Humans 4, Cars 0

Like I'm 10 years old again

2011-02-12T09:10:00.000-08:00

I'm fortunate to work with a bunch of great people who happen to be bike nuts as well. Most of us ride our bikes to work, the hallway and kitchen lined with bikes most days. On several occasions the office has been rearranged to make getting bikes in and out of the office easier. It's not uncommon for someone to do a little bike maintenance before heading home. We're bike people.

On occasion we get the chance, weather and time permitting, to go out for what we call "bike lunch". A nice ride of a mile or two through the city, through the park, somewhere for a tasty bite and then a quick ride back to work. When I get out there riding with all my friends I suddenly feel 10 again. Riding a bike is one of my favorite things in life but doing it with your friends is just so free, so joyful. I feel quite lucky :)

journey to the edge of the bay area

2010-10-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

We manage to live our lives almost entirely without direct use of a car. There are some exceptions to this that we can't avoid. Nicole's grandparents live quite far from us, a distance unbikeable in a day. They're getting up there in years and don't wander far from home much these days so we have to go see them. Trips to Gram's house have comprised much of the time we've spent in the car in the past 4 years so as we range further and further out on our bikes we started thinking about how to bike out there.

Our ride from BART to Gram's

BART gets you most of the way there on the Pittsburg line but it's still a good 20 mile ride and the google maps made it look simple, so we packed the kids up on our new 'short bikes', got on BART downtown and took it to the end of the line. The path was actually pretty simple but the terrain was a little intense. The canal trails out in Pittsburg, Antioch and Brentwood are rough riding, they follow a series of large pipes that snake through these cities. The asphalt is pretty thrashed and we rode through pile after pile of broken glass. The thorny weeds were out in full force as well, one of our tires came home with a souvenir , a 1/2" long thorn stuck sideways in the sidewall such that it was firmly in the tire but not actually puncturing the tire.

Our ride back to BART

We made it out to Gram's house, had a nice lunch with them while the kids played. On the way home we had to swing by Auntie's house in Pittsburg to drop Jula off for the weekend. It was going to be dusk soon and knowing that the canal trail was so rough we opted to take another route home that worked pretty well but was also a high-traffic, rough road adventure but turned out to be quite fun. The whole ride back was directly into the setting sun which I enjoyed quite a lot thanks to my helmet visor :)

After Auntie's house we grabbed some dinner in downtown Pittsburg and then made our way back to BART, then into downtown SF and then a short 3.5 mile ride home. Tenzin totally passed out on the ride home. :)

Short bikes!

2010-09-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

For the most part, we haul our two kids around San Francisco with our pair of xtracycles. They're infinitely versatile and can carry just about anything. Unfortunately, they have one disadvantage, size! To get across the bay to Berkeley or beyond, taking a BART train is really our preferable choice but the Xtracycles+Kids is just a little too much to take on the train. For starters, they don't fit easily in the BART elevators that take you to the underground platforms and sneaking them on the escalators with kids just seems like a terrible idea. So thus far, we've just dealt with the limited mobility of not having bikes on the other end of a BART trip. But it sucks. We can ride far and don't like having to rent a car just to go see friends and family in the east bay.

Enter my 5 hours of man-cave time last night. We have quite a few bikes laying around that are used for various purposes, loaned out to friends, etc. With that is an ever-growing pile of bike parts. We have an east bay birthday party to go to on Saturday and with the threat of having to rent yet another car for the trip I holed up in the shop last night and emerged around 12:30 with these two bikes!

Sticker Bike! Frame, wheels, tires, saddle, seat post and kids seat all from various original sources. It's *almost* the right size for me but I was able to get it tweaked big enough to do the job. The kids seat was a street find and required some jury-rigging but after a test run with Tenzin this morning I declare it totally solid.

Nicole's Trek. Most of this bike was a street find, believe it or not. Someone cleared out their garage and left it and another less-nice bike out for free. It's been more of a loaner thus far because Nicole has a nice road bike that fills her non-cargo-bike riding time but it's a perfect short-bike for kid hauling. Last night it just needed a rack and the kids seat.

So this Saturday we'll get up and out of the house early to ride downtown and hop on BART over to Concord and after a little ride, meet up for our little friend's 3rd birthday party in the park.

I think this will go over quite well but there's lots of room for improvement. These two bikes have a definite lack of cargo space. The kids seats kind of rule out rear panniers so eventually I'd like to see us get front racks/panniers. A little further down the road both these bikes will hopefulkly be replaced with a proper touring setup for each of us, perhaps with the awesome BoBike Peapod seats that would let us have rear panniers as well. Maybe even a BOB trailer to maximize our capacity?

Our hope is to eventually have a setup that will fit on BART and Amtrak and afford us an even further car-free range.

Bike camping!

2010-08-30T09:54:00.001-07:00

We finally went bike camping! Nicole and I had been dreaming of going bike camping for a long time. The beauty of leaving our home under our own power to go camp somewhere is incomparable.

Having the cargo space to carry just about anything enabled us to really live it up and we had great food and a full compliment of extra gear. I bet we were both pushing 70lbs of gear on each bike:

The first morning I looked out of a tent and saw not a car but our pair of Xtracycles and it felt *great*.

Our route from SF to China Camp SP

The ride there was surprisingly smooth with a fair amount of the ride on bikeways or in plain old bike lanes. There were only a few places that were a little sketchy but they were brief.

We spent two nights at China Camp and spent the entire second day just riding around on the multi-use trails there. Nicole impressed me once again by riding her Radish like it was just another mountain bike and had a rocking good time.

Our route home was thru Tiburon via the Tiburon/SF ferry. Mostly to avoid the climb from Sausilito to the Golden Gate Bridge.

A flickr photo set from our trip

All in all, totally my new favorite way to vacation. No car, no gas, no traffic. Hell yes.

Laundry!

2010-07-05T08:14:00.000-07:00

Laundry!

After spending a week biking around Yosemite we were way behind on laundry, like 8 loads behind!

Instead of slogging through it one load at a time we decided to load it all up on the bikes and haul it to the laundromat.

My bike with a few loads...

