Category Archives: family biking

February 10, 2012 · 1:03 pm

These are the ways we ride to school

First day of first grade

We have found that our son’s elementary school contains an embarrassment of riches (for the record, this is an under-enrolled Title I public school in San Francisco, not the usual candidate for perceived awesomeness, a complete sleeper of a school). These riches extended, we learned this year, to a range of bicycle commute strategies with kids.

Bicycle commuting to school in San Francisco is not like it is in other locales. Kids enrolled in lower grades can’t usually ride on their own, due to traffic and hills and distance; this is a citywide school, and some families are coming from quite far away. Moreover, the after-school programs at our school are mostly off-site, and students take the bus from the school, meaning that there’s no way to take a kid’s bike along after school lets out. Finally, we haven’t yet had bike racks installed at the school (we’re on the list) so there’s no place to leave a bike even if kids could ride. The teachers who ride bring their bikes into the school building, but this isn’t something that would work for a bunch of kids.

So typically we all have to ride with the kids with us somehow, and as I’ve mentioned before, city people rarely use trailers (they ride below the sight line of cars, tip on uneven pavement, don’t fit in the bike lane, etc. etc.) That means kids on our bikes. It is more challenging than the run-of-the-mill bicycle commute to school, but it’s worth it. We are often ad hoc, but we are ready to roll. Herewith, a morning’s worth of photos; an incomplete list of the ways we ride to school.

School bike #1: Bike Friday triple tandem

#1 (and by far the coolest):  Bike Friday triple tandem. Our PTA treasurer and his partner ride this bike with their daughters, who are in kindergarten and 2nd grade. They say it is the best way to commute with two kids to school in the city, and I believe them. It is easier for their dad, who is about 6’ tall, to captain, than it is for their mom, who is more like 5’4”. She reports that she needs help on the hills from the girls and she needs to concentrate while riding. The girls have to synchronize their pedaling with the parent who’s captaining; this is, I am told, not necessary on all tandems, but it is necessary on the Bike Friday [update: not exactly true; my brother-in-law wrote to tell me that any tandem could be retrofitted to have freewheel cranks that let one rider stop pedaling]. Our kids desperately want a triple tandem.

How they afforded it: They used to ride the girls to school on a tricked-out Kona Ute, which they bought and modified by hand while their youngest was still in preschool. They sold the Ute to finance the tandem, which they got for about 1/3 the list price by buying it used on eBay after searching for a used triple tandem for some time. The seller, based in LA, was unwilling to ship it, but they had a cousin in LA they visit regularly. He picked it up, and on their next visit, they took it home with them. The Bike Friday packs up in a suitcase!

How they store it: Bike storage is no joke in San Francisco. The girls’ aunt lives on the same block they do and has extra storage space, so they keep the big bikes at her place (they also have an adult tandem that they found used for free and had their bike shop fix up).

School bike #2: Surly Big Dummy

#2: Surly Big Dummy. Our friend Shirley takes her girls (1st grade and 2nd grade) to school on the deck of her Big Dummy. While they’re in school, she takes the Dummy out to do errands. I have talked about the Dummy before. It is a fun bike.

How they afforded it: They have a car that was in a horrible accident and needs several thousand dollars in repairs. Last year, they decided to skip the repairs and drive it until it failed and buy a Big Dummy (plus another bike to come) with the money they saved. When the car dies, they will be car-free.

How they store it: “It’s a problem.” They have a very small garage space with their rental apartment and squeeze the bike alongside (I presume that they don’t care about the finish of the car as it’s effectively totaled). When the car finally dies and is hauled away, however, they’ll have a very generous bike stable.

School bike #3: Giant + spare saddle on the top tube

#3: Giant with a spare saddle. One of the kindergarten dads has bolted a spare saddle to the top tube of his bike. He puts his daughter on board and takes her to school that way. When I talked with him about it, he said that although his method was totally inappropriate for long rides, their commute to school is a gradual descent over about 10 blocks and so he just coasts slowly the whole way, then drops her off, pops off the spare saddle and commutes to work.

How they afforded it: He had a spare saddle lying around anyway: this modification was free. If you had to buy one, I don’t know, $10-$20?

How they store it: No extra storage needs; it’s just a normal bike with a saddle on the top tube!

School bike #4: Kona MinUte

#4: Kona MinUte: I’ve written about our MinUte before. We ride our son to school on the back deck; we added stoker bars and some foot-pegs. This is a great bike and a flexible set-up.

How we afforded it: We bought bikes in lieu of a second car we’d been saving to buy (thank goodness).

How we store it: The MinUte isn’t much longer than a normal bike and thus has no real storage issues; Matt keeps it in a shared cubicle at his office, for example. But at home we are rich in space suitable only for bicycle storage thanks to a vituperative 50-year grudge match between the university (we live in university housing) and the local neighborhood association that prevents the partially-conditioned basement under our building, which the university was legally obligated to make ADA-accessible, from being used for a more practical purpose such as housing, or, for that matter, parking more cars.

School bike #5: Breezer Uptown 8 with Bobike Junior

#5: Breezer Uptown 8 with Bobike Junior. I haven’t written much about riding with the Bobike Junior before, as it usually makes more sense for Matt to ride our son to school on the MinUte. But with his recent injury, I’ve been handling the daily trip to school, while Matt walks our daughter to preschool then takes the N-Judah to work.

The Bobike Junior takes some getting used to, as the seat rides high, which makes the bike more tippy. It felt unstable at first. But as I’ve gotten used to it, I’ve come to love this seat. My son rides very close to me, almost as close as a backpack, and I like that when we start the ride, he hugs me from behind. It is easy to have a conversation with him because he is so close. I can turn to talk with him at stoplights and he comments on the ride, encouraging me to go faster downhill (I’m cautious; I don’t have disc brakes). It is a bit of a hassle to fit a pannier underneath this seat, and once it’s on, it encroaches a little on his foot pegs. Nonetheless, I will happily ride with my son on the Junior until he won’t tolerate it anymore.

