March 22, 2012 · 9:41 am

On the road again

We're off to see some big trees

My recent frenetic posting pace reflects a kind of end of term wrap-up. The university, the school district, and our preschool are all closing for a week of spring break.  Matt is going on a two-week business trip to Beijing. But let us not judge his carbon footprint; he is there to site renewable energy plants, surely an offset for using all that jet fuel. Instead let’s judge mine: rather than stay home and twiddle our thumbs, the kids and I are headed north to visit my mom in Washington.

But there is a stop along the way: I am going to Portland, North America’s bicycling mecca, to attend a professional conference for a few days (some of which I will skip in order to ride bicycles, shop for books, and visit friends I haven’t seen in years). Frankly I’m so excited I could jump out of my skin.

At any rate, posts for the rest of March are likely to be irregular at best. I’ll be back in April.

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March 21, 2012 · 9:39 am

San Francisco destinations: Roll San Francisco

Welcome to Roll San Francisco

The bike shop my sister hauled me to on Saturday has an interesting concept. Roll doesn’t sell bicycles as much as it sells services. It’s not a business model I’d ever considered.

Most bike shops, to my mind, are kind of 20th-century enterprises. They tend to have limited websites, if any, and don’t bother to post inventory or prices anywhere. A few lack the attention to cleanliness and presentation that you would find at even the most slovenly used car dealership. Virtually all of them seem naively optimistic about the level of knowledge that new customers bring in the door. These aren’t always bad things—I for one would happily never set foot in a used car dealership again in my life—but they can be off-putting. It had been a long time since I’d ridden a bike when I bought one, and I certainly could have used reminders that I would need a lock and should pump up my tires once a week. There is a certain hobbyist flair to the bicycle shop (and in many cases, bicycle manufacturing) enterprise that leads me to believe that many of the people involved grew up thinking that “business” was a dirty word.

They fix unicycles, don't they? (Because someone asked them to.)

My sister was excited about Roll because the owners have thought about some of these issues. They recognized, rightly I think, that there is an abundance of stores in San Francisco that can sell you a bike, and that they didn’t want to compete with them. They do have a couple of bicycles for sale (literally: they had two bicycles for sale) but they are mostly about what happens after you buy the bike. They’ll repair anything, and by anything I mean that one of their current jobs was blasting the rust off a frame that someone found in an attic, which had been made by his grandfather, which they would then build up into a functioning bike. They posted the prices of all the services they could think of right on their website (admittedly not yet updated to include blasting rust from a 50-year old frame). They are open from 8am to 7pm so that you can drop a non-functioning bike off in the morning before leaving for work, and pick it up on the way home. You can make an appointment in advance online. Transparency! Availability! Online scheduling! What’s not to like?

Front and center

The owner we spoke with, Renita, was a long-time bike commuter who had evidently been saving up a list of her irritations with traditional bike shops for a while. There is, for example, just one other bike shop in the city I know that keeps comparable hours; that is Warm Planet, which is open 7am-8pm M-F because they primarily serve Caltrain commuters (they offer free valet bicycle parking). Traditional bike shop business hours (Renita: “They’re better than banker’s hours”) have annoyed me as well; once when my tire was low after I arrived at work, I figured I might as well pick up a pump to keep at the office. But the bike shop near my office didn’t officially open until 2pm, and I was warned that I’d be lucky if they actually showed up by then. I had a class to teach that afternoon, so I ended up getting a pump during lunch at the hardware store in Laurel Village. Good thing I don’t have Presta valves.

Bicycle surgical unit, complete with sink to scrub in

I mostly spoke to Renita, because Sam, the mechanic, was keeping busy working on bikes. They are evidently doing a land-office business, because they just hired a second full-time mechanic. The shop was packed with bikes when we came in, but it was not overwhelming. Renita was justifiably proud of their setup, noting that they wanted to put the bike stands and tools up front, where everyone could see them, rather than hidden in the back. There is a back cubby, however, where they do all the scary things that no one wants to watch that involve tools like saws. I could not help thinking of this room as the operating theater.

