It took failing 30 Days of Biking to truly appreciate how much it’s changed my life. I completed the last two rounds (September 2010 and April 2011) successfully, but nine days into this month I fell prey to a kidney infection and basically slept for five days straight. I probably could have staggered out of bed for a ten-second driveway ride each of those days, and probably would have done so for the previous rounds in which I participated. I’m strangely not upset about having failed this time and I think it’s because those two successful rounds have played the biggest part in turning me into an everyday bike rider. It’s great to realize how many places I didn’t think were bikeable even six months ago are now regular destinations.

I wanted to do something big today to commemorate the end of the month, but our day started out on a very low note when my very first bike passenger, Lyle, The Greatest Chihuahua of All Time, bid farewell to this world after 18 years of being the very best pet, friend, and sometimes-accessory a gal could have. So my first trip was a car drive to the vet. Then the kids and I biked to nearby Green Lake playground (and on the way we circled the traffic circle cow a couple times, naturally) and then onward to the U-Village shopping center to pick up a copy of The Tenth Good Thing About Barney.

I had forgotten about the filming detour so we took a side trip by the UW husky statue while trying to find our way back to the Burke-Gilman Trail. The detour-sign holders weren’t very helpful and most people carried their bikes up a flight of stairs. We found a pedestrian bridge with ramp just past the doggie statue. On the way home I ran into a friend with trailer who was practically in tears over having been turned back at two points trying to get through the closure. Thank goodness it was the last day of filming. I’m boycotting the movie over the mayhem it’s caused.

And that’s the end of round four (round three for me) of 30 Days of Biking. We had some great experiences this month–we took part in some memorable events: the Val Kleitz Memorial Bike Ride, the safer roadways press conference, Moving Planet, and the Safe Streets Social ride; we discovered the South Ship Canal Trail and Snoqualmie Tunnel; and we survived the first rain of the season and transporting a very big box.

I’m looking forward to round five in April. Maybe I won’t even feel compelled to fill the month with a bunch of firsts and just ride ride ride. I do hope to encourage some friends to join me for the fun.

Yesterday’s miles: 4.6 miles
Today’s miles: 8.9 miles
September cumulative: 212.0 miles
Days missed: 6

We took the car out this morning. I’m so sad that our weekly class moved from Whittier Elementary to Olympic Hills. I feel like I just figured out how to make it to Whittier by bike. Next Wednesday is Walk to School Day which originally further bummed me out, but now I’m thinking it’ll encourage me to bus and bike next week. I don’t think the terrain map does justice to how much beyond my abilities the new (green pushpin) school is.

Home from our car trip, we hopped on the bike and rode to Green Lake to meet a friend and once again stopped by the paper mache cow. This was the four-year old’s first visit to the cow. He wasn’t as scared of it as he looks.

My baskets were full of sand toys, but we stopped by the grocery store on the way home. I’ve never bought frozen pizza by bike since the Ryan van Duzer grocery shoppin’ on a bicycle video tricked me into thinking it’s a big deal. It’s not. I was hoping one of the boys would want to hold the pizzas, but they both feigned shivers until I said I’d hold them. Per The VeloBusDriver’s very helpful tip a while back to carry eggs in my messenger bag (or backpack in his case), I shoved the two pizza boxes in my little Tom Bihn Imago.

Not only did they stay put, they were quite invigorating! I think I might have to make a point of riding around with an ice pack in my bag from now on. I might start wearing a cycling jersey just so I can line the little back pockets with Mr. Bump ice packs.

Today’s miles: 4.5 miles
September cumulative: 203.1 miles
Days missed: 6

I thought things were exciting this morning when I used the vacant rear seat to carry a ten-pound box of laundry detergent. But that was nothing compared to the huge box I later brought to the post office. Note my lonely car parked in the driveway. Taking it wouldn’t have been nearly as exciting.

I couldn’t figure out a good way to secure the box to the bike so I capped it with one of my waterproof IKEA bags, bungeed to itself underneath the seat. It looked less impressive hidden under the bag, but it stayed in place the mile to the post office.

We couldn’t resist swinging by the big cow again. That cow is going to make us late for preschool pickup one of these days!

Today’s miles: 14.4 miles
September cumulative: 198.6 miles
Days missed: 6

I was pretty excited to take our first rainy ride of the season. I’m sure the feeling won’t last–I’ll always be a weather-wimpy Southern Californian. The boys wore rain suits and boots, but I forgot gloves for all of us. They seemed OK, but I was uncomfortable riding with wet hands. The front kid’s Newt Suit is awesome, but doesn’t have pockets. The rear kid sports MEC Rain Bib Pants under Lands’ End (via thrift store–woo hoo) rain jacket so he had pockets–and he’s the fussy-about-pockets one. I have some MEC rain pants for myself, but was too lazy to put them on and ended up with very wet pants cuffs. Room for improvement. I’d also like a new rain jacket as I’m using a hand-me-down babywearing jacket, which is waterproof and wonderful, but I worry that very heavy rain will seep through the head hole in the back since it’s held closed by three snaps rather than a zipper.

I was rather proud of my two-IKEA-bag seat-covering system last spring, but after dropping off the four-year old at preschool this morning, I realized it’d be nice to have a third bag so I can leave his seat snugly covered the four hours he’s not using it. As it was, with reparking and recovering twice (coffee shop then playgroup) during the four hour break, both kid seat pads got soaked. Dutch Bike Co has some cute shower-cappy seat covers I’ll look into for my seat.

Route-wise, I decided a while ago I wouldn’t take my usual steep decent to the Burke-Gilman Trail come rainy season. Perhaps I’d feel differently if I had disc brakes, but I think it’s more about needing to let more time pass since my skidding-out-on-the-ice incident last winter.