...and Nicole's bike with a few more

Of course the kids went with us too :)

After it was all done I picked it up by myself with Nicole's bike and the trailer. That's a lot of clothes!

Car-free furniture

2010-05-26T15:08:00.001-07:00

On my lunch break today Nicole and I took a ride to the Haight to drop off Jula's friend Sophia. On the way we found a cornucopia of free stuff sitting on a corner including this huge bookshelf unit that was easily biked home after the arduous task of attaching it to my xtracycle.

Among the other things we found were, a pile of clothes hangers, a bike rack for a car trunk, a hat rack, a hanging shoe rack and magnetic knife holder, all things we've needed lately.

Here's a video of the stuff on Nicole's bike :)

Diabetes Charity Ride

2010-05-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

For the past few years craigslist has generously sponsored me and many of my coworkers and even more friends to ride in the American Diabetes Association charity ride in Napa. Last year, I rode the 50 mile course solo. Now that we have two kids who are old enough to ride along with us, this year we rode the super cushy 10 mile course. In the end we all agreed that we could have easily done the 25 mile course but were glad to have a really relaxed time together.

The xtracycles barely fit into the truck we got from Zipcar. Just barely.

A coworker's xtracycle (that I sold to him) and his dual-kid-cargo trailing behind him and our X's in the background.

Our first biking family portrait!

More pre-prep before the ride.

And a little video of our leisurely ride ;)

Day at the beach

2010-04-26T16:10:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty sunny morning so we packed a lunch and headed for the beach

Tenzin is getting well used to his helmet now.

Mmmm sandy crackers!

Jula loves the beach!

We even brought some construction trucks for sand moving

Nicole pulled the trailer just in case Tenzin got too sleepy in his seat. It was all for not though, he loved every minute!

Vacuum!

2010-04-26T16:08:00.001-07:00

We were out riding enjoying the sun and ran across a vacuum at a yard sale. Hooray for cargo space!

A note on our windshield, er handlebars!

2010-04-09T12:18:00.001-07:00

Nicole and I had the rare privilege of indulging in the luxury of grocery shopping with no kids this morning. Thank you Grandma!

We were out of just about everything so this was a pretty big grocery run for us. Nicole and I had a nice time shopping and figuring out what we'd be eating for the next week or two.

When we came back to our bikes there was business card crammed between the light mount and the bell on my handlebars with a note written on it. The card was from the Program Director of the SFBC and the note read "Awesome. Please send me photos of this parking job (I don't have my camera)...". It made us both smile :)

Anyway, here are the photos :)

Bikes and Burgers

2010-01-18T15:58:00.000-08:00

Our Saturday was full of errands and playing with the kids. We were out on our bikes all day long. Tenzin full-on passed out in the trailer on the way to Burgermeister and slept all the way through our lunch. I guess it's pretty comfy back there :)

Ikea chair haul

2010-01-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

Jula helped hold this ikea chair on the back of the bike. Somehow my ratchet strap went missing from my xtracycle bag so this was a 100% bungee affair. Of course Jula hung on to the chair too. Found it on craigslist and hauled it 1.5mi home ;)

First full family grocery run

2010-01-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

Finally we can all go to the store together. Since my son Tenzin was born 7 months ago Nicole and I have not been to the grocery store together, something that we enjoy doing together. Since Tenzin seems to be enjoying riding in the trailer so much we decided that we'd make the trek to Safeway to stock up on things that we can't get or are too expensive at our local markets.

We made several changes to the path that we would normally take getting to the store, mostly to avoid badly potholed roads so that Tenzin's ride wasn't too bumpy. These included a bit of very low-speed sidewalk riding and a bit of a wide walking path through the park. The walking path has a "no skating no bicycles" sign at the entry way but I justify riding there because a) we are moving very slowly so as to not jar Tenzin in the trailer and b) the city of San Francisco is clearly negligent in taking care of South Drive from Lincoln to Stow Lake, particularly from Lincoln to the Tea Garden. There are patches on patches on patches and still big scary potholes. It's a major conduit to the park for cars which is certainly the cause of the wear but it's a terrible experience for cyclists. Sadly from the Inner Sunset there aren't any other good entries into the park for cyclists. So in a way riding on the walking path is my act of civil disobedience in the matter and it's really all about Tenzin's safety.

Anyway, I digress! We had a lovely time shopping together and playing with the kids in the store. Hooray for more family togetherness!

Here's our full family rig as it stands now. Jula rode with Nicole and I pulled Tenzin in the trailer. He seems to really love riding along with us and it was oh-so-awesome for us all to go to the store together!

We had 7 bags of groceries, I hauled 4 and Nicole took the rest. The mile back home across Golden Gate Park was easy-peasy :)

Tenzin's first ride

2010-01-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

After much deliberation and gnashing of teeth over our restricted family mobility we decided to let Tenzin take a spin in the trailer. He's only 7 months old so probably a lot younger than most people would take their kids out. He's clearly not ready to be out in heavy city traffic but we realized that there are still lots of places that we could take him if we were just cautious enough about it. We put him in his infant car seat and then I used four straps to anchor it to each corner of the trailer's frame. He's got quite a bit of roll-over protection and there's a clear plastic window that comes down over the front to shield him from road debris. Honestly he gets more jostled in the stroller during the dirt-trail walks that Nicole goes on every day through the park.

He absolutly loved the ride. He cried a bit as we rolled out of the garage but then he caught sight of his sister and all was well again. The only other complaint he issued was at a red light on the panhandle path as it crosses Masonic. When the light turned green the crying was over before we even made it across the street. :)

Our destination? Breakfast at the Green Chile Kitchen down near the end of the panhandle. Seriously yummy New Mexican food.

Sadly, I didn't get any good pictures of this ride. But I did get this short video:

The path to Green Chile Kitchen goes past a school with these bike racks. I took this one specificly to be an iPhone background. :)

Nicole's new road bike!

