Bikes and Burgers

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 :)