Tag Archives: family biking

February 22, 2012 · 3:47 pm

Thinking about electric assist

Okay on the flats, but for the hills we'll need more power

If I could name the #1 thing that makes parents we know in San Francisco who’ve never attempted family biking perk up and say they want to try, it is the words “electric assist.” The other week I said those words in passing to another mom at our daughter’s preschool who has almost no experience riding. She has now told me every day that I’ve seen her since that she is hounding her husband to shop for an electric bike for them when he returns from his current business trip.

Discussions about riding bikes in San Francisco always involve hills, to some extent. This is especially the case if you live, as we do, on a mountain. Mt. Sutro: it’s right there in the name. It burns us, Precious! We’ve learned to ride them, but these hills aren’t easy. If we lived higher up the mountain like some of our neighbors, I would be riding an electric bike right now. Nonetheless hills are at least consistent. Unlike the wind or the traffic, they are predictable. They aren’t going anywhere. I keep thinking that people can get used to anything, but there are destinations in the city we avoid unless we’re driving. And there are times we give up. Last weekend Matt couldn’t face the prospect of riding to the hardware store, which is halfway up the other side of our hill, leaving him the unenviable choice of riding up and down and back, or down and up and back, or driving. Despite the hell that is finding parking in that neighborhood, he drove.

It's easier on the way down

Our friends have a Big Dummy to take their kids to school, and they live on Lone Mountain. They take their kids, their groceries, and on occasion each other, up Lone Mountain. And they tell me they push that bike a lot. They are philosophical about it and call it upper body training. They are opposed to many electric assists for environmental reasons, but they are the exception. Our friends who live on Potrero Hill or nearer the top of Mt. Sutro have said they’d be riding their bicycles daily if they had any idea how to arrange an assist. I myself had no idea. But our kids are getting heavier, and I think it’s time to learn. The only other semi-practical option was suggested by my brother-in-law, who noted that Lance Armstrong became a much better hill climber after getting cancer and losing 20 pounds. I suppose that I could conceivably hack weight off my own frame for a year or so at the same rate my kids were gaining without losing much leg strength. But as a woman in America I really don’t need any more reasons to obsess about body weight, and this strategy would only work for so long anyway.

Option #1a: Buy a new electric bike. There is a new shop (and some established ones) in San Francisco dedicated to electric bikes. But when I look at their bike lines, they do not seem practical for family use. Most seem to lack basics like rear racks, and overall remind me of the Bikeyface cartoon about “ordinary black lace panty” bikes (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Perhaps one day this will change.  But the word on dedicated electric bikes is that the bikes themselves are often cheaply made. To keep the price point less terrifying, the money is in the motor.

Option #1b: Buy a new electric cargo bike. Both Kona and Yuba make electric cargo bikes, the Electric Ute and the El Mundo, respectively. These are obviously suited to family use, and they are both respectable manufacturers who primarily make bikes rather than slapping some bike components onto a motor. These bikes are expensive relative to the non-electric versions (all electric bikes are expensive) but they seem to offer some economies of scale; the electric versions cost less than it would cost to buy a non-electric version and add a comparable motor to it. If you’re looking for a new cargo bike, these seem like competitive options. However we have a cargo bike that we like, and living in the city makes us reluctant to commit to a really long bike like the Ute or the Mundo.

Option 2: Add a motor to the bike. This is the direction we’re leaning if we electrify: we have bikes we like right now, and if we wanted to upgrade/change bikes later, we could move the motor, potentially sparing ourselves the cost of upgrading more than once. But the market for add-on electric assists is massively confusing to me. Older reviews suggest that some manufacturers offered pedal assist (e.g. BionX, Stokemonkey) and some offered throttle assist (e.g. eZee, nearly everyone else). Not sure what’s up with the random capitalization by these manufacturers. What that means as I read it:

  • pedal assist motors make you stronger as you pedal, but won’t work unless you’re pedaling
  • throttle assists operate with a switch on the handlebars and move the bike along whether or not you’re pedaling.

But evidently this is moot now because primarily pedal-assist motors now offer the option of moving your bike whether or not you’re pedaling (BionX) and primarily throttle assist motors now offer what some are calling “the European option” of only working when you’re pedaling (eZee), a term which I can only assume refers to some legal restriction on electric assist bikes in Continental locales. As a bonus, the major brands all seem to offer head and tail lights that plug into the battery. Whoo hoo!