Step up to the bar

She was also proud that they had something else I had never seen in a bicycle shop before: seating and books, as well as a television that played bike-oriented shows (at the time we were there, an incredibly boring bike race). I am used to standing around bike shops waiting to be helped and staring at the walls by now, but have never enjoyed it. Including seating was an inspired move, particularly given that they wanted a space where women and kids would feel welcome. My sister and I agreed: mission accomplished. They even have a child seat in stock, a Topeak. It’s not the model I would have chosen (either Bobike or Yepp would be better) but it’s nice that they made the effort.

And they aren’t snobs. Like Sosuke in Ponyo, they love all the bicycles. Hence the custom Seven we spotted between two decidedly-not-custom bikes, a Giant and a Cannondale.

The frame-mounted front rack, my new Holy Grail

When I saw the front rack on a Storck (which I was told was the only aluminum frame Storck model, like I would know that Storck primarily makes carbon bikes, which I guess I know now) I asked if they installed frame-mounted front baskets. Sure, she said, they had a metal fabricator on call that could create one and add it to any bike. (I’ve since realized that a Soma Gamoh would serve our needs more than adequately. But FYI.)

We don’t live anywhere near Potrero Hill and getting to this shop would be a five-mile slog for us. This would not be ideal if our bikes actually needed repair, but I understand why locals seem to be swarming it. My sister has a bike mechanic hanging out at home in the form of my brother-in-law, but I imagine she’ll be back for larger jobs he’d prefer not to do. Overall, although I can’t speak to the quality of their work from just wandering around taking pictures, I was impressed. This is a different kind of bike shop, and it’s different in a good way.

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March 20, 2012 · 11:34 pm

Another day, another commute

Usually cheerful, but not always

For the last couple of weeks Matt has been taking our son to school, because I’ve had various committee meetings at the end of the term (e.g. Admissions, and here’s my tip for getting into graduate school: Follow The Instructions.) When my son found out that I would be taking him to school this morning, he was not happy. “I don’t want to ride on your bike,” he said. When we asked him why, he said that I was too slow going downhill, that he didn’t like slinging his backpack over the back of the Bobike Junior, that my bike didn’t have a double kickstand, and then the rest of his complaints trailed off into vague mutterings. What can I say? He dislikes change. Also: he’s right. My bike is slower than Matt’s.

But things improved once we got moving, as they usually do. It is quiet in the morning but there’s always a lot to see in the city.

We trailed behind a backhoe for a while in Golden Gate Park, and all kids love construction equipment. My son’s mood improved markedly at this point. (The city is re-striping a separated bike lane across the park.)

As we were headed into the Panhandle, we were passed by an electric bike (a Hebb Electro Glide, if I read the logo right); the rider was pedaling slowly and moving fast, and we both found that fun to watch.

After that, we caught up with a recumbent hand-cranked bike ridden by a man with one leg (presumably custom, certainly nothing I recognized). We kept up for a while, but he blew past us and another bike on the way up the hill to Alamo Square. It was extremely impressive.

Sweet new bike racks!

When we got to school, we locked up at the new bike racks, along with another early arrival. By the time we reached the playground, my son was cheerful again.

It’s harder for me after dropping him off. My commute to work from his school goes up Webster, an arterial frequented by some of the nastiest drivers in the city. I have yet to go three blocks on that street without someone blasting a horn, apparently because I exist. One driver once honked at me and shook her fist while I was walking my bike through the crosswalk with the light. Getting off Webster I turn onto Post, and go several blocks uphill on a steadily increasing grade. To pile insult on injury, there are always multiple trucks parked in the bike lane. Once I get to the top of the hill, the only way to enter the campus is by making two left turns on busy thoroughfares (or riding on the sidewalk, but this is illegal in San Francisco, and the potential fine is large).