That said, I have a suspicion that this seat might be less appealing to a shorter rider. I am 5’7.5” (to be painfully precise) and that is apparently tall enough that I can handle loads put higher on the bike without much trouble. When our friends with the triple tandem had their Kona Ute, they report that the mom had trouble handling the bike with the girls up so high on the back; she is ~3-4 inches shorter than I am. I’ve noticed that shorter people often mention they prefer to keep the load down lower, but on the other hand, there is a metronome effect. The lower loads are more stable, but if you lose control, it is a nightmare righting the bike again. The higher loads are less stable, but if you lose control, it is much less trouble righting the bike again (assuming you are tall enough). I find that I like the ease of righting the bike given that my kids bounce around a little, but some people prefer just the opposite. This is not something I’ve seen discussed much but I suspect it may be part of the reason people have strong opinions about the Xtracycle/Yuba lines (lower loads) versus the Ute and regular bikes with child seats (higher loads).

How we afforded it, how we store it: See above, blah blah, didn’t get a planned second car, it’s a normal-length bike so no atypical storage concerns, but we have tons of bicycle storage space as a side effect of a long-running town-gown battle.

These are some of the ways we ride to school. And this explains, I imagine, why our kids are begging to get a bike as obscure as a triple tandem.

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February 8, 2012 · 12:47 pm

Two down, two to go

Plum blossoms, first week of February

It is already feeling like spring here in San Francisco, but Matt’s torn calf muscle kind of cramped our weekend style. We had hoped to ride our bikes back to swim class across town last Saturday (this time with the short bikes, for comparison): not an option. We had thought we’d ride to our son’s school auction: didn’t happen. Instead, we got showed up by our PTA treasurer and spouse, who rode their tandem. We had ambitions of taking our son to ride in Golden Gate Park: no way, Matt can’t run alongside, and our son told me he doesn’t trust me to hold on (I think he can do more than he realizes).

Look mom, no pedals

I did take our daughter to the Music Concourse to go balance bike riding with a friend from preschool; lately, she is on fire. She rode that bike all  around the park, cheerfully covering over a mile on her own. “Let’s ride some more!” She even tried to walk it up the hill on the way home, totally impossible; her balance bike offers no mechanical advantage. Fortunately the bike is light enough that I can carry both of them.

So on Sunday we walked down to the neighborhood farmers’ market. It was probably too long a walk for Matt, really, but we were all feeling a little stir-crazy. Taking a few days off from riding, even when we go somewhere by foot or by car, has started to feel like not leaving the house at all. Sure, it’s possible, and sometimes even desirable, but go too long and you start to feel a little scuzzy.

Tastes like artichoke

But the farmers’ market was good for the kids. To their dismay, the strawberry stand is not back in operation, but we found both cardoons and pea shoots. This week had music, and we found a gang of neighborhood kids dancing together. Our daughter ran off with a friend who lives nearby, hauling her away to show off her new big-girl bed, and we all followed them home.

"Let's run away and get married!" "Okay!" (Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Prop 8.)

However Sunday was also when our son’s frustration about riding his new bike peaked. We live on a mountain, and he is not yet a confident rider. His reach exceeds his grasp, and his desire to ride is always frustrated by the terror of trying to stop on a steep downhill using his coaster brakes and a hand brake. Neither is ideal, and most days he can only remember to use one at a time, at best. As usual after a frustrating attempt at a ride and a near-fall, he returned to our building and grabbed our daughter’s balance bike (his former bike) and started riding it around the (flat) basement, which always drives her crazy and starts a fight. We are at our wits’ end.

Then last night, at a school fundraiser at Sports Basement, while all the kids were trying out ski boots for entertainment, one of our son’s classmates tripped and fell, dragging his boot over our daughter’s foot. Blood sprayed everywhere, and we sprinted to the Emergency Department for yes, the second time in two weeks. We are frequent flyers in the ED, but even for us, this was a new low. She and I were up until midnight as her doctors waited for the anesthesia to kick in and debated whether to suture. Ultimately they decided they needed to drill a hole in her toenail to drain the blood, and I lack the words to describe how awful it was to hold down my screaming daughter while listening to the whine of a drill going into her foot. As of this morning she claims she is “all better” but she’s now on restricted activity, which at this point I personally would extend to never leaving our house again.

Prior to this fiasco, I stopped by the Sports Basement bike annex and saw another of my son’s classmates with his dad, trying out a new 20” bike. “I want to get him something with gears,” his dad said. “I’m tired of towing him up the hill.” (Like many of my son’s classmates, they live on Lone Mountain.)

“Oh, do you have a tandem attachment?” I asked. I am always interested in this topic, given our son’s struggles to become a more independent rider.

“Oh no,” he said. “I just tie a rope to his bike and pull him.”

Peace out, y'all.

Although I admire the can-do spirit, I have to admit the injustice rankles. My daughter ended up in the ED after walking around a sporting goods store, while his son remains uninjured after being towed up a mountain on his bike with a rope?

Exhaustion has not made me a better person.

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February 7, 2012 · 9:23 am

Bike v. bike: Yuba Mundo v4 meets the Surly Big Dummy

It's fun to say "Mundo"

Last week, while hauling around on the loaner Mundo, we met up with our friends from school who recently bought a Big Dummy. They were interested in the Mundo and we were interested in the Dummy. We all met up at Golden Gate Park on Sunday at Sunday Skate to compare the bikes.

