During a few conversations I’ve had over the past few months (which, with my current memory, probably means closer to “a year”) I’ve found myself saying, “I can’t wait until Simon’s at the same school as Sophia. Then I won’t have to use my car any more.” Because the school’s within walking distance, and the market is not too much further beyond that. We already walk downtown to go to various restaurants and stores.
A few months back I found myself saying, “Why wait? What would I have to do right now to use my car as little as possible?”
I’m just tired of driving. 90% of everywhere I go is within 5 miles of my home, and I sometimes feel like I’m starting and stopping, starting and stopping, circling for a space, starting and stopping… And after reading a few tomes like Asphalt Nation, Road To Ruin: An Introduction to Sprawl and How to Cure It, The High Cost of Free Parking, Divorce Your Car, and The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies, not to mention watching videos like Robert Newman’s History of Oil, I don’t exactly have blinders on to what I’m doing by driving everywhere.
The big reason I need the car? Kids. Taking Simon to preschool and picking him up. Going to the grocery store with them. Taking them to the park.
So one day I found myself wondering, “So how much would a pedicab be, anyhow?” Not that I’d really do it, of course. But wouldn’t it be fun to think about?
I found Bikes At Work, an American company that specializes in pedicabs and freight bikes. I also found Henry WorkCycles, a Dutch firm that has the coolest cycles — look at this bike and tell me you don’t want to grab a few kids and take them for a spin. But none of the bikes on these pages leaped off the page at me, or, more importantly, seemed like something I could really get into. Onto. Whatever.
Then I came across the Xtracycle. Ooo. Ooooooooo. I saw the possibilities of this immediately, particularly when running across pictures of the bike in use, such as Todd’s tale of “One Mom, Two Kids, Four Bags of Groceries.” I might not be able to use a bike for everything, but it sure looks like I could use it for quite a few more things than I do now.
And then something snapped, and I just went Bike Crazy. Lots of bike blogs (see List o’ Links). Books on bike mechanics, on bicycle history, on bicycle tours cross-country. Bike forums.
I haven’t gotten an Xtracycle yet — for whatever reason, the cash flow gods have not smiled benevolently on me since I first desired one, but as soon as they do, I am getting that puppy — but I have started riding my bike (a Trek 720 hybrid, 17″ frame). I rode it downtown to the post office and then to the park to drop off Sophia’s application for science summer camp. Emboldened by my success (and how much fun I had), I bought some grocery panniers and went to the market. It’s only a mile away, so driving there is more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s a teensy bit too far to walk. I can’t get very much in these two bags, but that’s okay: shouldn’t be buying that much anyhow, right?
(Of course, there is no bike rack at the local market — I use the Handicapped parking space’s sign. There is no bike rack at the Whole Foods either, which is of course the fault of the shopping center’s management but still.)
Yesterday I voted and then went to the market on my bike. Which meant riding up a steep hill in granny gear, and I made it. I was excessively proud of myself for the next five to seven minutes after that one.
Today I went completely nuts and bicycled to the gym. Which is 5 miles away, although it’s over completely flat ground.
Errr… wait a minute. Flat? Not so much, as it turned out. One of the great things about riding a bike (or running, for that matter) is that you experience your surroundings in a whole different way than you do if you’re in a car. I always know the names of streets and the layouts of the surrounding areas better than Darin does, because I’m out there doing it on foot. Today I learned that Highway 9 and Quito are actually really damn hilly, at least if you’re as out of shape as I apparently am. Bicycle-wise, at any rate. It’s amazing how many different muscles bicycling uses than running. Yowch.
It took me 30 minutes to go the 5 miles to the gym and 30 back, which I assume would get faster the better a rider I became. According to my fitness watch, I spent about 500 calories doing these 10 miles. Bicycle 10 miles a day, eat anything I want. And I’m having trouble signing up for this plan? I don’t think so.
What these recent excursions have proved to me is not just that I could switch to the bike for lots of things, but it would be practical. I could take Simon to school the three days a week he goes. I could do the food shopping. Okay, I’d need the car to take the kids to the Rosicrucian Museum, but hey — how many times a week do we go there? (Answer: way far less often than they want to go, that’s for sure. I’m not sure why they like it so much, but they do.) And if I don’t have to spend $60 a week to fill up? Just so much the better.
Now if only our car insurance bill hadn’t crossed our doorstep this morning ($2000, hello — Irony, thou art heartless, wench). Somehow I’ve got to figure out a way to budget in the Xtracycle.
Awesome, Diane. I swapped my grocery panniers for old fashioned folding metal baskets because they carry more, but they have the disadvantage of being harder to remove from the bike if you want to do that for some reason. With them I can carry things like flour, bags of potatoes, sixpacks of beer, and propane for the gas grill, which would be too heavy for the canvas panniers.
I’ve had moderately good luck emailing grocery store owners and my city council rep about a lack of bicycle parking at grocery stores. A place like Whole Foods, especially, wouldn’t want to get a rep as an environmentally unfriendly place, you’d think.
I don’t know how this would work with two kids — a baby seat in addition? I don’t know — but the people I know who bike with kids all seem to love these Trek trail-a-bikes.
We have an Adams trail-a-bike that Sophia loves…but it needs new screws (have to go by REI to pick them up) in order to hold it in place better.
One problem I’m having with the panniers on my bike is that my heels keep striking the bags, which is really annoying.
Can you set them further back? Jeremy made my panniers so they would ride further back by anchoring the bungee that attached them to the rack a little further forward on the pannier. It’s hard to explain with diagrams and photos, but basically, if you can move the point where the pannier attaches to the frame so that it is further forward on the pannier, the result will be that the pannier itself is further back and should not strike your heels. Your panniers may attach differently but maybe you can work that out.
Our neighborhood grocery store is closing in August and I am just heartbroken. It will be the first time in my adult life that I haven’t had a grocery store within walking and easy biking distance. There are a few others within biking distance, but it is difficult heavy-traffic biking, and it is going to take a lot more effort and commitment on my part. I am better at being an environmentalist when it is fun and easy.
Beth,
Congrats on your forays into bicycle transportation!
Have you considered a bicycle trailer? We have a child on the way, and while right now I have a flatbed cargo trailer for grocery shoppiong and the like, I’ll probably be replacing that within the next year or so with something like the Burley Solo, a single-child bicycle trailer (or maybe one of the two-child models). I’ve looked at the Xtracycle, too, but the Xtracycle would have made my bike too large to store on our porch. The trailer comes off, so when I’m not using the trailer I’ve just got a normal bicycle.
Cheers,
— Lars
Hi Lars —
Actually, the person on this blog is Diane, not Beth. 🙂 But thanks for the words of encouragement.
I have thought about a trailer, but I voted against it mostly because I didn’t find one that seemed to be large enough for both kids — Sophia is a tall six-year-old and her brother is no wilting violet. I also can’t imagine the two of them packed into a trailer together — I’d be lucky if I got the same number of children out that I put in.