It’s annoying, but it beats driving.

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March 20, 2012 · 9:27 am

San Francisco destinations: Everybody Bikes

Perhaps not the most practical use of the shop pump

I have mentioned before that our local bike shop is Everybody Bikes. This place belongs in our San Francisco destinations because we are there so often we have started to feel like stalkers. We’ll love you even if you get that restraining order, Everybody Bikes! However my son, who can be very literal, finds their name inappropriate.

“Not everybody bikes in San Francisco,” he says. “Their store should be in Copenhagen, not in San Francisco. That’s where everybody really bikes.”

Tires, small bikes and a folder in the attic

Our initial visit to Everybody Bikes came at the strenuous urging of my brother-in-law, who had bought his commuter there a few months earlier, when they opened. Unlike us, he knows a lot about bikes, and he was very impressed with their work. On first impression, we were not as infatuated. When we walked in the door, we immediately noticed that they primarily stocked mountain bikes (this has changed). They did not have child seats. Moreover, the hipster vibe was very strong. The shop’s owners wore the kind of tight pants that always make me want to check for gangrenous toes, accessorized with heavy black plastic glasses, knit skullcaps, and Rorschach facial hair. As a parent these visual cues make me twitchy. These looked to be the kind of people who screamed “Breeder!” at moms in minivans during Critical Mass rides.

The view from the spiral staircase

What’s more, on our first visit they weren’t too familiar with children. We usually bring toys for our kids when we are stopping in a store, but this is hopeless in a bike shop: no toy in our possession compares to bike accessories. Our kids bolted for the bike bells and pumps (we figured they could do little damage in this section of the store); one of the owners visibly flinched and asked us to please get them to play somewhere else. This was tough to do; the store is roughly the size of a suburban walk-in closet.

Since then, we have all gotten to know each other a little better. Despite our initial reservations (and, evidently, theirs) we’ve realized we’re fortunate to have a shop like this within walking distance. When we lived in Berkeley, our apartment was down the street from an independent hardware store legendary for its service. When I came in to buy nails one day, I saw one of the owners signing tentatively with a deaf customer. When she left, I commented that I didn’t know he knew how to sign. Oh, I just started taking a class because she moved into the neighborhood, he said. Everybody Bikes is like that hardware store. What they don’t know, they’re ready to learn. And although this is changing, family biking has a fairly steep learning curve. They’ve been game to help us figure it out.

Upstairs where the training wheels hide

Our kids made the shop owners nervous at first, but they have gotten more comfortable with families. They carry a couple of balance bikes and children’s bikes, and from day one they were able to fit a kid’s helmet. They are good-natured about our daughter’s efforts to pump air into the hole in the sidewalk at their front door, and endlessly concerned that both kids not injure themselves on the store’s spiral staircase or on our bikes. This is a hopeless cause in the case of our daughter, but we all make an effort. They have learned that kids need frequent bathroom visits and always volunteer theirs. Like Trader Joe’s, they offer stickers, and we have probably a hundred “Everybody Bikes” stickers now in various corners and drawers. I see other families in the shop now, and this attention isn’t unique to us.

The owners might look like hipsters, but they don’t act like them. They take the shop’s Kona Ute to the farmer’s market and to street fairs and give free bike tune-ups. They offer a bicycle maintenance class, which Matt is taking this year. They open the store for neighborhood movie nights and art shows (okay, this is kind of hipster-esque). When we talk to the owners at the door, neighbors walk by and greet them by name. We’re not the only people around here who like them. They stock more commuter bikes now, and a month ago I watched a family walk in and order a Linus from them that they planned to rig up with child seats. I’ll admit that I still wish they actually stocked child seats, but they’ll order and install them.

