Category Archives: Biking

Dinner for one and full moon ride

After weighing options, including Shakespeare in the Park, for last night’s baby-free entertainment, I settled on a talk hosted by the St. Louis Ecovilliage Network on building intentional communities.

Once I’d made up my mind, I planned my bike route.  The event was held just east of Carondolet Park, a part of town to which I’d biked several weeks ago for a job interview.  On that occasion, a bike lane along most of the route I picked marred what should have been a straightforward, pleasant trip.  I was not comfortable in the bike lane (with the door zone danger, intersection conflict zones, etc.), but motorists tend not to understand or have patience for cyclists shunning bike lanes.

With the foreknowledge of the bike-laned roads, I carefully mapped my route to avoid them, making for a much more pleasant ride.

I can’t remember the last time I rode at night, so before heading out, I hunted down my front and rear lights and made sure they were in working order.  The rear lights were a bit tricky to find — after searching and coming up empty in the bags on both of my bikes, as well as in the garage, I turned to Matthew’s bike gear bag.  Turned out someone was hoarding bike lights!

Lights found, I turned to putting together a quick dinner for myself.  I’ve had reuben sandwiches on the tentative menu to quite some time, and Matthew recently bought Swiss cheese, but we were quite low on kraut (must make more!).  However, while not enough for multiple sandwiches, the remainder of the kraut was perfect for one.

It was also definitely time, as the Swiss cheese had a few small moldy spots.  I scraped them off with my finger nail and carried on (as much as I’m really particular about food safety in some ways, in others I’m quite a bit more relaxed — a confusing dichotomy to be sure!).

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‘Twas a simple and delicious dinner, if a bit veggie-light for my preferences.

I headed out on my bike immediately after eating.  Other than heavy squinting due to lack of sunglasses, I enjoyed the ride there.

A few sentences won’t due it justice, but the talk on building intentional communities was very inspiring — so glad I attended!

Afterward, I headed home, biking into the tail end of a sunset, the colors gently fading to darkness, while the full moon rose behind me.  After a few blocks, my slight apprehension about riding unfamiliar streets in the dark faded as well, and I thoroughly enjoyed my own little full moon bike ride.

One possible change for the future — Matthew has been encouraging me to upgrade my front light (after doing so himself).  I’m still not sure it’s worth it for very infrequent night riding, but there were some stretches last night, where the trees blocked out the streetlight almost completely, where I would have benefited from more illumination on the road ahead of me.

Lately

Last week ended on a bit of a down note, with some not-so-great news that set us back in our plans to buy a longtail cargo bike.  We’re somewhat back to the drawing board and once again weighing options on that front.  Had that not happened, I might have been out and about on a sweet new ride this morning.

As it was, we headed out on the trusty BUB plus IBert front seat combo for a nice visit to the Botanical Garden.  It was a bit chilly, but in a good way — definitely not complaining, especially with scorching summer heat right around the corner!

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After visiting the sheep, we continued on to the raccoons.  He discovered them on our last garden visit, and they’ve quickly become a new favorite.

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Backtracking a bit, we all spent Saturday at the garden, arriving at 8 a.m. and not leaving until almost five (Sir and me).  Someone else stayed until almost seven!  ‘Tis the danger of a commuter garden and a number of consecutive rainy and/or ground-too-wet-to-work Saturdays.

I forgot the camera, but we really whipped things into shape, with tons of weeding followed by mulching with decomposing leaves from the compost pile.  I was a bit of a slacker, choosing the less-tedious, more instant gratification tasks of weeding and mulching the fennel and potatoes.  I just couldn’t face the four by a million foot onion and leek bed, filled with tiny onion and leek plants which were easily outnumbered by weeds — props to Matthew for his work here!

Sunday found us tired and sore, so we started the day with a low-key family ride to the park.  Sir attempted to walk down a slide (or some such), and did a number on his face, which is surprisingly well-hidden in the above photos.  Later in the morning, we headed out to brunch with cohousing friends before returning for a lazy evening.

In addition to regular daily “stuff,” I’ve been packing for Sir’s trip to Florida.  He leaves tomorrow and we’ll be apart for NINE whole days!

Tonight marks the end of our twenty-two-and-a-half month breastfeeding journey (more on food and weaning in an upcoming post) — definitely bittersweet that it’s coming to an end . . . .

That about wraps up the last week, so I’ll catch you later!

Bike to Work Day

The last Bike to Work Day when I actually biked to work was probably May 2009, which predates this blog.  The past three years, I worked a Monday through Thursday job, and the official “day” is always a Friday.  It would have been a moot point anyway, since I traded my bike commute (when almost everyday was bike to work day) for a car commute when I took that job.

Anyhow, despite the lack of a job to bike to, I did enjoy the opportunity for a nice morning bike ride to a refueling station at least one of those years.  Tomorrow morning’s plans don’t include being out and about early enough to visit one of the stops, but we’ll be on our bike later in the day.

