Category Archives: Biking

#Spring

Sure, everyone and their grandma is writing a “Spring” post today, but I can’t resist.  This is what we’ve been waiting for, through the cold, snowy winter!

Spring in the garden
Matthew took a vacation day today, so that he can spend both today and tomorrow in the garden.  (Unfortunately, his productivity may be limited by a respiratory virus he seems to have picked up.)  There are potatoes to plant (just a wee bit later than past years) and onions and leeks to get in the ground.

He’s going to hold off on the fennel and cruciferous, since there is still more cold in our forecast.  Those seedlings are hanging out here with me, in a temporary chicken-wire cage to protect them from voracious rabbits.

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Realistically, even with two days at the garden, he probably wouldn’t have time to get these in the ground this weekend anyway, so it’s not the end of the world.  We’ll bring them back in under the grow lights for the cold nights.

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Awaiting our longtail
As of two weekends ago, we pretty much finalized everything for our bike, including picking out handlebars and tires.

When I posted a couple of weeks ago, a reader and bike shop owner informed me that the Yepp Maxi Standard was not the seat that was compatible with the  Xtracycle Edgerunner.  Bummer, because I’m not sure that my original EBay purchase is returnable, but better to find out when we were still waiting on the bike and had time to get the correct seat (still trying to sell the blue standard seat on Craigslist, and hoping the spring weather will generate more interest).

Our Yepp Maxi Easyfit arrived on Wednesday, so we now have the correct seat to go on our bike.  We decided the lime-colored seat was our top choice, and I managed to find a used one on Amazon, which I wasn’t expecting!

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I would call it more of “safety yellow” than “lime green” — it’s not a bad color, but definitely not my favorite.   It will certainly be visible, which is something.  Also, it will be behind me on the bike, so I won’t really have to look at it all that much!

Now all we need is the bike — fingers crossed for no more delays!

Happy Spring!

Blurry bike date on South Grand

What started as a not-so-fun, lingering item on my to-do list turned into a fun excuse for a date night last Friday.  My long-overdue yearly eye exam included having my eyes dilated.  Apparently I’ve been avoiding that part of the eye exam for a number of years, probably because not being able to drive (or bike) home afterward is quite inconvenient.  At any rate, I had no recollection of how limiting, or long-lasting, the effects of the dilation would be.

I scheduled the appointment for late in the afternoon on a Friday, a time when Matthew would be able to pick me up.  The plan was either that I would take the car, and he would bike to meet me and drive us both home in the car, or I would bike to my appointment, and he would get the car and provide taxi service for me.

My eye doctor is located smack in the middle of the restaurant goodness that is South Grand, so we decided to add dinner to the deal.

In the end, there was no car involved.  It was a lovely day, and I wanted to bike, and Matthew preferred to bike straight from his physical therapy appointment to meet me, instead of stopping home for the car.  We were gambling that, by the time we were finished with dinner, I would be fine to bike home.

The dilation did, indeed, do a number on my vision for quite awhile.  I thought the main issue would be extreme light sensitivity, but the limiting factor was blurry vision.  I could see several inches in front of my face fairly clearly, but, beyond that, the world was a big blur.  My vision was fine for walking speed — I safely navigated the sidewalks and a few street crossings on South Grand on foot while waiting for Matthew to join me for dinner — but I was in no shape to be operating any kind of vehicle, motorized or not.

Anyhow, I discovered a couple of fun shops in my hazy state, including Parsimonia, a vintage clothing store, where I bought a dress, and the very cool Upcycle Exchange, “a post-consumer art and craft supply store.”  If you want to visit, check out their Wish List first, to see if there’s anything you can donate.

The owners/employees at both shops were very kind, i.e., they didn’t kick me out or call the police despite my very odd behavior of having to hold anything I wanted to see six inches from my face.

By the time we were seated for dinner at Pho Grand, it was over an hour since the eye dilation drops, and I was beginning to fear that Matthew was going to have to bike home and get the car after all.  By the time we finished our meal, I was feeling a bit more confident of my vision.  We delayed just a bit more by sharing gelato, and that did the trick.

Three hours after having my eyes dilated, I was finally good to bike home.  We enjoyed a fairly low-key ride home.  It was the first time I’ve biked in the dark since getting a new front light for Christmas, and, of course, I forgot the new light, so I have yet to try it.  Next time!

Toy bicycle preview

Shhhhhh . . . don’t tell Pookie, but the toy bicycles I ordered for him arrived.

While I’m excited for him to begin playing with them (and thus address his utter lack of toy bicycles), the kid doesn’t have any shortage of toys in general, and Easter isn’t that far away.  I think I can hold out for a few weeks.

I actually had to distract him when the packages arrived; he wanted to open them immediately.  I waited until he wasn’t around, which was just as well, because I opened the package to find this.

