tour,” “Sport,” and “Turbo” instead of the more logical 1-4 range. It is annoying and non-intuitive. Hindu-Arabic numerals were good enough for Brahmagupta so they’re good enough for me, and thus I will refer to the assist levels by numbers from here on out.) I’ve ridden an EdgeRunner with the infinite NuVinci + Bosch middrive assist before and didn’t have a good experience, probably because (I learned later) Xtracycle is shipping those bikes with a front cog that it is the wrong size for climbing. I have been informed by more than one person that swapping it (which many bike shops now do as a matter of course) makes a huge difference. And I thought that the Butchers & Bicycles trike I rode had that combo but it turned out to be a different assist. Anyway, this time I understood what the fuss was about. This combination makes for an incredibly smooth experience in which you can gear down and power up to go up hills, and gear up and power down on the way back down. Even with two kids on the bike I was able to shift down and stay at a level 2 assist to get up moderate hills without (a) slowing down enough that I worried about tipping or (b) feeling like I was going to pass out or (c) both. After that success, I took the Packster (unloaded) up our old preschool hill, a hill that has tacoed the rear wheels of at least two unassisted bikes hauling trailers, and that many assisted bikes have failed to scale. For that, I needed to use level 4 and gear way down, and it was not exactly effortless, but I could have done it with a kid on board, and Matt could do it with two kids. The Packster says: veni, vidi, vici.

  • Here's the box with seat cushions and restraints.

    Here’s the box with seat cushions and restraints.

    Do you have range anxiety when you think about riding an assisted bike, worrying that you’ll ride to one end of town and find you’re out of battery power? If so, this is the bike for you. The Riese & Müller front loaders can accept a second battery, meaning that whatever the normal range of the bike (typically 20-35 miles, depending on load and terrain), it can be doubled. That second battery isn’t free, of course, but for people with long commutes, or people like us who sometimes find ourselves riding distances beyond what we’d ever initially imagined, it could be worth it.

  • Do you worry about your pants catching in the chain? I used to until I realized that I could just wear skinny pants all the time. Matt and I both ride enough that we tear through the crotches of our pants pretty regularly, so it didn’t take long to resolve that problem. However the Packster has a belt drive, so I could probably wear palazzo pants if I owned this bike. Belt drives have other advantages as well: smooth operation, longevity, no rust and no need for lubrication (I could wear white palazzo pants), and reduced weight.

  • Front, with suspension and an outstanding light

    Front, with suspension and an outstanding light

    There are really great accessories, and most of them are included in the price of the bike. The wired front and rear lights are incredible. I don’t often have a chance to test ride bikes at night, but because this one stayed with us for about a week, I did, and the throw on the front light of the Packster is the best I’ve ever experienced; it lit up exactly the section of the road I needed to see to get around. The kickstand is sprung so that it’s easy to release down, and ranks in the stability range of the Bakfiets.nl, making it almost impossible to tip over, even when three or four kids swarm it. Because the stand uses an enclosed frame, you can also lock it to a ground puck through the kickstand—we recently started locking our bikes to floor pucks in the wake of several hot prowl thefts of cargo bikes from garages in our neighborhood. It has a rear wheel lock, which is of course totally inadequate as a primary lock here in San Francisco, but is enough in combination with another lock to discourage many bike thieves. The pedals and saddle are nothing special, but they’re perfectly adequate. If you are so inclined, you can add three-point restraints and a cushioned bench seat to the box (the bike I rode had these.) There is also a rain cover available. Although: no bell!

  • Locked to a floor anchor through the kickstand: this is cool.

    Locked to a floor anchor through the kickstand: this is cool.

    Thus far, the Packster is the only cargo bike I’ve ever been able to bunny hop onto a curb. I usually would never even attempt such a thing, but while I was riding the bike back to the shop, I got stuck behind two broken down buses, which had led to an epic traffic meltdown. After waiting a few minutes in the completely stopped car traffic, I figured I had nothing to lose by trying to drag the bike onto the sidewalk and walk it past the buses. I could barely believe it when the front wheel popped right up over the curb and glided up to the sidewalk. My bet is that this is related to the suspension on the front fork, but who cares why it works, the fact that it did work was totally awesome.