Shirley takes her girls (1st and 2nd grade) to school every day on the deck of the Big Dummy. On weekends, her husband B.D. rides the bike and she rides on the deck, with the girls riding alongside on their own bikes. She says she gets some great videos this way, and it is an awesome sight to see them riding en masse. The ride to school with the kids on deck is mostly downhill, but she’s got to get them back home again, and they live on Lone Mountain. There is evidently some pushing, but she’s made it up many hills with her legs alone, and reports receiving applause from passing drivers for this accomplishment. I went up to Alamo Square with my two kids on the Mundo: where is my applause? Honestly, there is no justice in the universe.

Two big bikes roll into a park...

So anyway, that afternoon they rode around on the Mundo for a while and I rode a bit on the Dummy. We were in the park, so we didn’t try any hills, but it was still an interesting comparison. These bikes look similar in some ways, but they are wildly different. If I had to summarize briefly (not my strongest suit), I would say that the Mundo is like an ox, and the Dummy is like a horse. They’re both useful, but sometimes you want the carrying capacity of an ox and sometimes you want the speed of a horse.

Learning to ride the Mundo was not easy for me (not just me). It is a heavy bike that feels more like a wagon sometimes, hard to start and slow to stop, although once the momentum kicks in, riding it is mellow enough. Getting on the Dummy felt like getting on a regular bicycle that just happened to be somewhat longer than usual. I couldn’t ride the Dummy with much of a load, because Shirley and B.D. are taller than I am, and none of us are the kind of people who carry Allen wrenches everywhere we go to adjust the seat height (as if that were not obvious). The frame size was fine, but I didn’t feel comfortable putting my daughter on a bike that I had to hop down from at a stop, and for that matter, they didn’t have a child seat. So I rode it mostly unloaded. It felt fast, and it was easy to pick up and ride.

Business in front, party in back

But B.D. and Shirley could ride both bikes fully loaded, and their opinions are more informed anyway. They liked riding the Mundo, particularly the fact that it could carry three kids effortlessly. They feel that two older kids is the maximum safe load on their Dummy. Because they’re used to riding a cargo bike already, they picked up riding the Mundo much more quickly than I did. They too found the Bread Basket disconcerting at first, and almost tipped the bike figuring it out (I am not alone!) But like me, they loved the carrying capacity it added with kids on board. The kids all agreed that the Mundo was awesome, and wanted to pile on as a foursome, which we did not allow them to do. We have limits: only three kids per bicycle! For that matter, they agreed the Dummy was awesome.

Okay, next bike

Both Shirley and B.D. liked the feel of riding the Dummy better, and we all agreed it was more nimble. They also noted that the Dummy had better components, including both a lighter frame and disc brakes (optional and an extra charge on the Mundo). I concur that disc brakes should not be optional on a cargo bike in San Francisco. But, as B.D. pointed out, “The Mundo is $1,000 cheaper!” And it comes with fenders and a double-kickstand that is fearsomely stable, but hard to use: this was the only part on either bicycle that I could operate better than they could, having practiced. Neither bicycle, to everyone’s annoyance, comes with hub dynamo lights. “Why doesn’t our bike have lights?” asked Shirley. “Why doesn’t ours?” I replied. Goodness knows you’re not going to be worrying about weight or drag with either bicycle.

After riding the Mundo, we realized what the MinUte can do (it is parked)

Which bicycle would I get if money were no object? Trick question: we’d get the Kona MinUte again. We have realized lately that we’ve underestimated the MinUte; it can do far more than we’d realized. I can ride it! With both kids on board! This is a story for another day. But it’s an honest answer in some ways: I think that both bikes are designed for families that have different needs than we do.

We are a small family living in a city with extensive shopping; by preference, we get groceries several times a week in small quantities, and we carry, at most, two children. And we live on a mountain. And we are car-light, not car-free. If we were a suburban/small city family with 3 kids, particularly if they were older and we were more experienced riders: no question, the Mundo. If we were a city family like Shirley and B.D., with more serious shopping loads and a different kind of commute, we’d get the Big Dummy. If we wanted to haul furniture or heavy loads regularly, we’d get the Mundo. If we took long rides, especially off-road, we’d get the Big Dummy—B.D. took their kids on the mountain biking trails around the Palace of the Legion of Honor on the Dummy, and they all had a great time. None of us would attempt that kind of ride on the Mundo.

And of course, if money is an issue, the Mundo’s price is dramatically cheaper, even with the shouldn’t-be-optional disc brake upgrade. If money isn’t as much of a concern, the Big Dummy has more range, and it is a lot easier to ride.

I couldn’t be more pleased I got the chance to ride both bikes, and our kids were crushed when we had to pack it up at dusk (no hub dynamo lights on these bikes! curse The Man!) Riding around on cargo bikes with our kids is the best way we’ve found yet to entertain ourselves on a weekend afternoon. I would never have imagined this and it is hard to explain. Shirley and B.D. had the same difficulty that I do communicating how wonderful it feels to ride with our kids, completely different from any other mode of transportation or even any other activity. We still can’t believe it’s cheaper and easier than driving, and we keep wondering what the catch is. Like them, I am so grateful that we started this wild ride.

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February 6, 2012 · 10:51 am

A long day on the Yuba Mundo

Yet another relative I talked into trying out the Mundo

A week ago Saturday we decided to ride the Mundo everywhere we went. This was maybe not the smartest move on a bike I wasn’t used to, but I figured it would be a way to learn. Also, on Saturday mornings we take the kids to swim class across town, near where my sister and brother-in-law live, which meant we could get their opinions on the Mundo, and see them for brunch. And then we figured we could pick up some groceries at Rainbow while we were in the area. Total overkill, but I’m all about overshooting my comfort zone.

