Happy New Year!

‘Tis the season for “trend” articles and a couple just came out, each with family biking at the top of the list:

• Washington Bikes: 11 Trends that Are Good for the Growth of Bicycling
• ParentMap: 6 Important Health Trends for Your Family in 2015

It’s an honor to be personally mentioned in both of ’em.

The kids and I trended our way into the new year with colds…since ’tis the season for that, too. But the sun was shining and we needed groceries so we hopped on the Big Dummy. We paused briefly on the way to test out a possible Team Family Ride motto for 2015:
You can pick your nose, you can’t pick your public art, but you *can* pick your public art’s nose.
Not sure it’ll stick, but we’ll find some other public art to poke our fingers in and see how it smells.

I love how easy it is to stop en route for quick, fun stops like this while traveling by bike. We also dinged our bells and hollered “Happy New Year!” to everyone we saw, which included two family biking families (trend!). And we made a pit stop at the lake to toss in a few rocks while shouting “Polar bear plunge!” but since Green Lake is currently overrun with toxic algae, rocks and sticks were the only things taking the plunge this New Year’s Day.

Shopping was great: bought a lot, but it all fit on the bike and I got to shrug off the offer of help out to my car by letting the checker and bagger know we came by bike and were therefore able to park right outside the door. Heading home was great, too, but I lost the draw and had to hop off the bike to push the “beg button” to cross busy North 50th Street. I can usually count on my seven-year old to take care of button pushing. Ha, in both senses of the phrase.

This naturally got me a bit grumpy about push-to-walk buttons in general. Here’s a nice article on Gizmodo, “Why Do Pedestrians Have to Press ““Beg Buttons” to Cross the Street?”, which will hopefully make you grumpy, too, because while trendy family bikers love company out on the streets, grumpy beg-button pushers love company in their grumpiness.

And then 10 blocks later we found money! Someone had tossed a dozen coins into the street so we stopped to retreive them. A buck twenty! This was a block after we left the Neighborhood Greenway and a block still from home, so a nice, quiet street. You can see a car coming down the street towards us; I was able to easily wave them around, but I’m not sure my “Woo hoo! Money in the street!” pantomiming came through. Easier to communicate things like that to people on bikes…or at least to people in cars who drive around with their windows rolled down.

So that was our little trend-setting day. Heh, I did worry that many of the people we shouted New Year’s greetings to assumed we were out for a special first-day-of-the-year ride and not doing our usual thing. Family biking certainly is a terrific way to start the year. Followed up by family biking every day thereafter. Though having said that, no New Year’s Resolutions for me this year (or any year lately because I pretty much killed it 15 years ago when I resolved to eat every item on the Taco Bell menu over the course of the year. Shudder, still.) But lemme know if you’ve got one that’s bike related! I know of several people determined to bike every day of 2015, which I wholeheartedly support and will maybe try some year myself.

HNY!

And if you want to join the trend, come on my next Kidical Mass ride! Saturday, January 10th Kidical Mass to Chuck’s Hop Shop Central District Anniversary Party. Or just come hang out at Chuck’s if that’s easier. No family bike required! We’re an inviting bunch and love to share our bikes for test rides.