  • The Packster is surprisingly easy to park for a front loader. I was edgy when The New Wheel handed it off with a standard U-lock, which can be problematic for our other big bikes. However my cargo lock had gone with my bike to the shop for a tune-up, so I didn’t have a choice. While the Packster has a pretty hefty frame, the rear of the bike is pretty lean (the loaner had no rear rack, but I don’t think a standard rear rack would add any volume here,) so we had no trouble backing it into almost any rack or parking meter to lock up. The usual caveats apply about trying to lift it up a flight of stairs, though, meaning: no way. Yet combined with its ability to hop over curbs, the Packster is shockingly maneuverable for a long john.

  • This is a very clean look, and easy to operate as well.

    This is a very clean look, and easy to operate as well.

    It looks cool. Although I try not to get hung up on aesthetics, there is value to having a bike that I look at and say “I want to ride that.” I was particularly impressed by the way all the wiring has been corralled in front. In the past I have referred to the advice I once read to “buy the cool bike.” I think liking your bike is especially relevant for cargo bikes, which are sometimes kind of big and intimidating, and are used to haul loads that understandably may give people pause. In my case, that’s two squirming kids who are old enough to make their own fun, often by fighting with each other. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, and my sense is that bikes with curvy frames seem friendlier than sharp-edged bikes like the Packster, but after years of drive-by parenting I’m actually not interested in looking any more approachable than I already do. Anyway, I found myself wanting to ride this bike.

What I don’t like about this bike:

Nice controller, oh look, we cracked it.

Nice controller, oh look, we cracked it.

Almost everything on the list of things that I didn’t like about the Packster could be summarized as first generation issues, meaning that they’re either aesthetic or correctable annoyances. One of the ones that hit us on the second day was the fact that this particular bike looks interesting enough, particularly loaded up, that people around us could be, frankly, jerks. When I was riding with the kids in Golden Gate Park I tried to ride to a bike rack to park, but was stopped by a guy standing in front of me on the street to “get a closer look at the bike.” I answered a couple of his questions, at which point he stopped talking and just stood there staring at us (as mentioned above: I’m already way too approachable.) Then I said, “I’d like to get to the racks over there!” He said, “Oh!” and stepped back, and then just as I started riding again, STEPPED RIGHT BACK OUT IN FRONT OF US. And because I am evidently way too nice a person I didn’t run him over, so instead we all went down. My kids started screaming, the guy immediately vaporized, and the controller cracked. I’m sorry, New Wheel. Anyway, I put this problem in the same category as vandalism and I hope anyone who happens to buy the bike will mow him down for me next time.  And generally: beware of looky-loos.

  • As always, I note that there is a learning curve for bikes with linkage steering. Don’t look at the front wheel, look at your destination. I can’t tell anymore how easy or hard it is to pick up the steering on a particular make or model, because once I mastered it on the Bullitt I had no trouble with any of the others. Some lucky souls pick it up right away, some people (me) struggle for a few days, and how quickly a person picks it up seems completely unrelated to experience riding other bikes, so who knows. The possibility of dropping the bike on a test ride is real and it’s something to keep in mind. I expect that owning a bike shop that sells front loaders offers a real challenge to one’s equanimity during test rides.
  • Similarly, the turning radius on all front loaders is pretty terrible, what with the long wheel base, and this bike is no exception. Tight U-turns are a thing of the past.

  • It may be hard to see, but this is too much reach.

    It may be hard to see, but this is too much reach.