A variety of kids' helmets

The Sunset is one of the few places where families are relatively thick on the ground in San Francisco, and because they aspire to be a neighborhood bike shop, they’ll work out issues that come up when riding with kids. They’d never set up a Kona MinUte to carry kids before (ours was the first MinUte they’d ever sold, and they gave us a great price), but they found really nice stoker bars for us. When the footpegs they wanted to fit on the bike were out of stock, they found and ordered an alternative on eBay. They keep adjusting the MinUte’s crappy brakes for free. San Francisco can be hard on bicycles. They keep us moving, and they are unbelievably nice.

Everybody Bikes took over their location from an extremely successful and much-beloved shop, Roaring Mouse Cycles, when it moved to larger digs in the Presidio. Roaring Mouse would be a tough act for any bike shop to follow, but they have managed it with grace. When other parents in the neighborhood ask us where we got our MinUte or where to buy a kids’ helmet, we’re always delighted to tell them to head over to Everybody Bikes, at 15th and Irving, where they’ll be treated like human beings even if they are as clueless as we were.

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March 19, 2012 · 10:01 am

Bicycles of note

My sister's Jamis

On Saturday I went out with my sister while my in-laws took our kids out for crafts and Matt went to a business event at Berkeley. Thunderstorms were in the forecast and Matt was heading for the bridge anyway, so he dropped me off on the way. But with no rain coming down at that moment, we decided to ride. What the hey, if the weather changes, that’s why we have rain gear.

I love to take the bike South of Market where she lives; it is flat as far as the eye can see. I’m not the only one; when we arrived at the restaurant for breakfast at 9:00am, not exactly the brunch rush hour in her hipster-rich hood, we had to take the second bike rack because the first one was already full.

We had hoped to stay out longer but the wind eventually became unbearable. “I hate the wind even more than I hate the hills,” my sister said. We are alike in many ways.

On the way back while we were stopped at a light, a pedestrian stopped in the crosswalk. “Wait a minute!”he yelled. “You’re on bikes! And you’re stopped at a red light? Thank you!” Sigh.

So we went back to her condo and she showed me some excruciatingly painful ways to get rid of muscle knots by applying pressure with a lacrosse ball while her dog jumped on me. Very effective (the dog is optional) but I’m not sure I’m enough of a masochist to ever do it again. Because my sister is more hard core than I will ever be, she has long since moved on to using a length of metal pipe.

This is an electric bike?

I managed to endanger the community while we were still out, however. Now that I try to stop and take pictures of the interesting things I see, I have become a hazard to everything on wheels. When I slowed to check out an odd-looking bike in the window of a computer store, I knocked my sister into the groove of a Muni track, at which point she understandably fell down. Since we were stopped at that point anyway, we decided to get a closer look. It was a single-speed with an extremely unobtrusive electric assist from Clean Republic. The motor on the front wheel looked more like a hub dynamo for lights. But the bike had no lights and a cord trailing off of a small bag under the seatpost labeled “Clean Republic.”  The store was closed, alas, and the owner was nowhere in sight, so all I know about that electric assist system is: it’s subtle.

Having learned from this experience, I did not attempt to take pictures of:

  • A black Yuba Mundo with a kid on the back holding a large propane tank
  • A Brompton (“That’s a cool bike!” according to the pedestrians walking by)

One of these things does not quite belong

I did, however, get a lot of pictures inside the world’s most democratic bike store. Even I have heard of Seven Cycles. This shop had one hanging out (slumming?) with a Cannondale and a Giant. I thought we were visiting because my sister needed something, but it turned out we were there because she wanted me to write about the place. Sure, why not?

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March 18, 2012 · 4:42 pm

Where bicycles are free

Oppressed bicycle

When Family Ride tweeted about Seattle’s only bike lane marker without a helmet (Amsterdamize!) I became briefly obsessed with street markings in San Francisco. I had a memory of a helmetless bike lane marker down in the Mission somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet. In the meantime I realized that there was a minor war apparent in San Francisco’s bike lane and sharrow markings. Ground zero is Golden Gate Park.