I had a nice bike-beats-car situation this afternoon. The playgroup Little R and I attended this morning was at the house of a preschool buddy and we left at roughly the same time to pick up the big siblings, me on my bike and my friend in her car. I felt like I was running a bit late so I tossed the bike in a bush, without locking it or turning off the lights and got to the parent lineup at 1:02. Fortunately Monday is music class day which often runs late so I wasn’t late after all. My car-driving friend arrived a few minutes later, having missed a light I was able to take via crosswalk. And then the final mom arrived several minutes after that–she had to circle the block to find parking. Go bikes! However, had I been in my car, I would have been running several minutes ahead because I wouldn’t have stopped to take pictures of the life-size paper mache cow (on the traffic circle at Woodlawn and Kenwood if you want to check it out before it dissolves). So totally worth it. I never would have been able to hop the curb to get to the cow with both kids on the bike, by the way.

We made a late afternoon grocery-shopping trip once the rain had stopped. I made a very interesting discovery–Seattle rain brings out the ugly bikes. The railing outside the U-District Trader Joes is usually a veritable fashion show of hipster bikes, but today was all be-fendered B team. I shouldn’t mock them–I think I’ll put fenders on my mountain bike and hook it up to the double trailer when it gets snowy (lightly snowy, that is) out.

Today’s miles: 12.5 miles
September cumulative: 184.2 miles
Days missed: 6

I always take my helmet off when I visit the grocery store–even for one-item trips–but the kids don’t mind leaving their Little Nuttys on and it certainly speeds things up. However, in addition to the “Cool helmets, guys!” we get some funny looks so I wonder if some fellow shoppers think they’re wearing the helmets for the shopping cart ride. I’m tempted to notify them, “We came by bike!” but I just smile and imagine I’m thought of as the crazy lady that puts her kids in helmets to go grocery shopping.

The grocery store was only a small part of our fun day. In the not-so-fun department, I opted to return some library books to the Fremont branch and rather than go around the block, I scaled one block of Troll Avenue. Big mistake–way too steep for two weeks into the cough-that-wouldn’t-go-away. Fortunately our next stop was Space Needle Swimming Pool (aka DuPen Fountain) where I recuperated in the shade while the boys splashed around. And then we moved to the Children’s Museum where they splashed around at the water table while I further recuperated on the squishy toddler play floor.

I had originally planned to head home and hook up the trailer to haul our expired carseat to the CoolMom carseat recycling event at the Phinney Farmers Market, but I couldn’t stand the thought of more hills. But I really like the idea of biking our old carseat to recycle it so it’ll happen one of these days.

Today’s miles: 11.0 miles
September cumulative: 163.0 miles
Days missed: 5

Got the bike back from the shop yesterday so we were able to celebrate World Carfree Day by bike today. The bike is all tuned up and has a couple minor changes. The back tire is now a stylish solid black. Hearing my whining about the color change, Mr. Familyride suggested I order a redwall to replace it and save the black one as a spare. It sounds a bit extravagant, so I’m going to stop whining and see if the black tire grows on me. I also got a replacement double kickstand (Pletscher, again). The old one bent a while back rendering it mostly useless. I’ll try to take it easier on the new one.

Apparently when I dropped my bike off, it wasn’t only moments away from exploding, it also had a dry chain. Shame on me. Hoping to remedy that, I think I’ll attend one of the Seattle Public Library upcoming Bike Maintenance classes, part of a series of Urban Self-Reliance workshops. They’re also offering several Introduction to Bike Commuting classes.

Yesterday’s miles: 3.9 miles
Today’s miles: 8.4 miles
September cumulative: 152.0 miles
Days missed: 5

I’ve always thought it’d be cool to have a bike-based business (selling what, I don’t know: ice cream in the summer, socks in the winter?) and I got a little taste of that today. As one of the million Seattle parents selling Chinook coupon books, I’m trying to stand out from the crowd by offering bike delivery. I emailed my ad to the 1800-strong local moms group and got one bite. Not the best odds, but more books than I thought I’d sell.

Almost as exciting as the Chinook Book sale was today’s marvelous weather. I really didn’t think we’d see the sun again until next July so we enjoyed a bonus beach day after preschool. We even saw a dog riding in a bike basket along Shilshole in Ballard which only happens on the most summery of days.

As we were getting ready to leave the beach I admired the lights on a guy’s electric bike. Turns out they’re just for electric bikes, but we had a nice conversation about bikes and he asked if my loaded-down bike had a motor, which always makes me feel superhuman. I think this wasn’t your everyday electric bike, but more of a hybrid bike-only/electric-only vehicle. He mentioned he’d recently had the bike part worked on by Dutch Bike Co, which just so happened to be our next stop.

I’d scheduled a tune-up at DBC for tomorrow and was originally going to drop the bike off midday Wednesday, but it seemed even better to dump it off on the way home from the beach. I’m so spoiled getting to bike everywhere; walking half a mile to catch the bus took forever. But it’s a good thing I dropped the bike off when I did. A few days ago I noticed a thwacking noise every revolution of the back tire and it turns out that was due to the excessively worn tire bubbling out. Fritz said I was lucky it hadn’t blown out. I assumed he meant getting a regular old flat, but he elaborated by making a big explosion gesture and saying “Flames and death!” Fortunately the boys were busy with their dollar bananas in the cafe area and didn’t hear the scary news. I’m a little sad my cute redwall tire will be replaced with a whitewall, but that’s better than being bikeless while waiting for a redwall to arrive.

Today’s miles: 17.1 miles
September cumulative: 139.7 miles
Days missed: 5