    At several points while I was riding I wondered if Riese & Müller had a single woman test ride this bicycle before bringing it to market, or even a non-German person, by which I mean a smaller person. Although there are signals that it’s intended to be accessible to people of a range of heights, including the low step over height of the frame and the quick releases to adjust the seat and handlebar heights, one miss that stood out for me was the huge reach required to reach the brake levers. I felt uncomfortable going down steep hills for this reason and for a woman, I have long fingers; I could reach a tenth on the piano back in high school, an advantage that kept me playing far longer than my talent supported. Dialing that back to a shorter reach is something that any bike shop that wants to sell this bike to moms should probably do (and I know it can be done.) Similarly, the box is a sort of origami structure held together by what I assume (based on what my neighbor stores in our shared garage) is a motorcycle tie-down strap. The ratchet (cam?) that secures it is placed at the back left of the box. This is perfectly positioned for anyone who is swinging a leg over the top bar to hit their right foot on it as they dismount. Several times. Ouch. I presume that the (tall, German) men who designed the bike were always lifting their leg over the back of the bike to dismount so this never came up for them. I learned to pull back on the dismount after a while, but it kind of ticked me off.

  • So many times I hit that thing on the dismount

    So many times I hit that thing on the dismount

    While the kickstand is rock solid and goes down to support with a mere touch of the foot, it can be tricky to get back up. What’s supposed to happen is that you push the bike forward and it snaps up automatically. What actually happens depends on what type of surface happens to be under the bike. When we were on rough asphalt, the kickstand gripped enough that it popped right up. When we were on smooth cement, like on the sidewalk, it sort of dragged along and wouldn’t go up without riding for a while, or without me sticking a foot under it to nudge it before I got on. I suspect that applying some kind of grip tape on the bottom of the kickstand would provide enough friction to resolve this, but as is, it’s finicky.

  • Incredibly stiff and annoying rear wheel lock

    Incredibly stiff and annoying rear wheel lock

    Although the Packster mostly rides like a dream, the wheel lock and battery attachments are very stiff. I like having a rear wheel lock but I loathed trying to operate this one so much that I almost gave up on it. It was bizarre because the U-lock I was using was also made by Abus and was easy to operate. Yet only the fact that I did not actually own the bike combined with the high levels of bike theft in San Francisco made me endure messing with that wheel lock. The plug attachment for the battery is also persnickety and hard to connect. Similarly, the quick release adjustments on the handlebars and seat post, while awesome in principle, are not particularly intuitive or easy to operate. I felt a weird dissonance between the times that I was riding the bike (this bike is great!) and the times that I was getting on the bike, getting off the bike, or locking up the bike and charging it (this bike is so annoying!) Some of this may be the fact that it was just unboxed and not everything is working smoothly yet. My experience with the older Abus U-lock would support this hypothesis, however although the battery plug seems designed to be annoying.

  • Note that at this level, we were constantly doing a helmet v. handlebars contest

    Note that at this level, we were constantly doing a helmet v. handlebars contest

    While the bike itself sometimes assumes a tall rider, the accessories are sized for the littlest kids. We did not have the rain cover on the bike that I test rode, which is just as well, because I could tell just by looking at the photo that older kids like mine would not fit under it. My daughter’s attempt to try the three-point restraints left her laughing maniacally at how impossible it was. While my kids appreciated the width of the box, their legs were a bit cramped. The box is a bit shallower than we’re used to as well, so although it was possible to put both kids and a pile of groceries in the bike, we weren’t breaking any maximum load records. And because I didn’t figure out how to make height adjustments until I returned the bike (see above), the handlebars and brake levers struck their helmets when we were riding together. At the highest height point there’s clearance for tall kids (and short adults) but I couldn’t get it there when we had the bike. Overall, the length and width of the Packster 60 is roughly comparable to the Bullitt, but the standard box is shorter, shallower, and wider, although the Packster 80 would presumably be longer.

