84th Annual Holiday Tree Lighting in Golden Gate Park

Batkid Express

The tree lighting at Golden Gate Park has been going on for a long time, and the associated party just keeps getting bigger too. We haven’t been 84 years in a row, pretty obviously, but this tree is near home so we’ve been stopping by for a few years. Every year there’s a train of presents next to the tree that reflects some theme of the year. Last year’s theme was of course outcasts and misfits based—Go Giants! This year, the train was a shout-out to Batkid, which was one of those things that reminded me why we just spent an absolute fortune to buy a flat in San Francisco that we can’t even live in yet.

Check out the cool seats on this Xtracycle: they glitter. (Apologies for the spawn photobomb.)

Given that the tree lighting happens during rush hour on a Thursday night at a major auto intersection, though, and that the usual auto parking is eliminated for the event itself, I can’t imagine ever going there by car. We ride our bikes and we’re definitely not the only ones. It was a family bike extravaganza. I don’t bother to take pictures of the “normal” family bikes I see anymore—there were Xtracycles and Big Dummies and BionXed Yuba Mundos and Kona Minutes and bikes with trailer-bikes and an endless sea of commuter bikes with rear child seats—but I still love seeing them all.

The elusive Urban Arrow, now in San Francisco!

Our box bike is usually the only box bike wherever we happen to be going, but yesterday evening in Golden Gate Park it was in pretty classy company. Of course we spotted the stoked Metrofiets, because that family is apparently destined to attend all family biking-friendly events that we attend. But we also spotted something I never thought I would see in person: a real live Urban Arrow! The most obscure family bike of all obscure family bikes!

My impressions of the Urban Arrow are based solely on lurking around the bike rack where it was parked and taking pictures, because unfortunately the family riding it did not appear while I was there. I hung around creepily for quite a while, passing through mildly embarrassed to seriously embarrassed and annoying my daughter by asking her to stay near the bike but not letting her climb in the box. But eventually it was time to go eat dinner so I still don’t know who’s riding it or what they think of it.

Holy Guacamole!

The Urban Arrow is a good-looking bike, with a very classy box design. The mid-drive assist is totally integrated and enclosed and it looks bombproof. My first thought when looking at it, though, was “wow, that’s a big bike.” Like the Bakfiets long or the Metrofiets, it was clearly designed as a 3-kid hauler. Our Bullitt carrier is designed to hold one kid, allows our two kids to squeeze in with no problem, and can handle 3 or 4, but I seriously doubt that that many kids would be comfortable on a long ride. (There is a bigger box for the Bullitt that’s designed to hold more kids comfortably, but that’s not what we got.)  Personally I’ve found that I like having the kids in a narrower box because it makes us more nimble getting around crowded city streets. I suspect after seeing the Urban Arrow that we would have gotten the Bullitt for that reason alone, although I haven’t actually ridden the Arrow, and that mid-drive assist might have changed my mind if I did. And of course I’m tall enough to ride a Bullitt; if I were 5’1”, I might have tried to track the Urban Arrow down even if I had had to import one myself.

The last time snow fell from the sky in San Francisco was 1976, so just like East Coast ski resorts, they’re making snow at SF Parks and Rec.

Our son was at his parkour class and missed the festivities, but our daughter got to build a snowman, go on lots of rides, dance to Christmas music, climb all over a fire truck, and make ornaments. (The cookie decorating line was unspeakably long, so we negotiated to have a cookie decorating extravaganza at home instead.) Like many SF Parks and Recs events for kids, this was a free event, and one more reason to raise kids in the city. Few families stick it out and learn all the things that city living has to offer kids, like the nearly 20 field trips my son took in kindergarten alone—they went to the opera and the symphony and the zoo and the Academy of Sciences and the Heart of the City farmers market (with live chickens) and on and on—but we few, we happy few! Anyway, she had such a great time that she barely noticed the cold until it was time to go home, which fortunately wasn’t far away.

The only trouble was finding decent bike parking, because the racks filled up fast. Next time how about bike valet parking, Parks and Rec? There’s definitely enough demand.