2010-01-04T17:24:00.000-08:00

Since she got her Xtracycle Radish earlier this year Nicole has been riding a lot more. She's actually quite a strong rider but the weight of the Radish (and it's single chainring) really holds her back so when it comes time to go riding with friends or on a cargo-less errand she was loathe to have to take it out. I had a grand plan of building up a road bike just for her and was ready to start hunting for a frame on craigslist but we didn't know what size she needed exactly. A few weeks ago had a bit of a date-night that started out by test-riding bikes at American Cyclery to get her on a road bike so she could try using dropbars on a bike that's the right size for her. She tried a few flashy road bikes that were ok and then stumbled on this 2009 Raleigh Clubman. She fell in love with it right away. It also happened to be on sale and we couldn't pass it up. It's a steel frame with some really nice modern components and it's a joy to see her ride it. :)

More groceries

2009-12-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

Most of my hauling trips are for groceries. It's amazing that this was one of the last reasons why we held on to our car a few years back.

These 4 large bags have nearly $100 in groceries in them and they're so easy to haul. I've been thinking that it might be nice to have some sort of basket on the snapdeck to haul 2-4 more bags but so far this capacity has been more than enough.

Jula the bike mechanic

2009-12-06T10:35:00.000-08:00

Last night I was working on various bike projects in the shop and Jula hung out with me for an hour or so.

For awhile she was content to cruise around the garage on her Skuut but soon wanted some tools so she could "fix her bike"

She actually figured out which allen wrench fit in the bolts on her Skuut, thankfully she's not coordinated enough yet to actually loosen anything :)

Hauling firewood

2009-12-05T22:40:00.000-08:00

This isn't the greatest picture but I hauled a heaping wheelbarrow worth of oak firewood tonight. The weight was pretty impressive but the bike dealt with it all well. Even hit 10+ mph on the downhill home. :)

Big grocery haul

2009-12-01T20:03:00.001-08:00

Last night we realized that not only were we out of dog food, cat litter and cat food but we also needed to go to the grocery store for some staples that we were also out of.

The trailer has 70lbs of cat litter, 35lbs of dog food, and 30lbs of cat food.

The xtracycle has 4 large grocery bags with all kinds of heavy stuff, milk, yogurt, flour, ~$100 worth in all.

And of course ~30lbs of Jula who tagged along merrily although she enjoyed riding there in the trailer a lot more than directly behind me on the way home :)

Christmas tree haul

2009-12-01T14:20:00.002-08:00

Now this is the way to get a christmas tree home!

In case you're wondering, it wobbled a bit hanging so far off the bike but it was not hard at all.

Hauling bike carcasses

2009-12-01T14:20:00.001-08:00

My old friend Caleb had these two bike carcasses that he no longer wanted so I rode over to pick them up for parts.

It was quite a load and I took a dropout-stabbing to the ankle from one of the frames but it was not a difficult load.

Now there's a new problem, the shop is full!

Parking day #5

2009-12-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

Each time we do PARK(ing) Day my load gets a little bigger!

In this load, big round coffee table, two wooden chairs, four metal folding chairs, 2 folding tables, and a 8x10 rug!

Thomas hauled in a load of plants in his custom bike-trunk arrangement.

As usual we had a lot of fun and met a lot of new neighborhood folks. Hopefully we'll have a space inside the Farmer's Market next time!

A note on the intent of this blog...

2009-11-16T20:46:00.001-08:00

So it occurred to me recently (and it was driven home by a comment from a friend) that my blogging here has somewhat strayed from the "car free with kids" theme and has taken on a distinct "things that can be carried on a bike" feel. Just so you don't worry, we're still taking Jula out on our bikes but life with an infant added to our mix has slowed us down quite a lot. Mind you, this slowing down is a good thing for our little Tenzin but it means that we're not all biking together just yet :)

Also, we have a little secret that we haven't discussed here yet. Nicole has a new bike :) More on that later...

Xtracycle xtracycle

2009-11-10T11:54:00.000-08:00

One of my coworkers is buying my extra xtracycle setup and now that it's finally cleaned up and removed from it's previous host bike I needed to haul it in to the office.

The tapestry helped keep my brand new snapdeck safe and pretty :)

And we're here!

Hauling wood and drums

2009-11-08T16:04:00.001-08:00

A friend and I loaded up our drums aand a didgeridoo and rode off in to golden gate park to play music.

We eventaully settled on playing in one of the tunnels near the deYoung museum, great acoustics!

Firewood haul

2009-11-06T14:06:00.000-08:00

We wanted to get some firewood for the weekend while some really good friends were in town staying with us. I thought this would be a lot more awkward to haul but it was very easy and only needed one strap to hold it on :)

PARK(ing) Day #3

2009-11-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

Loaded up for yet another Inner Sunset PARK(ing) day!

This time we had a nice spread of food to attract the passers-by.

And come they did! the PARK(ing) space was full of people all day long!

We were even treated to some music!

A good time was had by all!

To top it all off, Adam was given this awesome pumpkin which he hauled home on his bike just like this :)

PARK(ing) Day

2009-10-25T20:53:00.001-07:00

I've been joining in with a group of folks from my neighborhood to hold a bi-weekly PARK(ing) day in the SF Inner Sunset. I've been hauling most of the furniture out to our spot via my xtracycle/trailer combo.

Parked and ready to unload.

We take over a parking space and make it our PARK space for the day. It's a blast!

The farmers' market in full bloom across the street from us.

Thomas looking quite chipper while Kevin looks on.

Office junk haul

2009-10-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

A handful of stuff had been laying around the office that I had been meaning to take home. Kevin motivated me to get it all out of there by threatening to throw it out :) So you know me, I'll take on any chance to haul a bunch of stuff. The big spool is now a table in our backyard, the wheels are going to have their rust scrubbed from them and will hopefully roll again on the extremely well-weathered bike frame, maybe as a road bike for Nicole. :)

New Stroller Haul

2009-10-25T20:48:00.001-07:00

Nicole finally wore out the stroller that we found on the street 2 years ago. Lots of off-road walks in Golden Gate Park will do that :)

I found this awesome deal on craigslist, a moderately priced, pneumatic-tired, well built stroller that should be the last one we have to buy (coincidently, it's the first one we've ever paid for).

The catch was that it was 8 miles away and over at least one pretty big hill. The xtracycle handled the whole affair like a champ and I learned a few things about strapping cargo to the snapdeck :)

Xtracycle maintenance day

2009-10-16T11:09:00.001-07:00

My xtracycle needed to go to the LBS for some TLC but I didnt want to have to take the bus home and back again so I hauled along my single speed so I could ride back :) Runs good!