  • The model I rode was better sprung for riding unloaded than loaded, which was interesting. This is pretty nitpicky, because the ride is great regardless, however the handling improved when it was unloaded; in this it is unlike our Bullitt. When I returned the bike to The New Wheel they mentioned that Riese & Müller supply stiffer springs that could be installed in front that would probably reverse this, making the ride better loaded than unloaded. If I were planning to use this bike for heavy loads (and why get it if not?) I would want to make that switch.
  • The Bosch middrive assist is not silent. The higher levels of assist are extremely not silent. I had a boyfriend in college who later went to law school and after he graduated he took a job at a big firm and decided to buy an “affordable” sports car with his new salary, a Mazda Miata. As we still hung out at times, I rode with him in it occasionally and thus I had the opportunity to experience why it was an “affordable” sports car: the engine noise was like a chorus of howling demons. By comparison, the Bosch at level 4 I would classify as more like the whining of a moderately annoyed demon. For a bicycle, it’s pretty loud; relative to cars, it’s not offensive, but relative to other bicycles, it’s a Miata.
  • Occasionally, the general awesomeness of the ride was interrupted by a weird thunking sound from the gears on hill starts. It never persisted, and it didn’t happen often, but it was unnerving.
  • Last and certainly not least, this bike, like all front loaders, is pretty expensive. The version I rode is priced at $5900, which does include the lights and whatnot. However the kid accessories like the rain cover and so on are extra, as is a second battery; I can’t price those accessories as the bike just came out so I couldn’t find them listed.

Things I can only speculate about:

  • As always, with a new bike on the market, I can’t speak to reliability. That said, this is not a one-off manufacturer, the parts are all pretty high-end, and German engineering has a reputation for reliability, recent exceptions like Volkswagen notwithstanding. Personally I wouldn’t feel any real concern.
  • I’m not sure how well the Packster would handle a fully loaded start on a steep hill, although it is great starting from zero on moderate hills, and for those living outside of San Francisco, that’s probably more than enough. After I dumped the bike my kids were not eager to get back in the box for extended test rides, so the steepest hills I rode were all without them on board. Our usual bikes are BionX assisted, and we use the boost buttons to make the steep uphill starts. As a comparison I tried making a steep start from a dead stop with the assist dialed up to 4 and the gearing down low, and the Packster took off pretty fast. However where we live, I’d want to test ride it with the kids on board before I felt completely confident. If that’s relevant, The New Wheel has the Packster I rode sitting out in front and available for test rides at 420 Cortland Avenue in Bernal Heights.

I realized how I felt about the Packster when I rode back to the shop to pick up the EdgeRunner and they wheeled it out. The EdgeRunner is super-practical and maneuverable, but I admit, although I am fond of it, it looked like a beat-up warthog next to the shiny new Packster, and also, I realized once I started riding it that it squeaks and rattles a bit at higher speeds. These are not things that I noticed about it before I rode the Packster.  It is unquestionably true that the abuse we put our bikes through is a big factor in that. Nonetheless, I curse my lost innocence.

We’re not in the market for a new cargo bike, and I am increasingly longing to return to the days of solo biking. So the question I ask myself when I test ride is more along of the lines of who it would best serve. It would serve a family like ours, it turns out. So I asked myself whether I would want it as a replacement for one of our cargo bikes in the (not unlikely, actually) event that one was stolen. It’s a close call. The Packster and Bullitt ride differently, both in appealing ways, however the Packster climbs more smoothly than our BionX assisted Bullitt (the middrive Bullitt may be different), can be upgraded to have double the range, is less expensive (assuming a single battery,) and the slightly wider box would probably eke out a year or so more of carrying two older kids at once. Thanks to the belt drive, I could wear wide-leg pants, should I ever be so inclined. I’d have to live with noise from the middrive on the hills, and plugging in the battery would irritate the crap out of me, but these seem like acceptable tradeoffs. The answer at this point, weirdly, comes down to the rain cover: our kids wouldn’t fit under the Packster’s rain cover. This is probably the closest miss ever for a bike I’ve test ridden. The rain cover would stop me from buying it, unless Riese & Müller come up with a better one. For families with smaller kids though, or hardier ones, it’s a fantastic choice.

 

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December 12, 2016 · 12:23 pm

Christmas tree by bicycle, 6th year in a row

Hey. Hey there. I’ve spent a crushing term with an extra-heavy teaching and advising load, and spent all of my writing time working on papers and grant proposals, because that’s my real job. However it’s now December, I’m done teaching and have mostly caught up on papers, and don’t have another grant proposal due until February. It’s blogging time!