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Some assembly required, apparently.  It all just snapped together, no tools required.  I did have to refer to the pictures a couple of times since it did not include directions for assembly, but in just a few minutes, we were ready to ride.

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I assembled this set, which did not include Playmobil people first.  I was hoping the bicycles would work with his Lego Duplo people (pictured in the trailer) and some other little wooden people we have (pictured riding the bike), but they don’t really fit on the bicycles.

I was feeling a little bummed, until I looked at the other set I ordered.  It conveniently came with three Playmobil people . . .

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. . . for a total of 3 bikes and 3 people between the two sets.  It actually could not have worked out more perfectly:  there is one adult for the one “adult-sized” bike and two kid for the two kid-sized bikes.

Gabriel is right at the age where he’s getting more creative with his play, and starting to incorporate some story lines.  I look forward to people on bikes being part of that play!

Note: These are marked as age 3+, and, since they come apart, there are definitely small parts involved.  I would really have been fine giving these to Gabriel at age 2, with supervision, especially because he’s never really been the sort to put [non-food] stuff in his mouth.

Toys that don’t reinforce the car culture

Sir loves his “things that go,” and he has no lack of toy cars, including construction equipment and tractors.  It’s fun to watch his play continue to be more creative, but something is missing from his collection — toy bicycles.

We do what we can, lifestyle-wise, to share our love of bicycle transportation with our son, but I feel like the car culture is so predominant that we need every advantage we can get, including incorporating bicycles in play time.

Over the past year-and-a-half, I’ve been disappointed by the lack of toy bicycles.  I’m relatively certain (and have some evidence) that toy bicycles would be just as exciting as toy cars, but he can’t play with them if he doesn’t have them (or if they don’t exist).

My sister found this cute model BMX bike at a thrift store or garage sale last year.

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We don’t know much about it’s origins, but a bit of use quickly showed that it was more for decoration than play (or at least not up to toddler play), as more and more parts fell off (first the pedals, then the rear wheel, then the handlebars).  I couldn’t figure out any fixes that really made it usable, nor could I purchase a replacement, so it was back to the drawing board . . . .

A little bit of digging uncovered this post, from a family with a similar mindset, seeking toy bicycles to add for their kids.  They shared links to some options from Playmobil including a child biking to school and a bicycle pulling a trailer.

I’ve been holding off on buying these for a couple of months now, but I just noticed that the bicycle with trailer has limited availability, so, order placed.  (Now we’ll see if I can wait and save these for Easter and/or birthday gifts.)

I also found some information on model bicycles, which may be a good option for when Sir is a bit older.  In this realm, there are some great options here, especially the set of four with a trailer and the family with mom, dad, baby, and trailer.  Also, a few things here.

So, while there are some options out there, I would love to see toy manufacturers do better in this area, especially those that claim to be “green.”  How green is it if you only make toys that reinforce the idea that we have to drive a motor vehicle everywhere?

My errand boy has a bum knee

Matthew has a couple of normal routes to/from work, that, with small detours, can easily include a stop at the library, a store on The Hill, or Local Harvest Grocery.  Since we’re rather heavy library users (we traded paying for Netflix for free DVDs from the library), having a branch conveniently located along his work commute is not only convenient, but rather essential for picking up holds and returning materials in a timely manner to avoid fines.

Part of Matthew’s motive in getting a road-ish bike (first the Surly, then the Salsa) was the hope that a different riding position/posture would address some ongoing knee pain he’s had since at least this time last year.  While the pain may just be an overuse thing, he’s been wondering if it’s related to the crash he had in the October 2012.  At the time, the severely sprained toe got all the attention, but it’s certainly possible he damaged his knee at the same time.

Anyway, after buying the Salsa, and then going through a series of bike fittings, adjustments, and part swaps (new handlebar stem, new saddle) to tweak his position on the bike, he hoped to resolve the problem, but the pain persists, and it seems that cycling is the one thing that aggravates it.

He has an appointment with a doctor, and he also decided to take a hiatus from biking to work.  This is a bummer on many levels: 1) instead of coming and going on his own schedule, he has to work around the bus schedule; 2) he’s not getting his usual physical activity; and 3) he can’t easily run the library and grocery errands.

For the time being, we’ve switched our library requests to the branch that is closer to our apartment (which is [usually] more convenient for me than the branch on his way to work).  The grocery errands end up being delayed until one or the other of us will be in the vicinity with the car (or until I will be in the vicinity on my bike), since I don’t usually have time to make a bike trip just to run that one errand.

For all of our sake’s (but mostly his), I hope we figure out the knee thing soon.  Biking is a great form of transportation, but while you certainly don’t have to be an Olympic athlete to commute by bike, it does depend on having a relatively healthy, able body.