Xtracycle Furniture Moving

2009-10-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

While on my way back from our local bike shop I ran across this pile of furniture. My daughter has been in need of a new dresser for some time now and this fine all-wood dresser will do quite nicely! It does need a coat of paint and maybe some new knobs but FREE! Woo!

The best part is that the xtracycle is so stable that I was able to strap the dresser on with only 2 bungee cords. I couldn't believe how stable is was for the ~1 mile ride home.

Friday Morning Craigslist Staff Ride

2009-10-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

In what's quickly becoming a regular thing, Today I met up with several of my fellow craigslisters for a Friday morning ride. After a spirited romp through the dirt trail in the park (I caught air with the xtracycle for the first time!) we made our way to the ocean. Half of the Great Highway was closed to cars due to sand dunes encroaching on the road so we had the road to ourselves all the way to the SF Zoo! After that we took a lap around Lake Merced and then back to the office. Something like 20 miles or so. It was a blast!

Skitching for fun and profit!

Nice shadow Dallas!

A nearly perfect ride with perfect weather and good friends. Life is good.

Finally a break!

2009-09-21T20:17:00.001-07:00

This is a sight that I love. My wife, my best friend, in front of me on her bike.

My parents were visiting us this past weekend. It may be more accurate that they came to visit their grandkids. I feel like I hardly saw them since they were almost insistent that Nicole and I get out of the house together without our kids. Tenzin isn't quite old enough to ride with us (another ~9mos!) so we don't get this chance very often. We rode through Golden Gate Park and then down the panhandle before deciding that we wanted to go to the Lower Haight for coffee.While we we down there, Grandma called to say that the kids were still napping and to encourage us to go out to eat alone. Just the two of us! It's amazing how valuable this kind of time has become to us now that we're parents of two :) We quickly found a Thai restaurant that we had not eaten at before. Totally fell in love with their crispy fried portabello mushroom & eggplant dish. Wow. Nicole took pictures of the food, it was all so beautiful. Coincidentally the restaurant is right on the wiggle so when it was time to go we just hopped on our bikes and wiggled our way back up to the panhandle and back through the park on home. Part of the way that I fell in love with Nicole was through our mutual love of bicycles. Riding with her is easily my all time favorite activity and I miss it so. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for allowing us the space to get out together :)

DFL Cross Dress Cyclocross Race!

2009-09-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

Jula and I had a grand time in Golden Gate Park watching the annual DFL Cross Dress Cyclocross race. It's an unofficial, unsanctioned, illegal cross race through Golden Gate Park. Race entrance fee was $5 or free if you wore a dress!

There were lots and lots of bikes!

Part of the "course"

Pink tu-tu's make you ride fast!

Jula (and Brown B) were enthralled with all the bike action. I had a hard time peeling her away.

The crowd from Jula's level.

Eventually I persuaded Jula that it was time to go by taking her to the nearby pond to watch the ducks and the fog roll in.

Pet food haul++

2009-09-13T15:08:00.000-07:00

It was that time again. Dog out of food, cats out of food and litter. Time for a big haul!

This load was actually pretty heavy! It was still a breeze to actually pedal home but I could really feel the pull of the off-center load this time.

I used 10 (!!) bungee cords to hold all of this on. After the pet store I hit up the grocery store, the hardware store and the pharmacy just to top off the xtracycle.

Left to right, Full bag of groceries, MC Escher book I found on the way home, baby diapers, box of baby bottles, 35lbs of cat food, new griddle, 45lbs of dog food, 60lbs of cat litter.

Sunday Streets!

2009-09-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

Jula and I just got back from riding the last Sunday Streets of the year. Sunday Streets is a San Francisco event where the city shuts down car traffic along a long-ish route though different parts of the city for most of the day. The closed roads are open to all non-car transit, bikes/skateboards/walking/etc. Today's event included all of JFK Drive through Golden Gate Park and then all of the Great Highway. It was such a blast! All kinds of people on all kinds of bikes (some walking too)! Riding down the Great Highway without any car traffic was so nice. The over all speed of the ride was very relaxed. We started a ride with a neighborhood friend but ran into many other people we know along the way.

We saw five other xtracycles while we were riding, most with stoker or kid seat set ups. Here's that Mundo that we saw in our neighborhood!

The Cyclocide folks had a few rides out for the kids to enjoy. This little 4-bike ride was great. Watching the kids all try to stop at the same time was interesting :)

This ride looked like a lot of fun. Kids ride in the swings on the outside and parents power the whole thing by pedaling in the middle.

As you can see the kids really got quite a ride out of it!

I accidentally took this picture of our "Mutant" xtracycle bike while trying to take some overhead shots of the Great Highway and I thought it was kinda cool :)

I heard a rumor from a reliable source today that Sunday Streets will be coming back again next year and they plan for it to become a permanent yearly event. Last year there were 3 Sunday Street's, this year there were 6. Hopefully next year we'll get more added to the calendar!

Hobo Bike!

2009-09-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

Nicole found this bike totally crammed into some bushes out in Golden Gate Park. She was walking our huge dog, pushing our son in the stroller while our daughter was walking with her. Even though her hands were full already she somehow managed to push the bike-heap nearly a mile back to the house!

There's not much on the internet about it but I did find this link that says it was given away with other kinds of purchases "BUY A STEREO, GET A BIKE!" which cracks me up.

It was in pretty poor condition and had clearly been abandoned, maybe because the derailleur was broken or maybe because the brakes didn't work at all. Go figure!

I took the bike into the office to show all my bike-loving coworkers but it was clearly not rideable so I packed it into the xtracycle to haul it in.

With the help of a friend and a handful of scrap parts that were hanging around our office I managed to get it into a little bit more of interesting working order. I replaced the spindle but used the original bottom bracket cups and bearings and rebuilt the entire bottom bracket. Used the original pedals but replaced the cranks to match the spindle. The wheels and tires were totally shot and I was able to find a pair of 700c wheels and a set of knobby tires to go with them. The scrap bike I got most of these extra pieces from had been set up as a fixie which I definitely didn't want but the idea of a cyclocross-esque single speed sounded like fun. I hit up Roaring Mouse for a set of new tubes and a freewheel cog for the back wheel. This morning I finished off my initial modifications by swapping the spare saddle on to the original seat post and putting the new tubes and knobby tires on to the wheels.