Decisions, decisions

Decisions, decisions

December has traditionally been the time of year that we head to the Christmas tree lot and draw stares as we load up a tree on our bicycle. Our son (11) is now old enough to be feeling some tween awkwardness at the prospect of rolling into the Christmas tree lot on bikes; our daughter (now 7) remains oblivious to all forms of peer pressure. Admittedly both kids express some interest in the question of what it might be like to carry a Christmas tree in car, as they have no memory of ever doing so. However when we arrived and discovered a long line of cars waiting to enter the parking lot (which we breezed past, per usual) our son concluded that our decision to bike was appropriate after all. And despite some unusual indecision from the kids this year about which tree to purchase and some contemplation of the (live) turkeys and rabbits, we still made it in and out of the lot faster than any of the drivers.

Tree loaded and ready to go

Tree loaded and ready to go

In this, our sixth year of hauling a Christmas tree by bike, the people at the lot have gotten used to us and we no longer raise eyebrows. We’ve learned we can roll the bike right up to the tree baler, which makes us popular because it means no one needs to carry the tree anywhere, let alone strap it to a car roof. I know that other families in the neighborhood bike their trees home too; thus far we’ve never met any of them at the lot, though.

We have pretty much settled on the Bullitt as our Christmas tree bike, after some experimentation in earlier years. Front loaders are laughably easy to load; just throw whatever in the bucket. Our tree was taller than we are, so we also used a couple of bungees to ensure it wouldn’t slide out on bumpy pavement. For this reason and many others, the Bullitt remains the most reliable vehicle we have ever owned.

Hey, neighbor!

Hey, neighbor!

When we first began carrying our tree by bike, it got us a lot of attention. Even last year, we got a bit of hooting and dropped jaws. This year was the first time that no one seemed to think we were doing anything odd, riding bikes around San Francisco with a Christmas tree and two kids. We see more and more families like ours every year. As we rode up to our building, our next door neighbor appeared on his own bike, on his way back from a trip to the grocery store. It was cool. Not everything gets better all the time, but it feels like occasionally, some things do get better.

 

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September 29, 2016 · 12:28 pm

Demand more

Spot the transformation cones in SF (photo courtesy SFMTrA)

Spot the transformation cones in SF (photo courtesy SFMTrA)

We’ve ridden with our kids in San Francisco on a near-daily basis since 2011. Over the last five years, we’ve watched the number of family bikers like us skyrocket. Our Bullitt used to draw stares and dropped jaws because parents had never seen anything like it before. It still gets attention now, but it’s usually more along the lines of someone running over to say, “I’ve been thinking about getting that bike! Do you like it?” It is no longer unusual for us to go to a kid-oriented event or location (school, after-school, birthday party) and spot another bike like ours, or a comparable family rig. I recognize a number of families by their bikes that I don’t know by name, because we pass each other or travel together every morning.

Over the same period, bicycle infrastructure has improved, which is part of what draws families onto bikes, but the process has been painfully slow. Both Matt and I have attended multiple SFMTA (San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency) meetings where we watched the agency propose fantastic infrastructure that was then watered down (“parking! parking! parking!”), or more typically, watched the agency propose pathetic infrastructure that was then watered down (“parking! parking! parking!”) We support the SFBC (San Francisco Bicycle Coalition) and they work hard to push the agency to build safe bicycle infrastructure. Yet the SFMTA seems to take a perverse pride in dragging its heels, so that the kinds of projects that other cities manage to roll out in a matter of weeks extend for years. In the meantime, riders keep dying.

Bike path crossing Lincoln at 3rd Avenue (photo courtesy SFMTrA)

Bike path crossing Lincoln at 3rd Avenue (photo courtesy SFMTrA)

In the last couple of months, however, things have been getting noticeably safer on some of San Francisco’s most dangerous streets for bicycles. It is no thanks to the SFMTA. Instead, it’s the work of the SFMTrA, the San Francisco Metropolitan Transformation Authority, an anonymous group that on its own initiative, funded only by donations, has begun doing a fraction of the work that we should been have able to expect the SFMTA to do all these years. For example, in places where drivers routinely park in bike lanes, forcing riders into fast-moving traffic, it adds awareness cones or soft hit posts to mark the lane. Astonishingly, these work (at least while they last.) Drivers who apparently have no concerns at all with the prospect of running over my child on his bicycle will make every effort to avoid hitting an orange plastic cone.