We don’t ride much on the south side of the city. Once we got to the Panhandle, the entire route was flat, almost disconcertingly so. This must be the part of San Francisco where people ride fixies. On the other hand, although there are bike lanes and sharrows, the traffic down there is terrifying. It’s all giant trucks and long straight wide roads that encourage speeding and there are overpasses with freeway traffic thundering over at every turn. The whole experience of getting down there was nerve-wracking. It was a relief to reach the campus, which has a large protected quad in the center near the entrance to the pool, a bicycle and pedestrian oasis in a neighborhood that still hasn’t really transitioned away from industry.

After swim class we headed to brunch at Brickhouse, a child-friendly café with bikes hanging from the ceiling, including a push me-pull you tricycle with handles and pedals on both the front and the back (see link; as its practical value was nil, why not hang it from the ceiling?) And from there we headed to Rainbow to pick up groceries and downtown to get our mystery box from Mariquita Farms.

The Mundo I’m riding has Yuba’s new Bread Basket. This makes it possible to carry both groceries (on the front) and children (on the back). The inability of most long tail bikes to carry both kids and groceries is something that’s irritated me for quite a while. In general, if you put kids on the back, the bags can’t carry a week’s worth of groceries, because that’s where the kids’ legs need to go. I’ve found it hard to accept these bikes as being a true replacement for a car, let alone a minivan, either of which can carry both a cartload groceries and children at the same time. We don’t typically have time to split up these errands; we shop on the way home from work. I suspect our experience would be different if one of us was a stay-at-home parent, but that’s not how we roll.

It's not just me that finds it disconcerting

So the Bread Basket is a total score of an addition to the bike. However, because it is attached to the frame, and it does not move when the handlebars and wheels turn, it is deeply and profoundly disconcerting until you get used to it. I tipped the bike over twice learning to ride because the Bread Basket’s steadfast unwillingness to reflect my steering made me try to yank the handlebars too far over. I accept that it’s the right decision to put it there because its attachment to the frame means you can casually dump unbelievable weight in there, but it still freaks me out a little.

So at Rainbow, I piled about two bags of groceries in the Bread Basket, including:

  • Small bag of cumin
  • 1 bunch of green onions
  • 1 bunch of parsley
  • 2 lbs russet potatoes
  • 1 lb of cheddar cheese
  • 1 block of cream cheese
  • 1 box of Ak Mak crackers
  • 1 lb of garganelli
  • 3.5 lbs of flour
  • 1.5 lbs of raisins
  • 1 lb of couscous
  • 1 lb of rye flour
  • 1.5 lbs of dried anasazi beans
  • 1 lb of dried ayacote morado beans
  • Cupcake and chocolates for kids on the ride home

The Yuba Mundo haul

Isn’t that just fascinating? I can’t believe we’ve become such hippies; we might as well start eating dirt after a credibility-busting haul like this. Then we added a bag with our jackets (not needed for this ride), my daughter’s wet clothes after an accident at the grocery store, my U-lock, wallet, keys, etc.  The kids climbed on the back. At that point I was riding very, very slowly, but I’ll admit, I was impressed that this was possible at all.

I forgot the milk, of course. Fortunately we live near a range of bodegas open 24/7.

Matt’s Kona was pulling its weight as well; he was carrying the mystery box, which contained:

  • 1 bunch carrots
  • 1 daikon
  • 1 head savoy cabbage
  • 1 head escarole
  • 1 large bunch white turnips
  • 1 bunch red radishes
  • 1 lb peanuts
  • 1 large bag baby tat-soi
  • 2 heads cheddar cauliflower
  • 1 bag of limes
  • 2 heads couve tronchuda
  • 1 bunch formanova beets
  • 1 20# box of apples (bungeed to the deck)

The Kona MinUte haul

We had doubts about what on earth we were going to do with the couve tronchuda (answer: gyoza). I digress. On top of that, we stuffed in his jacket and U-lock and the kids’ swim gear. Don’t let anyone tell you the MinUte’s not a real cargo bike. And then we rode 4 miles home.

We were really, really tired, despite the thrill of accomplishment. As other riders commented, “You’re not even getting any help from those two.” So true, but our daughter was passed out in the Peanut at that point, so it’s just as well. The Peanut is a bear of a seat to get kids in and out of, but I like the support; 5-point restraints, full leg shields, and even some side bracing for naps. This is a much better seat in every way than the other deck-mounted seat we’ve used, the Co-Pilot Limo. (Our other rear seat, the Bobike Maxi, mounts to the frame and as a result has pros and cons relative to the Peanut.)

The Yuba is a heavy bike, even heavier with all the stuff we had on it. I found myself really resenting red lights and stop signs because I hated losing whatever momentum I’d gained and having to start from a stop.  Getting to the Panhandle path was a relief (no stopping). With a long uninterrupted route, it would have been much easier. That’s not the kind of riding we do most of the time, however. On the other hand, riding this kind of bike, loaded up as it was, meant that the entire city of San Francisco formed a cheering section on our behalf. Families walking through the park yelled, “Look at that bike!” and “That’s so cool!” and drivers kept stopping next to us, rolling down their windows, and filling me in on activities on the back of the bike (“Your daughter is sleeping in her seat!”) I find San Francisco a very friendly city in general, but on days like this it really lays on the charm.

Despite the fact that I blog, which could only be viewed as a desperate bid for attention, and haul my kids around town on my bike(s), which is attention-getting whether you want it to be or not, I have mixed feelings about all of this. I often prefer to ride quietly, solo, to work with all of the other less interesting bikes (although I miss the conversations with my kids when I do). But for a more hardcore family biking advocate, a Yuba Mundo would be a formidable weapon indeed.

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February 1, 2012 · 10:18 pm

Three, three, three

Daddy made it home in time for cupcakes

Today was our daughter’s birthday. Now she is three.