I also had to tweak the brakes a bit but only managed to get them to barely work, clearly there's room for improvement here. I just took it for a little spin just a few blocks away from the house, it's definitely fun to ride though I think I may opt for some different handlebar arrangement. Oh, and the brakes need lots of love. :) I've been wanting a bike that I could learn to disassemble/reassemble but couldnt really fathom blindly taking apart any of our daily rides for fear of rendering them unusable.

Thanks Nicole for my new bike!

Mundo! Mundo!

2009-09-04T22:30:00.001-07:00

One of my coworkers was telling me that she'd seen this "huge orange xtracycle" in the neighborhood and while walking back from dinner I spotted what's she's talking about!

These two Yuba "Mundo" were hanging out near 9th ave/Irving and clearly belong to a family. Each has a Peapod-esque kids seat and both have a rear deck and stoker bars for taking other passengers. I wish I knew these folks, clearly they have the same passion for family biking that I do!

Bike Drawrings

2009-09-04T22:29:00.001-07:00

While we were waiting for Tenzin's pediatrician a few days ago I was explaining to Nicole what I'd been doing to this bike that she found (more in the next post) and I made these chalk drawings to illustrate what I was talking about. :)

Grocery Run

2009-08-25T16:31:00.001-07:00

This was a pretty heavy grocery run. Two gallons of milk, large back of whole wheat flour, large bag of brown rice and what you can't see in this photo is the 25 cans of black/pinto/kidney beans that we're putting in our emergency supply kit. The xtracycle swallowed this all with ease and the ride home was smooth as usual :)

Farmers's Market Ride

2009-07-26T15:19:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago I was doing our weekly shopping at our neighborhood farmers' market when I overheard someone say "Oh, have you signed up for the ride we're organizing?" This over course really piqued my curiousity and it turned out that someone was organizing a ride a few weeks later. Well, that ride was early this morning. At 7am, we met where the farmers' market would be a few hours later. Only 5 of us showed up, including my friend Tyler. Joe, Megan and Bill (another Bill, not me) rounded out our numbers. Joe and Bill led us on a route out to the beach where we stopped for coffee and food and then down to the southern border of the city, past the cow palace and then back up the bay side, through downtown. The planned route included continuing on through the Presidio but Tyler and I were feeling ready to head back home so we split off. Today was the SF Marathon so lots of streets were closed down for that and we enjoyed riding on several stretches of the Embarcadero that would normally be clogged with cars. Tyler and I ended our ride with a great breakfast at the Green Chili Cafe, near the end of the Panhandle before parting ways. All told, Tyler and I clocked a solid 25 mile ride and it was a blast. I hope that there are some subsequent rides organized, it was great to meet some other cyclists from our neighborhood and to see many other parts of the city I'd never seen. After the ride I made it back to our neighborhood just in time to meet up with Nicole and the kids and pack all of the vegetables they'd bought at the farmers' market into the xtracycle and walk home with them. A great ride and a great morning, hooray!

Craigslist Staff Ride

2009-07-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

About 10 of my craigslist coworkers and I went out for an after-work ride. Our original goal was to go from the office, up through the SF Presidio and back after getting to the Presidio so quickly we extended our ride out and over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was quite a foggy and windy day which made the ride somewhat thrilling. Some of the group continued on to Sausalito for dinner but I headed back with those of us that had other commitments and families to get back to. Next time I really want to make it further out, the ride was quite a lot of fun. Hopefully this was only the first of many other after-work rides!

Found wood!

2009-07-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

Jula and I found this nice piece of plywood on the way to the grocery store and strapped it right on to the xtracycle with no problems. We got lots of funny looks from folks in the parking lot. I rather enjoy those funny looks I must say :) Hopefully in the next few weeks we're going to make some bird houses out of it to attract some birds to our fledgling backyard garden.

Monday morning ride

2009-07-20T14:47:00.001-07:00

For a few months now my coworker and friend Tyler and I have been heading out into Golden Gate Park for a nice little ride out to the ocean and back, usually followed by coffee and then on to work. Usually we try to stay off the main roads and explore all the little singletrack and wider dirt trails that are all over the park. It can be quite thrilling some days, especially the park slopes downward towards the ocean so the first half of our ride can be quite fast. Today we were both a little under the weather, me due to this cold I've been fighting off and him due to backpacking-induced sunburn and leg-soreness. We took it a bit easier today and stopped at the ocean for a nice chat, only getting back on the bikes when our sweat started to get a little too cold to bear.

Our bikes are kind of funny side by side. His is a really nice Rivendell Bleriot that he resucued and rehabilitated off of craigslist. It's really set up more as a commuter bike but does quite fine on our semi-offroad adventures. The blackblackblack bike is my non-cargo bike, a Cannondale Bad Boy with much fatter tires than were ever meant to go on the skinny rims it came with. Runs good!

We both had a great time riding today. Hopefully we'll both make it out for the ride before next Sunday's Inner Sunset Farmers' Market. More on that later.

More than I could chew

2009-07-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

So I finally bit off more than I could chew with the xtracycle. At least I didn't choke.

Yesterday I had grand plans to go buy a pair of half wine barrels to use for flowers and herbs in the front and back yard. I found someone selling some on craigslist who was only 25 blocks or so away from us and figured I could just strap one to each side of the xtracycle. My plans got a little more complicated when Jula literally begged me to let her go with me. She was so excited about going and I figured that her 30 extra pounds wouldn't matter that much.

I when I finally made it out to the sellers house and picked up one of the barrels I quickly realized that I was in for more than I bargained for. Not only were the barrels a bit heavier than I had anticipated but they were much larger than I had imagined. The FreeLoader bags wouldnt actually wrap around them at all and I only had one compression strap with me to compliment my pile of bungee cords. My first thought was that I was worried that it would be a bit dangerous to have Jula on the back, especially if one of them fell off or something dramatic. To complicate things further I only have one WideLoader for the xtracycle so only one of the barrels would actually be well supported. If I had two WideLoaders and Jula wasn't with me I probably would have been more adventurous and given it a go.