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Going to the playground is a hard job, but somebody’s gotta do it!

Where are you riding today?  Or where have you ridden this week?

Longtail comparison: Yuba Mundo, Kona Ute, and Surly Big Dummy

Update [5/19/2015]: Though not originally on our list, we ended up choosing the Xtracycle Edgerunner.  We’ve had the bike for a year now, and couldn’t be happier with our choice.  Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to adding it to this comparison chart.

I’ve been drooling over longtail cargo bikes for more than a year now, and, with Sir close to outgrowing the IBert, the time has come.

Over the past few months, we’ve done our research, comparing the options and doing some limited test riding.  I created this table to aid in the comparison process.  We eliminated the Big Dummy fairly early on, given its sticker price and lower load capacity, hence the incomplete column.

Kona Ute

Yuba Mundo

Surly Big Dummy
Base price $1300 $1250 $2400-2600
Weight 35+ lbs 48 lbs
Max Hauling Cap. ??? 440 lbs (+rider) 400 lbs total
Bags X $129 (x2)
Toddler seat $230 $169
Fenders X X
Front-wheel stabilizer X X
Side loaders no X
Disc brakes X $100-$250
Kickstand X X

An “X” indicates that the feature is included in the base price of the bike.

The Ute comes in an 18″ and 20″ frame size.  At 6’2″, Matthew was comfortable on both.  I rode the 20″ MinUte and found it fairly comfortable, although I wondered if I would have felt a bit more stable on the 18″.

The rear wheel on the Ute is larger than that on other longtails, meaning that the load on the rear rack has a higher center of gravity.  I’ve read some complaints about this making the bicycle difficult to handle, particularly for shorter riders.

The Mundo frame is one-size-fits-all riders from 5′ to 6’5″.  I met a local Mundo family, but so far our efforts to set up a test ride haven’t worked (their bike needs a new wheel and some other work to be ride-able).  Unfortunately, there are not [yet] any Yuba dealers in St. Louis.  The closest dealer is two hours away in Columbia, MO, so we have yet to test ride a Mundo.

Since longtails are a rarity around here, our chances of finding a used one of any kind is practically zero.

Despite it feeling a bit like flying blind, since I’ve never ridden either the Ute or the Mundo (or any other longtail, for that matter), we’ve decided to take the plunge.  So, any guesses which bike we’re picking?

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Read more longtail reviews (from people who’ve actually ridden them!) and check out some other cargo bike options at the links below:

Cargo bike pocket reviews
Loaner bike: Yuba Mundo v4
We ride: Our Fleet
Joe Bike — Cargo bikes

Mother’s Day weekend by bike

This year, we moved our Mother’s Day celebrations to Saturday to accommodate some Sunday gardening.  We enjoyed beautiful weather (sunny and 60s) all weekend long.

We started with a bike trip to Tower Grove Farmers’ Market.  Given the size of our garden, farmers’ market trips are fairly rare for us these days, more so for Matthew and Gabriel, who usually spend Saturdays at the garden, so being there as a family, soaking up all of the beauty that is local, small-scale produce, was a real treat!

We purchased asparagus and rhubarb in quantities to freeze, and then I headed to the playground with Sir, while Matthew biked a little farther for some goodness from La Pastisserie Chouquette: a bourbon pecan sticky bun and an almond and cheese-filled [pastry] pillow, shared three ways.

On our way home, we chose “the road less traveled [by bicyclists],” continuing south on Kingshighway (a major north-south arterial in StL, two lanes each direction with a center turn lane) for most of our return trip, rather than diverting to smaller neighborhood streets after using the bigger road for a short stretch, as is our habit.

It’s not what I’d do every time, but for duo biking, it worked like a charm, and was much more pleasant than our route on the way there.  Plenty of space for us and other road users, two stops at stop lights as compared to over ten stop signs . . .  what’s not to love?

As we neared our turn, we heard a honk (the only honk we received in over a mile).  I would have thought nothing of it, shrugging it off as a the proverbial “territorial barking dog motorist,” but the man pulled up next to us with his window down and very sincerely praised our good work “claiming the lane.”  Talk about a great end to a lovely bike outing!!!

After a low-key afternoon (and blanching and freezing the asparagus), Matthew made a special dinner — spanikopita, using pie crust (super light and flaky thanks to his pastry chef skills!) instead of phyllo dough.

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I enjoyed some solo time on actual Mother’s Day, which included two more bike rides.  I once again had a nice interaction with a motorist, when, stopped at a light in the through lane, the woman in the minivan in the right turn only lane next to me rolled down her window and very politely said that she just realized she was in the wrong lane and could she get in front of me.  Why, yes, and thank you for asking!

‘Twas a weekend of abundant good, weather, good spirits, and biking!  Hope your weekend was lovely as well.