Fell heading onto JFK (photo courtesy SFMTrA)

Fell heading onto JFK (photo courtesy SFMTrA)

The SFMTA should be ashamed of its lack of progress on street safety. In the meantime, there are some unexpected new options. This morning I watched cars slow at the sight of the new soft hit posts protecting a particularly harrowing intersection we ride through frequently in Golden Gate Park. I was so grateful that when I got to work I made a donation to SFMTrA so they could buy more equipment. If you bike in San Francisco, you can work with them as well: you can follow them on Twitter (@SFMTrA) or go to their website to add dangerous intersections you’d like to see protected to their interactive map. And if you like what they do, you can donate to help them buy more cones and posts.

Other cities are transforming as well: you can follow and support @NYC_DOTr (New York), @PBOTrans (Portland), @SEA_DOTr (Seattle), or @STP_Fix (St. Paul.) If I’ve missed one, please feel free to post it in the comments. And if you don’t have a Transformation group where you live, maybe you could start one.

I am more optimistic about bicycle infrastructure in San Francisco than I’ve been in quite a while. I’ve decided it’s time to take SFMTrA’s advice, and #DemandMore.

(All street safety installation photos in this post are courtesy of SFMTrA)

 

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September 19, 2016 · 4:48 pm

How do you get your kids on their own bikes?

Our kids, at ages 7 and 10, were still riding on our big bikes at the end of 1st grade and 5th grade last year. It got awkward to carry them both, but it was still doable; that why we got big bikes. We like big bikes and we cannot lie. The kids’ commute is complicated by the fact that they both take a van from school to their after-school program, and the van does not have a bike rack. However there was no way we were going to give up their spots in the after-school program, given that it is both an exceptionally good program and literally across the street from my office. The van to after school does, however, have room in the back for a folding bike. As our son got older and tall enough, we offered him the Brompton to ride. We even considered an assisted Brompton, because he’s scrawny and San Francisco is hilly. Unfortunately we learned that the van driver can’t legally offer him assistance loading his bike, and the regular Brompton is already so heavy that he can barely lift it. However he preferred to ride on our bikes.

From here, in 2012

From here, in 2012

The older our kids have gotten, the more drive-by parents and ride-by parents have told us to “put those kids on their own bikes.” I flipped them the bird or ignored them, respectively. I am not into insisting that my kids turn into Mini-Mes (no matter how tempting that is) and I swore that I would never pressure my kids to ride their own bikes. They could ride if and when they were ready. We did however offer bribes: for active transportation, either walking or biking, we pay them 10 cents/mile. I anticipate that they will eventually ask for a better rate (I always encourage them to negotiate) but that’s still cheaper than paying for transit fares.

To this

To this

In August my son started middle school. The same options were on the table as in previous years: I could carry him to school on my bike or he could ride on his own. Also there was one new option: he could take the bus (or rather buses, given that the trip requires a transfer.) The first week he chose to ride on my bike. Then he decided that this was embarrassing and only little kids ride on the back of their parents’ bikes. Next he tried the bus. For the first couple of days we rode with him. This was not necessary, as it turns out that the bus at that time of day and in this part of town only carries students going to school; admittedly the younger kids ride with their parents. However thanks to this experience I did learn that a city bus full of middle school students reeks to eternity. It was weeks ago and I am still reeling from the experience. After a few trips he decided the bus wasn’t to his taste either. He wanted to try riding to school on his own bike. And since then that’s what he’s done, every day.

To this, in 2016. The Brompton is an all-ages bike.

To this, in 2016. The Brompton is an all-ages bike.

So here we are now, with a 6th grader who has chosen to ride his bike to school. We had to jigger the route to find a relatively flat trip because he’s still building up strength. He is still a slow rider and needs extra time on the hills and prefers that one of us shadow him. I am okay with all of these things. He says he likes the extra time he gets to sleep in when he rides his bike instead of taking the bus. He likes feeling independent. He says he wants to try riding completely solo soon. At this point, it seems like he’s going to keep riding, although there are no guarantees. Our daughter, now in 2nd grade, wants to start riding on her own too. So we may be getting another tag-along as a starter; she’s not big enough to ride a Brompton and there’s still that van ride she takes in the middle of the day.