Free bicycle

From the north side of the park, riding on streets and up the hill behind the Conservatory of Flowers, street markings are dominated by the typical rider with a helmet on a bike. But on entering the park and for several blocks south, the bicycles have cast off their riders. These roads are owned by the forces of Bicycle Liberation. In Golden Gate Park, bicycles roam free.

It is particularly disconcerting to reach the top of the hill and see a free bicycle marker head-to-head with a ridden bicycle marker. I now imagine being knocked off my bicycle by freedom fighting cycles every time I get to the top of the hill. They’ll get me when I’m tired. No helmet could protect me.

A compromise of sorts

There is a demilitarized zone on the north edge of the park where the markers avoid the controversy altogether by simply writing the words, “BIKE LANE.” I realize that it’s unfashionable these days to use words instead of symbols on street markings, but this does sidestep the question of whether bicycles should be ridden. Perhaps one day this area will be the Camp David used to broker out a compromise between humans and bicycles.

San Francisco tries to be respectful of all oppressed minorities. I cannot count the times that I have been asked by non-residents what the Q in LGBTQ, now the abbreviation of choice in the city, stands for. Mostly people get the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender parts (although not always). When I report that the Q stands for queer and questioning, I know that the conversation will take a hiatus while my questioners gasp for air through their laughter. “Questioning?!?” they wheeze. Well, all cities have their little quirks, and in my opinion San Francisco could do worse than recognizing that some people are on the fence. At least this is easier than trying to explain what a Romeo flat is.

At any rate, it seems that free bicycles have made inroads into City Hall, because new bicycle lane markings are now evenly split between free bicycles and ridden bicycles. I have no idea how it will all pan out, but plan to ride my captive bicycle for as long as this is allowed.

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March 16, 2012 · 11:44 am

Riding in the rain

On the road and all is well again

This week and next it’s all about the rain here in San Francisco (and after that, I’m going out of town). I’ve written before that I like riding in the rain, and this is true. I’ve realized, though, that I don’t like getting ready to ride in the rain. There are so many more accessories to worry about.

In the morning I put on the rain jacket, the rain pants, and the rain boots, and put my work shoes into the pannier inside a plastic bag. Then I put the waterproof cover on the pannier. Yesterday when I got outside I realized that my keys were inside the pannier, so I had to take off the waterproof cover, fish out my keys, lock the door, put them back in the pannier, and replace the waterproof cover on the (now wet) pannier.

When I get to work I take off the waterproof cover on the pannier, then the rain jacket, the rain pants, and the rain boots and hang everything up to dry. Then dig my work shoes out of the plastic bag and put them on.  Criminy, what a hassle. Thankfully the university has covered bike parking on all campuses, so there’s no need to cover the seat.

My son wears his rain pants all day, but he doesn’t work at a medical center. Also his rain pants have cool cartoon dinosaurs on them (my mom made them). Elementary school is the life! I might be able to get away with cartoon dinosaurs if I were at the medical center; I could pretend that they were a new kind of scrubs. But women’s rain pants only seem to come in solids. Whose idea was that?

Golden Gate Park is beautiful in any weather

It is often worth it once I’m on the bike, however, because I don’t really have to slow down much, and cars do, so relatively speaking, I feel like I’ve gained bionic powers. It does not feel worth it when it is both windy and raining and I have to shift down to first gear on a flat street, because I am being blown backwards and I can’t see anything.

But when I get to work and am finally rearranged, there is, at last, victory, because on really rainy days, the only dry people in the office are the bike commuters. The drivers and shuttle bus riders get drenched walking from the parking lot to the office.  Back before I started riding my bike I hated the rain because I was always getting soaked; just walking to the shuttle stop would fill my shoes with water. Now the rainy season is a hassle, but not much more. I never thought to buy real rain gear until I started riding my bike, but now I wear it even on the walk up to preschool. And it makes all the difference.