As a result I have started thinking about electric assists in the simplest possible terms for a total noob like me: front wheel, back wheel, and inbetween.

Front wheel motors

You can buy these all over the place, including on Amazon; eZee is apparently the market leader. The El Mundo uses an eZee motor; some models are evidently powerful enough to move a loaded cargo bike. An important caution: You shouldn’t put a front wheel motor on an aluminum front fork. It will break while you’re riding and fling you headfirst onto the ground. GOOD TO KNOW! This is mentioned occasionally on sources like online bicycle forums and on the websites of what appear to be reputable electric bike shops, but is not routinely mentioned in the advertising for these motors. The electric assist market is a Wild West indeed.

Costs for these motors seem to range from $400 or so for a low-power version with heavy batteries (not cargo-bike friendly) to $1500 or so for a high-torque version with lighter weight batteries. Installation not included, and given that people are evidently mounting them on aluminum forks on occasion, I would be inclined to find a reputable bike shop for installation even if I weren’t hopelessly unhandy. Who knows what else could go wrong?

The Kona has an aluminum fork: no front wheel motor on our MinUte. The Breezer has a steel front fork (the specs said “chromoly” which I had to look up, because in case it’s not totally clear by now, I’m clueless; another option is to see if a magnet sticks to your fork, if yes, your fork is steel). So we could put a front wheel motor on the Uptown.

Rear wheel motors

The market leader in rear wheel motors is apparently BionX. It is primarily a pedal assist motor, but the newer versions claim you can use it without pedaling if you want. The BionX motor comes in various powers, some suitable for cargo bikes and hills, others less so. BionX appears to be sort of the Apple of electric assists; expensive and incompatible with other systems, but stylish and easy to use. The newest versions have cool features like locking the rear wheel when you walk away with the console, making the bike more difficult to steal.  Reviews suggest that riding with the BionX is a lot of fun; you pick a level of assist (25% extra to 300% extra) and when you push down hard on the pedals, the battery sends out that much extra power to make riding easier. This would be super-handy at stop lights as well as on the hills. This motor only works on bicycles that use a derailleur on the rear rather than an internally geared hub.

Cost seems to range from $1000 for a system that might not move a loaded cargo bike uphill to $2000 for the top-of-the-line system with lots of torque and security features, installation not included.

My Breezer has an internally geared hub and I like it: no BionX for the Uptown. The Kona MinUte has a derailleur so we could put a rear wheel motor on it. How can you tell if you have an internally geared hub? It’s like true love; you already know.

Inbetween

Let’s say you have an aluminum front fork and an internally geared hub and no desire to buy a new bike. Or you are carrying very heavy loads. Apparently there are also motors called mid-drive motors that attach to the chain. They are recommended for cargo bikes because they have a lot of torque. The only two I have heard of are the EcoSpeed and the now-out-of-production Stokemonkey. The Stokemonkey, if it were possible to find one used, is pedal-assist only (a discussion of the pros and cons of this for one family, relative to the eZee kit, is here). And evidently really, really powerful; it took a loaded cargo bike up Russian Hill! That’s over a 30% grade.

Costs are heart-stopping even for electric assists. The EcoSpeed runs over $3k. Installation is evidently challenging. It’s not for the faint of heart, unless of course you live in Portland, where all these motors are made, and where presumably any bike mechanic could install one with their eyes closed in exchange for a pint of artisanal beer sold from a Metrofiets.

Should we get an electric assist? I don’t know. They’re expensive, and that’s daunting. But we’d probably ride a lot more, and that is worth something too. We fear the hills more and more as the kids grow. We are fortunate that there are at least bike shops in San Francisco that seem to specialize in electric motors. Both Big Swingin’ Cycles and The New Wheel will put a BionX on a bike, and Electric Bicycle Outlet will install an eZee kit. Maybe it’s time for us to actually visit one of them.

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February 15, 2012 · 1:27 pm

Loaner bike: The Yuba Mundo v4 (hello, goodbye)

Two cargo bikes squeeze into a bike rack...

Last night the loaner Yuba Mundo went home to Marin. It was fun while it lasted. I had, until a couple of weeks ago, never ridden a real longtail before, and as I’ve mentioned, it takes some getting used to. Our friends who were used to riding a Surly Big Dummy liked it a lot. “It carries three kids and you don’t even notice! And it’s cheap!” They are, of course, very used to riding with two kids on the back. In fact they rarely do anything else. My brother-in-law hated the Mundo. “I hate this bike,” he said. It was unclear whether it was the bike itself or the experience of riding any kind of long bike with two kids on the back. With hindsight I lean toward the latter.