When we started riding bikes everywhere, we did not know how things were going to go as our kids got older. We know families whose kids took to riding their own bikes and never looked back and have heard of families where the kids decided they didn’t like riding their bikes at all, so we kept our expectations low. Our kids are their own people and I know they will find their own way. I don’t always know why they choose to do what they do. At least for now, though, they’ve decided to continue riding with us. And although we try not to overreact and get mushy (at least not where they can see us,) we’re pretty thrilled.

 

 

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August 30, 2016 · 12:52 pm

An ordinary life

I want to try the Tern Xtracycle for sure.

I want to try the Tern Xtracycle for sure.

I used to write posts more often. Part of that was novelty value. The switch from driving everywhere to biking everywhere was pretty exhilarating and there was a lot to learn. There still is, but despite the fact that I have ridden more cargo bikes than anyone else I know who does not run a bike shop (and some people who do) I’m no longer the best person to assess the handling of family bikes, mostly because my kids, at ages 10 (almost 11) and 7, are really heavy. I still do it though, just on a very extended schedule.

We also still carry our kids on the bikes, but it’s almost always one kid at a time. They’re moving to riding their own bikes and our son is now old enough to ride the bus to school on his own (well, buses: there’s a transfer), or at least as much “on his own” as it is to ride the same bus as 100 other middle school students. We still commute by bike, sometimes by bus. We rent a car when we need to cross the Bay Bridge as a family (no bikes allowed on the western span) or when we go camping in Central California, or whatever. We take cabs to the airport. We take the train when it’s an option, which is rare, unfortunately. We do not miss owning a car, and in related news, we like being homeowners in San Francisco.

We rode to the Japanese Tea Garden. Pro tip: don't try to drive to Golden Gate Park.

We rode to the Japanese Tea Garden. Pro tip: don’t try to drive to Golden Gate Park.

What people call “alternative transportation” is our ordinary life, and honestly, I kind of stopped paying attention after a while because it doesn’t seem remarkable. At least once a week, one of my colleagues stops at my office, and asks, “Did you bike to work today?” And I say, “Of course I biked today. I always ‘biked today.’”

Alternative transportation is not a bad term though, because it means that we have alternatives. We aren’t tied into getting places any particular way, or to a huge cost sink of a car. Looking for parking has long since become a foreign concept to me, and the biggest maintenance expense we have ever racked up on one of our cargo bikes was in the low three figures. And to this day, when I ride past the line of cars backed up at stop lights, or behind construction equipment, or in the endless wait for summer camp pickup, there is a part of me that thinks, “Suckers!” Obviously I have room for self-improvement.

We travel all kinds of ways, and I wish everyone could. Both Matt and I have aging parents who probably should not be driving, but they live on steep hills without transit on roads with a posted speed limit of 35mph, successfully designed to encourage drivers to take it to 50+mph (and they do), and there is definitely no 8-80 bicycle infrastructure; there aren’t even consistent sidewalks. Their only alternative to driving is to move. We know kids who grew up in places without transit or sidewalks, and to this day the thought of taking the bus terrifies them. Car culture doesn’t allow alternatives, and thus it traps people who are unable to drive, and similarly traps people who are able to drive into taking those who aren’t everywhere they need to go.

Our daughter has moved up to the Torker; our son has moved up to the Brompton.

Our daughter has moved up to the Torker; our son has moved up to the Brompton.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though, and here we are, hanging in in the new normal, proving that even carrying kids by bike can become unremarkable after a while. We see more families on the road with us every year; it makes the commute fun. When I was riding my daughter to summer camp earlier we saw another EdgeRunner with kids on it and she yelled, “One of us!” There are still plenty of people who haven’t tried it yet though. Every week, we get buttonholed by parents walking to their cars who say, “That bike looks awesome! Do you love it?” Yes. Yes we do. It’s still awesome.

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