In the end it was really meant to be. These barrels were going to be $30 each and my mother told me later that she can get them for $10 each so it all worked out well. Additionally the route that I took across the Sunset district was quite hilly and I got a pretty good workout and enjoyed a few pretty nice downhill runs so the trip wasn't a total failure. :)

New Plants!

2009-07-18T15:02:00.001-07:00

Today was the semi-monthly plant sale at the nursery run by the Golden Gate Park staff. The nursery is inside the boundry of the park itself and serves as an area for the staff to grow plants that are used in the park. As a fundraising measure they hold a plant sale twice a month and have some really great deals on a nice assortment of plants. Jula and I went with the intention of getting some more plants for our lightwell between our kitchen and office. It's nearly a useless space in that it's not very large and you have to climb through a window to get out to it but it's grat for plants that do well in partial sun. The lightwell is 2 stories deep so anything that needs full sun just won't fare well. The folks at the nursery were really helpful in suggesting plants that would work well in this space. We also bought a few plants to go in the small backyard that we share with the other 2 apartment units in our building.

Of course we took the xtracycle to pick up all these plants! Jula had fun helping me decide what to get and the nursery staff were tickled to talk to her about what they had to offer.

When I started looking at some of the larger plants that they had, one of the staff members started giving me a funny look and asked "Do you have a car?" I replied, "No, I'll just pack them all on to my bike." He just shook his head in disbelief. After I easily managed to strap all 5 plants, including the 2 largest ones on to the xtracycle they all started marveling at such a set up. One of the staff reminisced that our bike reminded her of large cargo bikes she had seen when she lived in China. Nice! During the loading process we got quite a lot of attention from nearly everyone else that showed up to the plant sale. Most people just marveled that so much could be loaded on to a bike and some actually inquired about what my mutant looking bike was all about. I'd say it was a great day for cargo-bike-advocacy :)

I was a bit worried that I'd get out on the road and one of the plants would go flying or rip itself out of it's pot but nothing at all negative happened. The load was easy to carry and the plants did fine. We managed to get home just in time for lunch (Thanks Honey!)

After lunch Jula and I moved some of our new plants out into the lightwell. The lightwell is now well on it's way to being the small jungle that I've been envisioning. Thanks Park Nursery!

Grocery Shopping Epiphany

2009-07-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

Last night we were expecting a guest over for dinner and at the last minute decided that we'd make some pizza. Last minute decisions like that mean that we're not going to be making our own dough of course so I headed out for a solo trip to the grocery store. When you have two little kids sometimes a solo errand trip is a well-appreciated break. Even better when that errand involves a short ride and hauling some cargo home! I hopped on the xtracycle and headed over to Safeway, mostly because none of our small local markets carry pre-made pizza crust. I managed to make the whole run even more worthwhile by picking up a bunch of other necessities.

While shopping and carefully examining product ingredient lists I had a small epiphany. Here I am being hyper-picky about the quality and origin of the ingredients and produce that I'm shopping for but we don't have any qualms about eating out when we're feeling too lazy to cook at home. The epiphany was that with very few exceptions, none of the places we tend to eat out are making their food with organic or locally grown ingredients. Yet another motivation for cooking at home! File this under the "Duh!" catagory.

Back to classes, finally

2009-07-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

This week marked Jula's return to her weekly classes, namely Gymnastics at Acrosports on Wednesday and Music Together class in the Haight on Thursday. With The birth of our new son and the following weeks of emergency and cold-plague we've been out of our regular routines for a few weeks.

Both classes are close to home but not too close to bike to. I'm not sure who enjoys the ride more, Jula or I but we both have a grand time getting there and back. This morning's trip to music class was followed by a trip to one of our local coffee shops for coffee for me and milk/cookie for her. Coincidentally some street construction work allowed us to hang out and watch a backhoe move some equipment around and then watch a cement mixer fill in a huge hole in the street that they'd dug earlier in the week. Jula has been in love with construction equipment, especially backhoes, ever since the our nearest intersection was under construction for a month last year, so this was a real treat for her.

Just before heading home I got a call from our local herbal/vitamin store that the sprouting seed mix that we've been waiting for them to restock was finally in. So we zipped over there to pick that and a few other things up before headed home for lunch. I'm so thankful that the xtracycle has worked out so well as our daily-use bike. It's nice to have cargo space for those times that you don't know you're going to need it :)

This week's farmers market haul

2009-07-12T15:17:00.000-07:00

I made the trip to the farmers market solo for the first time today. Since the whole family is in various states of sickness right now we decided that Nicole would stay home with the babes while I took care of our weekly produce shopping. Of course this meant that I was going to take the xtracycle! (even if it's all of 4 blocks away)

Today's farmers market haul included:

Organic Celery
Organic heirloom tomatoes
Organic purple basil (OMG smells so good!)
Organic butter, romaine and Lola Roza (sp?) lettuces
Organic white nectarines and yellow peaches
5 ears of sweet white corn in the husk
2 heads of broccoli
2 heads of organic garlic
5 medium "lipstick" bell peppers
11 oz each of tamari almonds and chili con limon almonds
a large bunch of flowers

This farmers market is amazing and I can't think of any other single thing that has improved our quality of living in this neighborhood. We're so thankful.

On the way home I picked up a double mocha for Nicole which she was quite exctied about!

First steps to two-wheeled-freedom

2009-07-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

Jula and I went out for a cookie date last night and she requested that she ride "her very own bike all by herself". She's not quite 2.5 years old yet so her "very own bike" is a wooden Skuut bike which until now she has not expressed a lot of interest in. Naturally I was stoked that she wanted to go ride it! After donning her helmet and getting out on to the sidewalk she confidently and mounted her bike and we made our way to the bakery around the corner. This involved crossing the street 3 times on our way there. At first she wanted to cross with "no holding hands" to which I suggested we should get off the bike altogether to cross. We compromised her staying on the bike and holding one of my hands which I also used to hold on to one of her handgrips. It was a little awkward but worked out just fine.