What she wanted for her birthday (among other things, including: a big girl bed, playdates with her closest preschool friends, a trip to the ice cream store) was to ride on the Yuba Mundo to school with her brother for morning Rajio Taiso (since that video was shot, the middle yard has been replaced with an edible garden and the wall has been painted over with a mural, but the tradition continues in the lower yard).

Since we started riding and our daughter started preschool near our house, her chances to visit his school, which she loves, have dropped significantly. Each of our bikes currently carries one kid, and the prospect of riding all the way there just to turn around and go back home is not especially appealing anyway. So trips to school have pretty much been reserved for times when one of us is on the road and the other drives both kids to school, as the alternative of dropping her off at preschool before 7am is unappealing to say the least.

But for now, we have a bike that carries two kids (and then some) and it was her birthday, and she was already disappointed that Matt was out of town. So I packed up the bike the night before, and in the morning, loaded up both kids. Just getting to the street in the morning on such a long bike is an undertaking, particularly when Matt is away. By the time I got outside, I realized it was raining. Fortunately the kids were in multiple layers.

All aboard!

Getting our son to school is a non-trivial trip, although most of it is a pleasant ride along the Panhandle before morning rush hour. However there is no avoiding the hills between home and school, and at some point we have to soldier up and pick the best of a bad lot. Our best route is a steep climb up to Alamo Square, then back down. On a bike that weighs over 50 pounds. With two kids on the back. In the rain. Round trip. I figured I could push the bike if I had to.

It turns out that with that kind of load, forgetting the rain gear was zero problem for me as the rider. I was so overheated after I got to the top of Alamo Square that the rain was turning into steam about six inches from my body, like a low-rent halo.  But I managed to make it up to the top without stopping. Yeah! I’m a mule!

When I stopped at the light on the downhill, a couple pulled up in a car next to me, and rolled down a window. Both were laughing. “Did you know that your little one signals when you do?” asked the passenger. “Like this!” laughed the driver, sticking out his left arm. “It’s SO cute!” I had no idea, but I was delighted.

Although it was a grind of a ride, it was a lot of fun. Along the path in the Panhandle it’s easy to talk with the kids because there’s no traffic noise, and for some reason, the acoustics of the Yuba Mundo are pretty good; I can hear both kids and they can chat with each other. Their conversations often make no sense to me, but they seem to enjoy them. And commuting on a long bike with two kids on the back is apparently more than twice as entertaining to the world at large as commuting with only one. Other riders frequently commented (“WOW!”), drivers stopped in the street to stare and grin and wave. As our friends with the Bug Dummy note, everybody loves a parade. I never enjoyed our driving commute, so it’s nice to feel that we’re now improving someone else’s, although it feels like cheating to get congratulated for doing something we love. Our son’s entrée into the schoolyard felt like escorting a visiting monarch, as kids walking to the school yelled his name and pumped their fists in the air when they saw us ride by. “Cool bike!” they shouted.

Riding back up the hill to Alamo Square was harder. It’s steeper on the return side, and I was tired. About halfway up I stopped for a while and invited my daughter to enjoy the view. “Are you going slowly, mommy?” she asked. She is no dummy.

By the time we got to the Panhandle again the bicycle commute was in full swing in the opposite direction. My daughter had taken to singing me songs, mostly Particle Man, a song that does not yet bore me even though she knows only two words. “Particle Man! Particle Man! Particle Man! Particle Man!” We saw hundreds of riders, mostly on their way to work, and with the rain, poison-frog-yellow Ortlieb panniers had sprouted off the side of many bikes like horizontal mushrooms.

"I'm a present!"

Every once in a while I’d see a dad (only dads for some reason) with a child seat on the back of the bike, or with a trailer-bike. I’ve realized that parent riders recognize each other instantly. They rang their bells in salute, we smiled and waved hello! Hello! My daughter was thrilled with the attention, which she seemed to take as worldwide recognition of her birthday. “I’m three!” she yelled. “I’m three!”

It was a hard ride, but I never could have imagined how much fun it turned out to be. There are so few of us with children in San Francisco; it’s not a family city. People give up on the schools without even visiting (our son’s lovely school is, astonishingly, under-enrolled). Parents flee the commute, not realizing they could ride as we do. We few, we happy few.

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January 30, 2012 · 10:42 am

We have a visitor! (Yuba Mundo)

We have continued the string of injuries with Matt now out of commission due to an errant dodgeball at one of our son’s classmate’s 7th birthday party. Hello again, N-Judah.

Hello, Mundo! Let's go for a ride

However. A while back a representative of Yuba Bicycles, just across the bridge, wrote to ask whether I would care to borrow one of their bikes and write about what it was like to ride it in the city. Would I! But honestly, it seemed implausible. Let’s be clear: I know almost nothing about bicycles. This cannot be overstated. Many days, I am just grateful that I managed to get to work in the morning without tipping over.

(The other days I have been known to tip over. It’s less common than it used to be. At least I am strong, and get compliments from my son when he’s riding the Bobike Junior that “You go up the hills faster than Daddy.” Yeah! I’m sure that has nothing at all to do with the fact that my Breezer weighs 10 pounds less than the MinUte. Cough, cough.)

And yet, fortuitously, despite my skepticism, I picked up this loaner last Friday. It has taken some getting used to. I have an internal hub on my bike and this does not. I had no idea how to shift, you know, like normal people, and for the first ride, we sounded like the bicycle equivalent of a car without a muffler. In my defense, someone informed suggested that the gears probably needed adjustment, which I am about as qualified to do as I would be to repair the Mars Rover.