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March 14, 2012 · 10:06 am

Electric. Bicycle. Culture clash.

It's Electric! (boogie boogie boogie)

While I was getting lost on the way to Saturday’s class on getting kids on the road, I wandered through the park and library next door, and up to the middle school. There I saw an electric bike with a child trailer attached on the rear. Both of these are such rare sights that I immediately took a picture. Right after I did, the bike’s owner wandered out.

I asked him about his bike and he said he’d gotten it some time ago from a store in Oakland that was briefly importing electric bikes from Europe, and found them such poor sellers that it dumped them all at bargain basement prices. But he’d found the factory motor installed in it too weak, so he’d replaced it with a much more powerful motor, then upgraded the battery to boot. Worth it to buy even with the upgrades, he said, because the bike had a great compartment for the battery integrated into the frame. Then he said he’d just taken the bike up the hill with his two kids and their backpacks in the trailer, without even pedaling.

I was getting the sense that I was in the presence of someone who actually knew something about electric bikes, and this turned out to be the case. His name was Nick, he said, and he wrote columns for a new website, electricbike.com. Sure enough, he does. And then some. Well now.

It turned out he was a car mechanic but he loves bikes more. He thought car culture was crazy. “I tell people their car needs a $2800 repair, and they groan and tell me to do what I have to do. I tell them I can put an electric motor on their bike for $1000 and I’ll throw in the labor for free, and they tell me that it’s too expensive.” He was the first major fan I’ve ever met of electric bikes, and consistent with the tinkering evident in his own bicycle, he was not a fan of BionX, which as a closed system doesn’t allow swapping out parts. Talking to him was worth the embarrassment of showing up late for a class I was supposed to be helping to teach.

I mentioned meeting him to the other parents who were teaching the class. Like almost everyone with kids in the city, they were pretty excited about the prospect of electric assist, although none of us actually had one. Great for seniors riding in the city, said one. Another couple had an 8 year old and 5 year old, and they were commuting to school on a tandem with an Xtracycle FreeRadical on the back, which sounded like a totally awesome ride to me. But the dad, who teaches at Sunset, complained that the Xtracycled tandem was actually harder to get up hills than their old Xtracycled bike with both kids on the back.

What he really wanted for the school commute was a Metrofiets.  Who doesn’t? But they were put off by the cost, and I hear that: I find the cost of a Metrofiets daunting, and university professors typically make more than elementary school teachers (for reasons that elude me).  Nonetheless, unlike me, they were actually willing to make the trip down the Peninsula to Bay Area Cargo Bikes to test ride one, something I’ve avoided as I figure it could only lead me to want to buy another bicycle.

Families on bikes in the heart of the city

They’d been thinking about electric assist, and knew they’d need it if they actually got a box bike, but were having a hard time getting over the feeling that using a motor was somehow cheating. I knew exactly what they meant. It feels like I should be able to ride my bicycle without an electric assist, even though I know that my kids’ current weight is nearing the limit of my abilities. To me and to them, an electric assist felt less like a cool accessory and more like a necessary evil. It felt like compromising the bike for some reason. Heck, some riders feel that way about fenders, or for that matter, brakes. We had all seen the Xtracycle with the red handlebars and an electric assist riding in traffic every morning (there aren’t that many family bikes in this town; you start to get to know them). Not only did we all find that a little scary, it seemed kind of annoying that the guy on that bike doesn’t even bother to pedal.

Looking over downtown San Francisco

What’s more, thinking about the cost of an electric assist really irritated me for some reason. It took me a while to figure out why. Eventually I realized, and this is embarrassing: it was resentment. Parents in other, flatter cities can carry their kids without paying for electric assists, why couldn’t we? Isn’t it enough that we already have a much higher cost of living? When I tell people outside the Bay Area the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco ($3275 as of last month), they typically gasp in disbelief, and say, “I could buy a mansion for that where we live!” Yes, I knew that already, thanks for sharing. We live surrounded by fog 11 months of the year and pay $4.50/gallon for gas (albeit rarely). San Francisco is one of the few places in the country where I know couples who are both well-paid lawyers and who are nonetheless raising their kids underneath the stairs, Harry Potter-style, of a 1-bedroom apartment, because that’s what they can afford. We all make compromises to live here. On top of all that, I have to drop a grand on electric assist when everyone else in the world can haul kids on their bikes fueled only by righteousness and an extra serving of oatmeal in the morning?