She basically sits on the Skuut and walks since she hasn't really realized that she can pick up her legs and coast. This makes for a really slow walk but we were both stoked about it just the same. We eventually arrived at Tart-to-Tart
where Jula requested a "cookie with nuts and some milk" which I happily obliged. She loves her helmet so much that she never really wants to take it off. :-)

The way home has a tiny downhill so she was able to go a little faster and had fun doing so. All in all, it was a fine fine first voyage out on the Skuut. This father is quite excited to see his little girl take her first steps toward two-wheeled-freedom!

Outdoor Living Room

2009-07-09T21:23:00.001-07:00

Tonight Jula and I rode the Xtracycle about 6 blocks away (2 over and 4 up) to meet with other members of the Inner Sunset Neighborhood Group to hang out at an ad-hoc outdoor living room space! A few people brought chairs and a table and just hung out on the corner of 9th ave and Lawton to meet some new folks and mostly talk about our neighborhood. It's exciting that people are actually interested in coming together to participate in our local community. It was great to see Ellen there too, I'm excited about the Inner Sunset Clean-up day that she's organizing on August 8th. Not only is it functionally a great idea but I think it will be a great community-building event too. She said she signed up more than 60 people at the farmers market last weekend! Many conversations were had in the living room pertaining to community, livable neighborhoods and general discussions about what we like about our neighborhood and what can be improved. Particularly I'm interested in the idea of creating a civic gathering space, most likely out of space reclaimed from cars. It's a tough sell for such a busy neighborhood but I think it's essential. Perhaps a block of street that's not all that useful for cars that can be turned into chairs/tables space with plants and a fountain or something. The new civic space at Castro and 17th St is a great example of what can be done with reclaimed street space.

My personal highlight of the outdoor living room was watching Jula ride her little Skuut bike around on the sidewalk with glee while all the adults hung out. Nice!

Inner Sunset Farmers Market

2009-07-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

Today was the 5th Sunday of our new neighborhood farmers market. It's grand to see so many people outside shopping and mingling with each other. The selection of fruits, veggies and other goodies is really quite good. Now that I've been able to go to this market a few times now I've developed a few criteria to help decide which vendors to buy from. Primarily I choose vendors that are selling organic produce. Not only is this for our health, avoiding food with pesticides or chemical fertilizers but also as a vote for the kinds of food I think we should all be eating. Secondarily, I try to choose vendors that are traveling the shortest distance. Clearly nearly none of what's sold at the farmers market is actually produced in San Francisco (with the exception of the City Bees honey!) so it all has to be transported here. The shorter the distance the produce travels, the lower it's carbon footprint. Again, my purchase choice is a personal vote for how I think things should be.

This has always been a great neighborhood but over the past few months it's really started to feel more like a community. The farmers market has made a big difference. People really had to pull together to make it happen in the first place but now it's become a great place for community building too. The Inner Sunset Park Neighbors group that spearheaded the farmers market is actively recruiting people for all sorts of other concerns. Today I talked to Patrick and Ellen about Ellen's beautification committee. Ellen is organizing an Inner Sunset cleanup day on August 8th. I had already signed up via the Facebook event that she put together but I spent some time talking to her about the kinds of things that would help clean up our neighborhood. Graffiti is a big concern but it's mostly a problem on the large blank walls in certain locations. The side of the empty brewery that borders the parking lot where the farmers market is held is a great example. One entire side of the building is a drab red color that is a huge target for graffiti taggers. In many other places in SF and abroad the most effective way to deal with this is to have a mural painted. Taggers seem averse to tagging things that are already decorated. Ellen thought this was a great idea, hopefully we'll be able to made some headway in this area. Another idea we discussed is adding more planter boxes to the sidewalks in the area. There are a few planned along Irving St between 7th ave/8th ave that have been marked on the ground with tape. We're lucky that the sidewalks are wide enough in our area to facilitate this kind of thing. I think that Nicole and I might put up a planter box of some sort in front of our house, especially considering we were turned down for a FUF tree due to our power pole location.

The music at the farmers market has been great so far. So good in fact that my daughter Jula has been inspired to dance for a bit while I shop. Today Nicole hung out with Jula and the band while I shopped with Tenzin strapped to my chest. The market is 2 blocks up and 2 blocks over from our house and is quickly becoming a weekly family ritual. Hooray for farmers markets!

Ride's end

2009-07-04T18:40:00.001-07:00

Today's ride ended at the Fireside bar on 7th ave/Irving where I was
greeted by this lovely glass of Chimay. I'm almost done reading
"Pedalling Revolution", when I finish it I'll post a review. It's
really a great book!

Colorful seawall

2009-07-04T17:25:00.001-07:00

Today I took a solo non-errand ride out to the ocean and back. The
seawall at Ocean Beach is quite colorful thanks to the numerous San
Francisco graffiti artists. I haven't been out on a "fun" ride for
several weeks, since before Tenzin was born. My legs really let me
know that it had been awhile!

Pet store run

2009-07-03T21:15:00.001-07:00

Jula and I made our monthly run to the pet store about a mile away
from the house. 45lbs of dog food, 30lbs of cat food, 30lbs of cat
litter and 30lbs of Jula. It was a heavy load, probably the mist cargo
I've hauled on the xtracycle so far. It still handled well despite a
bit of backend sway from the weight.

Intentions

2009-07-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

My intention with this blog is to share what we learn about trying to live car-free with kids. Depending on your location it can be quite easy to live your life without a car but when you introduce kids into the scenario things become somewhat more complicated. Instead of driving everywhere we walk a lot, bike a lot and take the bus or train when it makes sense. In the process of using these other forms of transportation we've realized that not only do we get some exercise but we also get to know our neighbors, our neighborhood and our city in a much more personal way. It's also an investment in our kids future both in terms of our decreased carbon footprint but also in forming a healthy lifestyle for them from the start.

We've been immensely inspired by several other car-free-with-kids blogs out there and want to let the world know that not only is it possible but can be a really amazing way to live. Hopefully what we share on this blog will inspire other people to ditch their cars and lead a happier, healthier lifestyle, whether you have kids or not!