Even outdoors, it kind of dominates the landscape

The Mundo is a big, big bike. It is heavy, and lurks in our basement like a small car. We are extremely fortunate that we can keep our increasingly ridiculous (albeit temporary) collection of bicycles in a very large locked ADA-accessible garage. Thanks to 50+ years of battles with the local neighborhood association, the university is not allowed to use the space to add another parking place (other residents’ preference) or a studio apartment (university housing’s preference). Thanks to a major flood last year that left everything 6-12 inches underwater for a few days, no one on our block, ourselves included, has the boxes of random crap on the floor anymore that typically litter garages. As a result it’s like a bicycle bar scene down there right now, assuming that people in bars were regularly U-locked to standpipes, that is.

Because I am all about overkill, we decided to see just how much we could do over the weekend on a bicycle that I cannot lift, can just barely ride (getting better…), and yes, tipped over. More than once.

So on Saturday morning we rode 5 miles to our kids’ swim class, to brunch with my sister and brother-in-law, to Rainbow Grocery to stock up, downtown to get a mystery box, and then back home. Our daughter slept for most of the ride home in her child seat. I learned that the bike lanes and traffic South of Market are flat, but terrifying.

Saddle up!

On Sunday we went to Golden Gate Park to see the Sunday Skate and meet friends from school with their Big Dummy, where we rolled up, unbelievably, right next to another Yuba Mundo. Then we stacked various combinations of our four kids on different bikes and rode them around until it started getting dark. The Yuba Mundo lacks dynamo lights, which has also taken some getting used to. I learned that my kids can hold a thought in their heads longer than I had thought possible, assuming that thought is: “Can we get roller skates?”

Further updates on all of these experiences pending. Riding this bike has been a fascinating experience. Having other people ride it (family members, friends, all of whom are more informed than I am) has been even more so–their opinions vary dramatically, based largely, it seems, on how much experience they have riding cargo bikes.

I thought I got a lot of comments about my ride when I was carrying one kid, but it’s a whole new world carrying two and a few bags of groceries. Perhaps a signature moment of San Francisco was while we riding near the ballpark. A City CarShare Prius carrying two white-haired couples came to a dead stop in the lane next to us, at which point all the passengers started waving wildly to my kids while chattering in Cantonese. Presumably they were saying “Would you look at that bike!”

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Filed under Breezer, cargo, family biking, Kona, reviews, San Francisco, Yuba Mundo

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January 24, 2012 · 10:10 pm

At last, it rains

The untouchable Novara Stratus makes its debut

In November and December, expecting the winter rain to start at any time, we prepared for the season by buying cycling rain gear. At that point, for some reason, prices were amazing, which is the only reason we were even vaguely prepared. Our rain jackets were purchased for half off regular price, and waterproof pants were even cheaper; I think mine cost $10? My mom sewed rain pants with cartoons of angry dinosaurs on them for our son. He tried to wear them as pajamas but we had to nix that.

And then: nada.

We were beginning to think it was another drought year. December was warm and dry, great for riding, but leading us to fear a return to the days when restaurants wouldn’t bring a glass of water and people were encouraged not to water their driveways. Evidently in the Inland Empire and SoCal, people water their driveways. Watering lawns during daytime hours and washing cars were also discouraged. But also: watering driveways. I have lived in California now for years, off and on, and I still don’t understand this state.

I was starting to feel kind of stupid. It looked as though we’d dropped a lot of dosh and shopping effort on rain gear we wouldn’t need until next year, or in the event of a real multi-year drought, several years. We were preparing for real Northern California rain, too, not the endless drizzle of my Pacific Northwest childhood, but the insane barrel-of-water-dropped-on-your-head downpours that scared the daylights out of me when I first moved here. These kinds of rains left my waterproof shoes filled with water that was then impossible to remove and once led me to attempt to dry my soaking wet clothes on the (forbidden) space heater in my office. It turns out there’s a reason they tell you not to dry clothes on a space heater, who knew? My entire outfit ended up with giant brown-edged holes in it. People across the hall complained about the smell and sent the department manager to investigate. I skulked home in my gym clothes. It was a low moment.

This year the rains came late but seem eager to make up for lost time. And I smelled the sweet scent of victory over the elements. I rode to work in the pouring rain but with waterproof pants, jacket, and boots, I was feeling great. There are some extra issues to consider: I can’t see as well; giant puddles at the edge of the road mean taking the lane more often; braking is best done early and often. On the other hand, there are many fewer cars on the road, and they are slower and more considerate. And once I stripped off the rain pants and jacket, no one believed I had ridden to work.

Empty racks=rainy season

It turns out that it’s fun to ride in the rain with the right clothes and the right bike. I haven’t spent so much time outdoors in serious rain since we were kids visiting my grandparents and didn’t care about getting soaked in the local thunderstorms: they’d just hose us off in their laundry sink. For the last several years I was always scurrying from one covered place to another when it poured. But seeing the world in the rain is pretty. The city smells green. I had forgotten.

Matt checked in after taking our son to school geared up as I was, and sent his impressions:

“The ride this morning in the pouring rain was actually great… especially after 3 days of driving 4 hours a day! [Matt had to drop off and pick up both kids while I was away.] The investment in gear has totally paid off — rain jacket and pants, bike shoes, smart wool socks, thermal gloves — I was completely dry from neck to toe.  Only remaining gaps are a) goggles or some other solution to keep my glasses from fogging over (I just took them off eventually, but then the rain gets in your eyes); and b) a helmet cover (optional, but would be nice to have dry hair on days when I have to show up a little more dressed up and collected).

The boy loves his rain pants and boots so much, he insisted on keeping them on in the classroom.  With the balaclava, he’s even better covered than me on top.”

Riding in a San Francisco winter offers fewer challenges, I realize, than riding in other winter climates. It snows here about once every 30 years, if we’re lucky, and temperatures are unassuming. But it’s nice to conquer our little challenges even so. And of course we’ll always have the hills.

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Filed under commuting, family biking, San Francisco, Uncategorized

January 23, 2012 · 10:45 pm

The Co-Rider (aka Bike Tutor) debacle

I have avoided writing about our experience with the Co-Rider for some time, because thinking about it makes me feel nauseated to this day. But it’s probably worth putting down.