This is embarrassing to admit because we are happy to be here. Lots of people say they would be thrilled to trade places with us (although when push comes to shove they usually balk at the prospect of raising their kids in a garret under the stairs). So we’re going to pay more to ride our bikes than we would elsewhere. Why should this be any different from anything else that costs more in the city?

San Francisco isn't Copenhagen

Anyway, I got none of this angst from the electric bike mechanic, or from his website. It was all about the thrill of having a motor. He pointed out that the cost of using an electric assist was bupkis: “You spend more on power if you forget to turn the light in the closet off in the morning.” I now realize that part of the issue with electric bikes is trying to reconcile bicycle culture, which views motors with suspicion because they’re related to cars, which have a bad habit of mowing people down, and mechanic culture, which views bicycles as a neat way to use motors without having to register a vehicle, get a license, or avoid mountain bike trails. But if it’s going to happen anywhere, it will happen here, in the City by the Bay, Gam Saan, with its countless hills.

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March 12, 2012 · 9:42 am

Free riders

A passel of kids' bikes waiting for riders

On Saturday I went back to the Outerlands, specifically to Sunset Elementary School, to attend one of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s Family Biking Series classes, On Road with your Children. To my astonishment, I was asked to attend in a vaguely instructional capacity.

I find it a somewhat depressing comment about the number of families in San Francisco with school-age children (there aren’t many) that I would be considered even vaguely qualified for this assignment. The guy who built up the tricked-out Kona Ute our PTA treasurer used to ride was there. The co-owner of Ocean Cyclery, which sold us my Breezer and our child seats was there. I was outclassed. I can, it is true, research any topic into submission, because doing research is my job and because I’m compulsive. But research is no substitute for experience, so this class involved some ugly duckling moments. The class met at the back of the school, and I had trouble even finding it until other people showed up so I could follow them. The parents teaching the class had been riding bikes for years and it showed; they were more graceful on their bikes than I have ever even aspired to be. And I found out that I was wearing my helmet wrong. All in all, it was a humbling experience.

Lubricating chains: virtually all of them were rusty, because the Sunset is permanently socked in by fog

And it was a hugely informative experience. I didn’t bring my kids; they were at their swim lessons. It is just as well. Neither of them is competent enough on a bike yet to keep up with the kids who showed up for the class. (We are the blind leading the blind over here.) I will, however, take my son when he is more skilled. SFBC’s instructor for this class is fantastic, warm and lively and hugely competent at wrangling both kids and parents. Apparently he has been leading these classes for years. It shows.

This kind of thing isn't helping with the helmet either

Matt and I signed our son up for summer bicycle camp this year. We didn’t thrust this upon him; he has been angling to attend bike camp since he heard that such a thing existed. But we’re all pretty excited about it. We are having trouble teaching him to ride safely because we live on a great big honking hill. Our efforts to talk him into going down to the park, where it’s flatter, to ride always fizzle; his enthusiasm evaporates with the walk down and on the rare occasions when we’re successful, he is too tired to walk back home. Although it is ridiculous to drive such a short distance we would do it, but he hates riding in the car. Bike camp seems to resolve a lot of problems at once; most importantly, it’s taught by someone much more qualified than we are.

