Joined at last

We have been doing this for nearly nine months.  In that time we have been pitied, dismissed, admired, envied, laughed at, and encouraged.  I have explained, defended, encouraged, and shown why we are doing this and why it truly is important to our family.  But until last week, I have not really felt joined.

Often when I talk to people about our journey they tell me all the reasons why they can't choose this lifestyle. In all the reactions that I thought about before we started this, I never really expected people to feel guilty.  My reaction to this is that I always encourage them to start small.  That not all families can go cold turkey like us.  That we always were committed to living where we work long before we started riding bikes full time.  That this was just a natural progression for us.  But these conversations always leave me a little sad, because it reminds me that for the most part, we are doing this alone.

                                                The Bakfiets parked at the grocery store

It is not like I don't see people on bikes.  I do.  Everyday.  I even have a friend who has started to ride her bikes when we go out to coffee. But I have never seen, in my town, another mom on a bike with her kids going to the grocery store for their weekly groceries or ride across town with her kids to drop them off at a play date/grandparents and then ride off to do something else.  (If you are out there and I don't know about you, please comment because I would love to dialog with you.)  I know that there are other moms committed to this because I read about them on the internet.  I see pictures of them with their children.  I know it can be done.  But here in our little town, we done this journey primarily alone.  That is until last week.

                                                            The Little Guy at the bank

Two moms, one at the Big Guy's school and one at the Little Guy's school, both started taking their kids by bike to school.  They both traveled over 2.5 miles and got there in not much more time than what it took them by car.  Suddenly our conversations took on a whole new direction.  We discussed what are the friendliest roads for biking, how to navigate the more dangerous parts of the city, how to keep our kids entertained without a radio. It was community.  It was bike culture.  It was fabulous.  

We are three and we are mighty. Wanna join us?

A New Addition

We have known for awhile that our current way of transporting children was at best a short term solution.  Bike trailers, even the best ones, have certain drawbacks, the biggest being a 100 pound limit.  We have been fast approaching that limit, not mention that the boys were very tired of being smooshed into a very small space whenever we wanted to go anywhere as a family.  Also, our trailer, which we bought long before we were car-free, was not designed for the demands that we were putting on it.  So, we went searching for a solution.

If it was just me and the Artist who were going car-free, there would be actually quite easy in our flat town with mild climate.  But when there are kids involved, there are certain challenges.  There were things that we were looking for in our new bike.  Space and weight capacity were huge.  Durability was a close second.  And safety is always important.  We also wanted something that we could use not only for the children, but could transport stuff easily.  Essentially we wanted a bike that we could use as a car.

After much research, we were pulled to the capital of biking as transportation, Holland, where they have made biking not only practical, but also fun.  So on Tuesday, I emailed one of the few suppliers of Dutch bikes in the United States, My Dutch Bike in San Francisco and found out they had just gotten a shipment and these bikes, called Bakfiets, were selling quickly.  Not wanting to miss an opportunity, we borrowed a truck and headed for the city to see one in person and, yes, test drive it.  Two hours later, we were strapping our new vehicle in to the back of the truck.

                                                            Boys in our new Bakfiets

Never before have I ridden a bike like this.  It is 8 feet long and about 90 pounds and rides like a dream.  It can carry up to 200 pounds in the front and over 100 pounds in the back.  And did I say that it rides like a dream.   It cost way more than any bike we own, but is so much cheaper than any car we could have bought with no insurance cost or gas to put in it other than the extra food we have to eat to keep our motors going.

                                                 Our new vehicle loaded down with groceries

Another biking challenge solved.  I never knew it would be this fun.  Want to join us?

Merry Christmas to Me!

I thought I should post this picture before to many days had gone by.  I snapped this on Christmas morning on the way to my parent's house for breakfast.  This is the five lane road (there is a turn lane in the middle) that we cross every time we head to their house and crossing it is not for the faint of heart.  For the most part, we have discovered ways to get around our town that are off the main and busy car roads, but this is the one road that we have to cross (we have not been able to figure out another way) when we want to head to the north side of town.  It is a beast of a road in the eyes of this biker, but we are careful and aware and don't take undue risks.

But oh, on this day, there was not a car in sight, and I must say I had a smile on my face.  It won't happen again until next Christmas (there being no cars, not the smile), but for the moment, it was bliss.  It got me to thinking how if just 100 people committed to one day a week riding a bike or walking to work or school or the store instead of driving a car, how fewer cars there would be on the road and that maybe, this town would start to think about how to make our roads safer for bikers and pedestrians.  It is a dream.  But on that perfect Christmas morning bike ride, I got to glimpse what it could be like.  I'm still smiling.

 

4 Months and Counting

Yesterday marked the 4 month anniversary being car-free.  We have borrowed cars, rented cars, and ridden in cars, but we have not owned a car for 4 months.  In the first few weeks of this journey, there were times when I would be struck with the realization that for the first time in 17 years (I bought my first car as a junior in college) I did not own or have daily access to a car.  And then I would think, "Why don't I miss it?"

I'm not sure why I don't miss it.  Truly, it was more convenient to own a car, and there are still times when I say, "I'll drop this or that off at your house," before realizing that they live 10 miles out of town and there is no way I'm going to bike out there just to drop off an item.  And being in a car is definitely warmer than riding your bike in the rain.  But other than that, the list of things I don't miss is astounding:  filling the car up with gas, repairs on a old car, oil changes, traffic, insurance costs, and parking lots (bikes always get the best parking spots) just to name a few.  It is really strange to realign ones thinking so drastically in such a short amount of time.  If you had told me that we would be car-free and biking everywhere a year ago, or even six months ago, I would have laughed in your face mainly because I didn't like to bike and was pretty scared to do it on the road.