Before we realized installing the Co-Rider was a horrible mistake

I knew when I got my bicycle that I wanted to be able to carry both kids. My two children were heavy enough that even the more “conventional” setups for carrying two children on a bike were not really an option. The Bobike Mini/Bobike Maxi combination looked stellar, but at 32 pounds my daughter was only a pound away from the Mini’s weight limit. This was a shame because we trusted the Bobike line at that point. The Yepp Mini seat had the same weight limit. Bike shops we visited that knew anything about child seats liked the Bobike and didn’t object to the Yepp, although the Yepp had been recalled for safety reasons in the past and that tipped the scales toward Bobike.

I wanted a front seat that could hold more weight. There seemed to be only two options. One was the iBert seat, aka The Green Sled, an instantly recognizable bright green plastic seat that held up to 38 pounds. The other was the glowingly reviewed Co-Rider, which claimed to be able to hold a child up to 5 years.

The iBert was cheaper and easily available online, so we asked about it first. We had seen this seat all over the place on Sundays in Golden Gate Park. But we were unable to find a bike shop willing to install it, and none of them would sell it either. The first shop we asked said it was unsafe because it hung from the handlebars and compromised steering, too much of a risk with a child on board, particularly one nearing the top of the acceptable weight range, so they wouldn’t install it for us even if we bought it ourselves. The second shop we asked said it was unsafe because the back of the seat was too low and risked the spine of the child riding it, and they wouldn’t install it even if we bought it ourselves. The third shop said that the mounting bracket was nothing more than a giant steel spike that was a riding death trap, and what’s more the plastic would weaken with anything more than occasional recreational use, risking dropping the kid to the ground, and they wouldn’t install it even if we bought it ourselves. We didn’t get the iBert.

We have since learned that there is at least one well-respected shop in San Francisco that sells the iBert (Roaring Mouse), and ultimately, none of these things would have been as bad as what happened with the Co-Rider. So from my revised perspective we might as well have just taken our chances with the iBert, especially since none of the proposed horror scenarios seems to have actually come to pass. Although in general I think following the advice of informed people is a better idea altogether. More realistically, we should have given up the idea, accepted that we’d missed the window for using a front seat, and looked for a bike for me that could carry two on the back.

Testing the Co-Rider for stability didn't help any: it seemed stable but would collapse less than 15 minutes later

We then moved to the Co-Rider. It looked like what we wanted, and the weight limit was no problem. None of the bike shops we visited had any objection to installing it, probably because none of them had ever heard of it. The setup looked reasonable enough and it attached to the frame, which was apparently desirable. I had to order it myself but Ocean Cyclery was willing to put the Co-Rider on the front of my Breezer and the Bobike Junior on the back. They were confused as to how it could work on a frame without a level top tube, but the Co-Rider website and literature was vehement that the seat could be installed on a step-through frame, and in fact showed one mounted on what looked like an Omafiets, which had the most sloped tube I’ve ever seen on a bicycle.

When I came to pick up my Breezer the Co-Rider was installed on it but the bike shop was, if anything, even more skeptical about the seat. (This is where I should have listened more closely.) They felt it didn’t have any support at the back and that if the screws loosened even slightly, inevitable from the various bumps and impacts that come with regular riding, that the seat would tip. To test it, the shop owner had spent extra time on the installation and taken his six-year-old on an extended test ride to ensure it was stable. He felt it wasn’t going anywhere but was nervous about the design and insisted that I check the stability of the seat every time I put our daughter in it. His concern was prescient.

What the Co-Rider looked like when first installed, correct position

I rode with my daughter in that seat (sometimes with our son in the Bobike Junior in the back) for three weeks, checking the seat for stability every time we rode because I am paranoid like that. On the third weekend, riding in Golden Gate Park after once again checking the seat for stability before departing (no problem), the screws loosened, the seat tipped up 90 degrees, and she tumbled back out of it nearly into the street.

Where the Co-Rider ended up while my daughter was in it and we were crossing six lanes of traffic

The good news is that it was a front seat and I could catch her. The bad news is that we were crossing Masonic at Fell when it happened, and even on a Sunday, this is easily one of the most dangerous intersections in the entire city of San Francisco. Even thinking about this experience months later makes my palms sweat and a headache start.

Because it was my daughter and not my son, she laughed it off like it was an adventure ride I’d created just for her and cheerfully rode in the Bobike Junior the rest of the way home. When I called Ocean Cyclery to tell them how right they were they were mortified that they’d ever installed it.

I was left wondering why I had such a different experience than everyone else who wrote about this seat. When I called the distributor in LA to get a refund (well past the return window, but clearly the seat was defective, and to their credit I did get the full refund) he said that I was the 3rd or 4th person to call with a story of a seat failure like this on a step-through frame. The distributor felt that these people were installing the seat incorrectly but I was pretty sure this was not the case for me, because my seat had been installed by a bike shop with extensive experience. I also thought that given that the problem had been identified by more than a couple of people with the same frame, it was time to investigate the seat design or the fabrication. The distributor said he was sending a request to manufacturer to investigate the problem. But since then there have been no changes in the advertising by the manufacturer, which continues to claim the Co-Rider is appropriate for step-through frames.

In the meantime my feeling is that either I got a seat with defective parts, and I am not the only one, or the seat is fundamentally unsuited to installation anything but a frame with a level top tube. Either option would suggest that the Co-Rider doesn’t belong on anything but a diamond frame, at best. It would be impossible for the seat to tip if installed on a level top tube, because the tube itself would hold up the entire length of the seat. I assume that the people who had good experiences with this seat were riding on diamond frames.