Practicing riding in a crowd

We had both harbored ambitions that at the end of a summer at bike camp, our son would be qualified to ride his own bike to school. Attending this class disabused me of this fantasy. The area around the school was slightly hilly, but nothing particularly troublesome for an adult rider used to the city. It was much more difficult for the kids, who were, I realized, mostly riding bicycles that weighed more than half what they do. I have ridden a heavy bike before, and remember how hard it was to start and stop and get up hills, but at least I had a lot of gears to use. The kids did not. No one is selling ultra-light bikes for kids, so I don’t see any realistic way for mine to handle anything more than minor elevation on their own. And the hills along our commute to school are anything but minor.

Practicing riding while looking for cars behind

What’s more, supervising kids on the streets of San Francisco was terrifying. The area around the school is very lightly trafficked, but at stop signs things fell apart. The kids attempted to wave drivers ahead of them, then lurched out into the intersection as those cars actually moved, or waited for cars to stop, then tried to take their turn only to be rushed by drivers who’d grown impatient. There are a lot of decent people behind the wheel in San Francisco, but a lot of jerks as well. I suspect that these kids, as well as our son, would learn to navigate neighborhood streets like these with more practice. But we go through much more serious traffic on our route to school, and I would not trust my kids in some of those intersections for years to come.

Bumpity bump

Overall, I realized that riding in the city is too much to expect our kids to do alone at this age. Our son will not be riding to school on his own bike next year, or the year after. He wants to pedal, so a trailer-bike or tandem may be in our future. But he will not be riding solo.

We are going to be working harder as he grows, and that is daunting. We had talked about possibly not needing an electric assist if our son began riding his own bike. But I cannot imagine hauling my kids up and down the hills to school without help once their combined weight exceeds 100 pounds. We are now in the position where buying a bike accessory that costs more than our bikes themselves seems inevitable.

Despite this, I find I don’t mind the thought of keeping them on our bikes longer. My children have been growing away from me since the day they were born. Even in the newborn barnacle months, they were already exploring the world. It is thrilling to watch them grow more independent, but I know that eventually they will tire of being hugged, of sitting on our laps, of being picked up. My son is in first grade and already conscious that being affectionate with parents is not something that older children do. But when we’re walking or riding up a hill, all of this is forgotten. They look at the climb and want to be small again. “Mommy, will you carry me?” they ask. And I say, yes, I will carry you. I’ll carry you up the hill. I could carry you forever.

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March 10, 2012 · 9:04 pm

Retro child seat

Possibly the world's most awesome child seat

I spotted this achingly cool child seat on a bike parked at a construction site near campus. I couldn’t believe it. The black leather seat, the chrome back–it looks like it was lifted from a modernist bar for preschoolers. It totally outclasses the Huffy.

I remember when I was young, my parents took my sister and me on bike rides in the wire baskets on the handlebars of their bikes. It was horribly uncomfortable, of course, and I sincerely doubt those baskets were rated for the weight of children. But it was a lot of fun nonetheless. Some of my earliest memories are from those rides; seeing the trees dripping with moss during my family’s brief time in Louisiana, or bumping along on the gravel road that led to our house in the Seattle suburbs (this was long before they were built up for hordes of Microsoft employees).

Our parents sometimes tried to take us on walks when we were young, but like most kids our age, we simply didn’t have the stamina to go very far. My parents’ bicycles, with a kid in each front basket, gave them range. Now that we are parents, our bicycles make us free as well.

The seats we use for our children, however, lack style, even compared to a wire front basket. They’re plastic. Putting our kids on the back of the Kona MinUte is an improvement. But overall, the child seat market resembles nothing more than the toys that you can buy at big box stores: giant plastic sandboxes in the shape of turtles, or plastic play kitchens with colors that fade within a few months. There are twee alternatives, of course, like the wooden play kitchens that mimic everything about the plastic ones except the price, which is ten times higher. But I’d prefer to sidestep this market altogether.

This child seat, which looks pretty vintage, is in a class by itself. If my parents had had seats like this they could have ridden with us for hours. I’ve never seen anything like it before. But I want one.

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