After riding it for two weeks, the Mundo grew on me. I conclude after this experience that big bikes have a significant learning curve. If you’re in the market for one, especially as a first bike, it’s something to consider. A case in point: I dropped the Mundo with both kids on it. In front of our local bike shop. The bike shop guys ran out in horror and offered us their shop Ute as a loaner to get home. It was mortifying. At first I thought it was just me, so it was reassuring to hear from Family Ride and A Simple Six that this is one of those things that just happens sometimes. The kids were unharmed although startled. I now put this experience in the same category as dropping the baby off the bed. When I was in grad school my advisor told those of us who were expecting that one day, a while after our kids were born, we would put them on the bed and they would roll off. “It happens to everyone,” he said. “I’m telling you now so you don’t beat yourself up about it. They’ll be fine.”

Fully loaded

I really liked having the ability to carry two kids and a load of groceries in San Francisco (and this is particularly appealing for younger kids who need child seats). It is pretty amazing. People who live in flat areas with no hills to speak of love their box bikes (bakfiets, Madsens), but almost everyone agrees that those bikes won’t climb real hills, and getting down them on the other side raises safety issues. San Francisco has real hills. The Mundo may be heavy, but it cranks up the hills; I never had to walk it. Based on our experience so far, I now believe that people who live in hilly terrain should buy bikes from companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area, or maybe Seattle.

(There is evidently one exception to the “box bikes won’t climb” rule, the custom Metrofiets. Down in SoCal, Bike Temecula is riding a Metrofiets with a BionX electric assist. Although that bike is unquestionably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen on two wheels, it is not cheap. A Metrofiets with kid seats costs $5k WITHOUT the electric assist [update: Metrofiets notes below that the price is just under $4k; Splendid Cycles lists the box with child seat as an add-on for $665 and a harness as an add-on for $100]. We could buy normal bikes with electric assists for everyone in our family for that kind of cash. Or a used car, were we so inclined, which we are not. Where we’d store any of those things is a different question entirely.)

There are things I would change about the Yuba Mundo. My personal pet peeve is dynamo lights; I think all family bikes should have them, and the Mundo does not (it’s not even an option). In San Francisco, the bike should be fitted with disc brakes (this is an option, and not an expensive one, either). The child seat mount would be infinitely better if it were possible to slide the seats forward and back, possibly on rails? I would have preferred the Peanut seat about 6 inches forward from where it was, because it leaned beyond the rear tire, which made the bike wag. And when I had only my daughter on board, I would have liked to slide it all the way forward, which would have made it much easier to get up steep hills and to talk to her.

There are also a lot of things to like about this bike just as it is. It can move major-league weight, way more even than other long tail bikes. And you don’t even feel it except at the starts and stops. This is pretty amazing, especially considering the weight of kids and their gear. My two kids together are ~80lbs stark naked, but outside the house they always have clothing on, and on any kind of trip we add in lunches and book bags and toys. The weight adds up fast, particularly if you want to stop and pick up groceries. (And if the weight gets out of hand as the kids get older, Yuba sells an electric version, the elMundo.) The Bread Basket was unnerving to ride with at first, but absolutely awesome. When it was loaded up I barely noticed riding over potholes or Muni tracks. Our son loved the soft seat cushion and wants one for the MinUte. And the bike acoustics are good; this may sound like an odd concern, but it’s useful to be able to hear the kid in the back. Our kids liked riding on this bike. They called it The Beast.

Yuba sometimes bills the Mundo as a minivan replacement, but I don’t quite agree with that. Minivans are plusher. The Mundo reminds me more of a pickup truck; stripped down but effective at moving stuff where you need to go. Yuba is like the Ikea of bicycle manufacturing, peeling off everything optional to keep the bike at a price point that does not make novice riders laugh in disbelief. As long-term recovering cheapskates (we’re so cheap that we bought our Ikea furniture on craigslist, given that the kids are going to trash it anyway), I like that there’s a cargo bike manufacturer with this business model.

In contrast, a bike like the Surly Big Dummy is more of a station wagon concept car, which can be customized to do anything you want, but only if you know what to ask for and can swallow the price. The minivan of bikes is the box bike.