If the Co-Rider hadn’t tipped and nearly sent my daughter head-first and backwards into the street (other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?) I would have other issues, but they are minor. San Francisco is windy and my daughter didn’t like to ride very fast on this seat, because of the wind chill (both the Bobike and Yepp seats come with optional windscreens). The footrests look impressive but don’t have straps to hold her feet in, so she liked to kick sideways, which at times made the bike wobble. The seat is heavy and rattles when a child isn’t riding in it, and the welds are sloppy. Heavy is understandable given that it’s supposed to hold an older child; the sloppy welds and rattles (and my terrible experience) made me suspect that the seat is poorly made.

I liked riding with my daughter in a front seat, because it was easy to have a conversation and felt intimate. Putting the kid on the front also makes the ride a lot smoother; crossing Muni tracks with a child in a front seat makes the bumps forgettable, and there was never any risk of popping a wheelie on the uphills. I would  have loved to have her there longer and if I were riding a diamond-frame bike, without any need for a rear child seat, we would probably have enjoyed using this seat for a couple of years to come. Admittedly we would have ridden at a very slow pace. After having the seat literally collapse underneath my daughter, however, I can’t imagine ever using it again.

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Filed under Co-Rider, family biking, reviews

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January 21, 2012 · 10:30 pm

Hello, Atlanta, good-bye

Sharrow: I missed you, little buddy

So Atlanta: not world-renowned as a bicycling destination. My experience there was brief but suggested that this reputation is deserved. I hardly experienced the breadth of what the city had to offer, as I was indoors during nearly all daylight hours, but I don’t think I’m far off. To wit:

  • Bicycles spotted: 0
  • Bike lanes spotted: 0
  • Sharrows spotted: 1
  • Pedestrians spotted (myself included): <10

I will return for further updates in June.

Atlanta appears to represent hometown pride in part by relentless promotion of Coca Cola products, which were offered gratis throughout the meeting. I only recently gave up my diet Coke habit, a long-overdue New Year’s resolution, and it was until then my only source of caffeine. I did not falter and I had packed a half-dozen green tea bags, but the whole experience was not unlike what I imagine a former smoker feels in Las Vegas, or at an AA meeting. Perhaps this colored my perception unfairly.

The meeting I attended had a nice warm-up introduction for people about to spend 12 uninterrupted hours per day together. Before we began, everyone in the room was asked to introduce themselves and provide an anecdote about something interesting that had happened in the last six months (the group meets twice a year, but this was my first time). I said that this year we had started taking our kids to schools on our bikes. As an introduction, this turned out to be pretty popular, at least in a room full of doctors. It wasn’t as impressive as the woman who had started open-water swimming in the Atlantic Ocean near NYC, and had kept it up right into January, and rightly so, but still, not bad.

At lunch and dinner I ended up sitting next to the only other vegetarian in our own little catering ghetto. We passed the time by guessing what our eventual entrée would be, a game that quickly grew dull as the answer was always pasta with vegetables.

She mentioned that she took her kids around town, specifically small-town Indiana, on a trailer attached to their bikes. Represent, team oddball! Although they walked to school, they traveled regularly by bicycle for errands, sometimes piling groceries around the kids until only their faces were visible. But, she said, she would never put her kids in a trailer in city traffic. At last, I have independent confirmation of my theory that trailers are for small towns and suburbs.

Her son is now riding on his own bicycle, even though he is slightly younger than mine, but of course they have no traffic concerns. And we talked about when it might make sense to put kids on their own bikes in city traffic, which I think depends largely on the extent of protective lanes given to bicycles. I have no issues with our son riding in Golden Gate Park, even though he can’t brake yet. I won’t have issues with him biking in a separated lane once he can use his brakes consistently. An urban oncologist noted that although he loved riding, he only commuted by bicycle on weekends, because the traffic where he lived was too frightening on weekdays even for an adult. Once outside of a small town, I have to agree: no infrastructure, no bicycle commuting.

Welcome home: I missed these little ones even more

And speaking of braking: although my son can’t use the ones on his bicycle yet, he can at least conjugate them, informing me with delight before I left that while the past tense of break, when you break something, is broke, but the past tense of brake, when you stop your bike, is braked, which he found enormously amusing. The bicycle commute just keeps giving.

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Filed under family biking

January 17, 2012 · 8:15 am

Away, away!

I am headed across the country for one of my rare business trips. As work is on the agenda morning, noon, and night, I will not be updating for the duration. I will return to talk smack about child seats in celebration of Lunar New Year, something of a big deal around these parts.

Although I am still not 100% there on the habit of bringing a camera everywhere, I have at least gotten better. So I know that my mom will miss the photos of the kids. Sorry, mom.

In the meantime, I leave with a story and a photo.

Recently while riding home from work, I saw a father riding with his daughter in the stoker position behind, with a child seat (empty) behind her. Is that an Xtracycle, I asked when we were both stopped at the red light. He seemed pleased that I recognized it and we rode along for a while talking; he told me he’d had the Xtracycle for 10 years but that most people didn’t have any idea what it was. I told him I knew it on sight because our friends at school have a Big Dummy. He said he was envious of the Dummy, but I was more impressed he’d had the Xtra since before his kids were born, given his daughter’s age (probably 7 or 8). I like having these conversations with other riders, which happens more often than I expect. I miss it when we are driving, where the only “conversations” involve honking horns. Riding my bicycle for the last few weeks has been keeping me sane; it was for several days the only time I was not simultaneously feeling horribly guilty and incompetent.

Put a bird on it (San Francisco-style)

The caption on this photo amuses me, but my husband, who purchased this shirt for me, and our son, who chose it, are less entertained. It it hard to read the thought bubble on the shirt in this photo, which really makes the bird, but it says, “Things will be different when I learn how to breathe fire.”

How true that is.

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Filed under family biking, San Francisco