How we ended up being car-free. A bit of history.

2009-07-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

For the past 3 years my wife Nicole and I have lived in San Francisco without a car. When we first moved here we owned a beat up little Honda Civic. In many ways it was a great city car, decent gas mileage, easy to park but it had one really huge problem, we didnt use it. About 6 months after we moved to SF we had managed to rack up 6 parking tickets at $75 each and had used the car maybe 3 times. Around the same time Nicole's sister wrecked her car so we gladly gave the Civic to her, reveling in our new lack of car insurance payments and parking hassles. The one catch was that we had a 3 month old daughter. We knew that not owning a car would make some things more difficult but we felt like it would be worth it. We signed up for citycarshare(.org) and rented cars from the citycarshare pod that was 2 blocks from out house anytime we needed to actually leave the city. I had already been biking the ~1 mile to work and back or taking public transit everywhere we needed to go. Grocery shopping was the one thing that was really taxing without a car. We went thru several modes before buying a kid trailer with the specific purpose of hauling groceries and other things that we needed to buy but didnt want to carry by hand. Car-free life was starting to really feel good.

Then our daughter Jula turned 1 year old. Old enough for a helmet and bike seat of her own. We bought a Co-Pilot Taxi seat and racks for both my bike and Nicole's bike. Jula took to the bike right away. She loved it so much that it was easily the only activity that she enjoyed quietly for long periods of time. Such a nice way to spend time with your offspring. Now she's almost 2.5 years old and we've been all over the city on the bike. Most of our trips are purposeful, groceries, hardware store, taking Jula to gymnastics or music class. We tend to get out on pure-pleasure rides a few times a month. Golden Gate Park is literally across the street from our house so we like to take long meandering rides through it, to Stow Lake, the Bison Paddock or even the full 4 miles out to Ocean Beach.

The cargo trailer started to become a bit of a pain. We'd be out riding and realize that we needed to pick up something from the store and have to go home to pick up the trailer. Also, it was not much fun to have all that weight following behind us, dragging it in city traffic or trying to navigate small spaces. Let's not even talk about trying to navigate in reverse with the trailer attached. We needed something more. Enter The Mutant: I had been drolling over the Xtracycle cargo bike attachment for sometime and scouring Craigslist for a used one for many months. Finally I found a complete setup that was the right price ($500 for a full xtracycle which is the same price as the xtracycle attachement new by itself) and rushed to buy it. The bike itself is a little bizzarre (it has a top-tube sticker "MUTANT") but carries cargo like a champ. All that remained was to mount Jula's bike seat to it to really make it our family SUB (sport utility bike). A little bit of custom hackery on my part and the seat was bolted to the Snapdeck on the back of the bike. Jula loves it and goes nearly everywhere with me! In fact, on the rare occasion that I take the Mutant out without her it feels really strange. I've become used to her extra weight over the back wheel giving me better traction and keeping the back end from bouncing over the terrain. After hauling stuff around for a few months with The Mutant it was clear that the xtracycle was making car-free life in the city much easier and fun. We found a good deal on another xtracycle frame on craigslist and converted my city-commuter bike into an xtracycle and sold off the old xtracycle frame to a friend. (This left a very strange bike that's still called The Mutant)

Enter Tenzin. Tenzin was born in the summer of 2009 and we slowed down for a bit. We were eager to get him on the bike with us but waited until he was strong enough to hold his head up for extended periods, around 7 months old. We started by strapping his infant car seat into a typical 2-wheel kids trailer. He followed us around in that trailer for quite a few months, chirping away and enjoying the tented shelter of the trailer in all kinds of weather conditions. We aren't big fans of pulling at least the particular no-name brand of trailer that we have but were very glad to be able to go out riding as a family.

When Tenzin was finally old enough to ride in an upright seat we ditched the trailer and bought an Xtracycle Radish for Nicole. It's quite a classy bike and was exactly what she needed. Jula loves to be on Mom's bike, she'll happily sit right behind her chatting everyone's ears off. The Radish has a great kid's seat paired with it that our little one can be strapped into while Jula sits slightly in front of him, hanging on to a set of stoker handlebars behind Mom's saddle. The whole arrangement is quite pleasant. If we're out for a family ride we'll move the PeaPodLT seat over to my xtracycle so kid-hauling duties can be shared :)

We bike *EVERYWHERE*. We're lucky to live in the geographic center of San Francisco and have amazing bike access to so many parts of the city. We've been out over golden gate bridge and around to Tiburon and back again. We bike to Ocean Beach and Baker Beach with ease. We regularly bike all over the Mission for various reasons. When the weather is nice we'll bike down and around Lake Merced and back again for a nice ~15 mile loop after work. We bike the kids all over the city for doctors appointments, acrosports, pre-school, and just for fun! We all bike out to the east bay with some frequency as well as we have family in Concord. We ride the kids downtown, hop on BART and get off in Concord where we bike around town to see family and old friends. We've biked the kids from Pittsburg to Brentwood and back again to see great-grandparents (note: mostly bike-hostile territory).

Last summer we fell in love with bike camping! Our first trip was a test so we left the kids at home with grandma and braved it alone. Our destination was China Camp State Park. The route was somewhat complicated as we were navigating little more than the urban jungle but was turned out to be a fairly bike-friendly 70 mile round-trip. We are formulating plans for several bike camping trips for spring/summer 2011, possibly even an amtrak+bikes trip up to Portland.

(updated 11 Jan 2011)

First Post!

2009-07-03T16:31:00.001-07:00

To celebrate the 30 minutes of free time that allowed me to actually start this blog I'm posting this photo of our xtracycle loaded up with groceries that my daughter Jula and I picked up from Safeway earlier today.

Normally we don't shop at Safeway because there are other decent markets in walking distance but we usually make a run to Safeway once a month or so for more bulk-like items. This run was $145 worth of groceries including 2 gallons of milk and lots of canned goods and other heavy stuff. The ride to safeway is incredibly short in comparison to some of the other places we ride to in San Francisco. From our house it's a short jaunt across Golden Gate Park and right between the Academy of Science and the de Young Art Museum. A nice little ride.