Classic San Francisco pinch point

Would we get a Mundo? No, but that’s not a knock against it, but a statement about our lifestyle. We wouldn’t get a Mundo for the same reason we don’t have a back yard. We’ve made a choice to live in a large city, and that choice involves some compromises. We have, by city standards, amazing bicycle storage, but even we had to rearrange that space around the Mundo.  San Francisco has serious traffic, and maneuvering a big bike through it led to some frustrating moments; another bike would whiz through a pinch point in front of me, and I would realize I had to wait until it cleared. Parking the bike, even at bike racks, always involved a little jiggering around tight corners and other bikes—I was in that situation when the Mundo fell over. There is a lot of starting and stopping in the city, and that is difficult with a heavy bike. The Kona MinUte, we’ve realized, may represent the outside range of bikes that we can handle in San Francisco. I wasn’t surprised when the Yuba rep told me that most of their customers lived in inner-ring suburbs or smaller cities. That seems like this bike’s ideal stomping ground. The Costco run holds no fears for the Mundo.

We are lucky devils indeed to live in San Francisco, and being shut out of a few categories of bicycle seems like a small price to pay for the privilege. I’m glad we had the chance to try the Yuba Mundo, and although we won’t miss figuring out where to put it, all of us, especially the kids, will miss having the chance to ride it sometimes.

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February 13, 2012 · 10:28 am

Riding to school on the Bobike Junior

A while back Matt tore a muscle in his calf, and he’s been limping around ever since. He can walk short distances, but ideally wouldn’t be walking as much as he is, and that’s slowed his recovery. He hasn’t been able to ride his bike for at least two weeks. He’s not happy about it.

Headed for the big hill on the Bobike Junior

Our son’s school is on the way to Matt’s office (more or less) so normally they ride together, Matt drops him off, then continues on to work. He also typically does the pickup at after-school, and they ride home through Golden Gate Park. The MinUte is always ready to pop a kid (or even two, if they’re old enough to hold on) on the back.

So for the last couple of weeks, I have been doing most of our son’s drop-offs and some of the pickups. It’s been nice to have this extra time with him in the morning. I hadn’t used the Bobike Junior regularly; it pops on and off the bike in less than a minute, and for regular commutes it is mostly off. But for the last week it has been on my bike full-time. On our morning rides, we bomb down the hill from our house as a starter (no worries: the neighbors already have Child Protective Services on speed dial) and head into Golden Gate Park, over to the Panhandle, then up to Alamo Square and back down to Japantown. This is a very cool ride; in the early morning, when it’s still half-light, the park is still thin on other bicycle commuters and the trees hide the car traffic on either side.

Waiting for the light in the panhandle

Our son can be very chatty on the bike, and he enjoys the view. He is sometimes irritated by the pannier encroaching on his foot rest, and the other day, he entertained himself by lightly kicking my calf on every pedal stroke. “I don’t want to ride with the pannier again!” he yelled. “I don’t want to shove a backpack in your face,” I answered. I forget what else we talked about, and now only remember that we were laughing so hard that we were bothering the joggers, who normally reside exclusively in iPod land. We learned later that one of his classmates saw us while driving by (we arrived at school only a minute later than they did, which still astonishes me). Her dad told me that she asked why she couldn’t ride to school too.

I like the way the Breezer takes the hills, so when we’re headed up to Alamo Square and the lights are timed right, we can jump up the incline pretty fast. That day we raced a garbage truck. We lost, but held our lead for longer than I expected, given that I had a 1st grader and his school gear on the back.

The loathsome eastern approach to my office

After his drop-off I head up to work, taking the grim eastward approach to Laurel Heights, which packs all of the elevation in at once at Post Street, then drops me off at the intersection of California and Presidio, a nightmarish snarl that usually leaves me walking my bike through the intersection rather than attempting to ride it. Thank goodness I have a step-through frame: hit the red light, slither off to one side, walk the bike through the crosswalks, hop back on.

People always ask me whether the folded Junior is a battery pack

I am still vaguely amazed that a seat like the Bobike Junior even exists. It solves an unusual problem; most parents with kids our son’s age would have them riding to school on their own bikes. Traffic and hills and the transition to after-school make that impossible for us, but I don’t think our situation is exactly typical. And yet thanks to the canny Dutch, we’ve found an out-of-the-box solution that’s both effective and a lot of fun.

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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 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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Filed under commuting, family biking, San Francisco, Yuba Mundo

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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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