And yet here I am biking everywhere and really enjoying it.  Some times The Artist will just stare at me and shake his head.  He is not sure I'm the same woman he married 12 years ago, but I think that he likes me better now.

Getting from A to B

I'm not sure when getting from Point A to Point B got so arduous, but somewhere in my mid-twenty's it did.  I remember when I first got my drivers licence, I could hardly wait for an opportunity to drive the car.  It was new, fun, and exciting, but that wore off with traffic and busyness and just life.  Driving became a part of life, not because I wanted to do it, but because I had to do it to get from Point A to Point B and C and D...

The other day I was out of eggs (Gahhh!) because I had forgotten to buy them the day before when I was grocery shopping with a car.  And I needed them because, well, I bake...a lot...and I was on a deadline to bake somethings for friends as gifts.   So, I dropped off the Big Guy at school,  left the Little Guy with The Artist and set off for the grocery store...in the fog.

Then something happened.  I don't think I have ever enjoyed the fog as much as I did that day.  It was quiet and still and cold and wet and I was a part of it.  And it got me to thinking about how rushed I am and though the day before I had been warm in a car, I did not really enjoy being in that car.  It was just a means to an end.  And there I was cold and wet and loving every moment of the whole experience.   It was like being a kid again when you had moments of your life where time stood still.  I must say it was pretty addicting.

Enjoying the journey.  Huh, what a concept.

Success!

After 6 weeks (yes, we have been doing this for six weeks) of frustration and failure, I made my first successful solo grocery trip on a bike.  Figuring out how to do this has been the hardest part of this transition.  I've had apples crushed between the front fork and the wheel of the bike causing a very abrupt stop. (Thankfully I wasn't going very fast or it could have been ugly.)   I've had five bright yellow toy plastic bats for the Big Guy's birthday party scatter all over the street in front of a group of strangers that had just come out of their house after dinner.  (They did help me tie those bats back in the numerous bags hanging from my handle bars while all the while shaking their heads in disbelief.)  I've lost control and almost hit a car because the milk that I was carrying in my front basket upset the balance of my bike.  (I have dreaded getting milk which when you have a family with little children is not an optional purchase, but a necessity of life.)

The way that I've made this work is to borrow a car for a few hours a week and drive around like a mad woman trying to anticipate and get everything that I need for the coming week.  I come out of these shopping trips exhausted and inevitably having forgotten something (often times that thing was milk, my weight nemesis.)

But that is all in the past.  On Friday, The Artist went down to our local bike shop (who have been truly great to us even if they do think what we are doing is a bit bizarre) and had a double pannier installed over my back tire.  It has changed my life.

On Saturday, eager to try out my newest accoutrement, I headed down to my favorite grocery store (which I had been avoiding because it was just a little too far to carry groceries on my back and over my handle bars) and bought $40 worth of groceries.  Two gallons of milk, a couple pounds of apples, a big box of corn flakes, a pound of carrots... Well, you get the picture.  All in all, we estimated that I brought home about 16 pounds of groceries on my little bike without any incident or loss of items.  I am thrilled.  (I still plan on using a car for picking up the really large things like one can only get at Costco , but I'm hoping to limit that to once or twice a month at the most.)

                                                           My bike loaded up with groceries

The biggest drawback to this newest development is now I'm sore again.  All that extra weight means I have to work that much harder to get home.  Is it worth it?  No question.  I am empowered.

So, is anyone moving?  I've got a bike with panniers and can carry sixteen pounds.

Photos

I've had a great blog post floating around in my head for the past few days, but currently I am too hot to write it. It is hard to write about biking and enjoying the outdoors and being inconvenienced by everyday tasks such as buying milk when you are sweltering in the shade at the end of September.  I'm o.k. with hot until August 31st, but I have little tolerance for it after that.  Not sure why that is since September can sometimes be the hottest month of the year where I live.  It is not logical and certainly doesn't change the weather, but that is the way I feel.

Now, I say that, knowing that there are some of you who live in parts of the world that would love for it to be hot right now.  You are thinking, "Boy, it is getting cold already, and I'm not quite ready for the snow and the dark and the multiple layers of clothing that one must put on just to survive 5 seconds outside."  You are right.  Sun is good, and I'm going to stop complaining about it and show you our rides.

This is the Artist's bike.  We found it in the back of our garage and best we can tell it is a late 1950s - early 1960s Raleigh made in England. This bike was my grandfather's, and when we bought our home from my grandma, it was left in the back of the garage.  It has become ours on the basis that we have lived here seven years, and no one else in the family has claimed it.  (Cousins, you had your chance.)  Plus we needed a bike since the Artist gave me his at the beginning of this adventure.  It is way cool to ride some history (so the Artist says) though has some quirks such as the breaks don't really function, and since they are rod breaks we haven't found anyone who knows how to fix them.  I don't know much about bikes, but apparently these are unique.   The Artist just coasts into stops.  (He is a much better cyclist then me.)

Here is my bike, an automatic with coaster breaks.  It is very steady, since I am a jittery biker at best.  I love my coaster breaks since I have trouble controlling both my arms and my legs at the same time while riding a two wheeled balancing act that requires a lot of leg motion.  Stepping back to stop just makes sense.

I'll show you the kid's bikes later when it has cooled down.  Until then, I'm drinking lots of water and thinking of warm woolens and cool nights.  Heat is all in the mind, right?