We took friend, beer writer, and innkeeper, Brian Yaeger, to Clever Cycles today. I was hoping to bully Brian into buying a bakfiets (I can see him transporting kegs, dog, and inn supplies in the box), but he opted to test ride a really nice Breezer while I was occupied at the World’s most kid-friendly bike shop‘s Lego table. He didn’t leave the shop with a new bike, but they have ten Breezers in his size on sale so he’s got a bit of time to think about it.

My one purchase was supposed to be a bell for the Bianchi, but instead the boys chose loud little horns to put on their balance bikes. They honked them merrily as we test rode the Nihola trike. The boys had so much fun riding in it with the shop’s stuffed dog last time that they insisted taking it out for another spin–this time with even more stuffed animals.

Back in the shop we checked out a very cool KidzTandem, which the boys were too small for, but certainly seems like a great way to get a slightly bigger kid helping with the pedaling.

And we saw up close the brilliant double bar ends Xtracycle FlightDeck kid handles. There’s an Xtracycle in Seattle with them in the middle of the FlightDeck that the rear kid uses to hold.

But the most intriguing product we saw was the Salsa Cycles Anything Cage being used as a beer growler holder. It’s designed to hold yoga mats and similar sized objects, but Clever Cycles discovered it perfectly fits a growler, too. Brilliant. Brian seemed quite taken with this, too, though he wouldn’t need such a cage if he had a bakfiets…

Our next stop was Seawallcrest Park to meet a bunch of local biking families. The park has the greatest corkscrew slide the likes of which you’d never see in a new park. I had the pleasure (ha) of going down the slide twice to rescue my little guy who was fine most of his trips up and down, but needed a lap to ride on a couple times.

Here’s a shot of the assembled family bikes from the top of the slide: @built‘s road bike, @KYouell‘s bakfiets, Andy’s Surly Big Dummy, my Bianchi Milano, and the amazing @1lessgmsuburban‘s bakfiets coupled to a kid bike with a FollowMe Tandem. Emily’s 10-year old rode a separate bike, but she had the other five kids (two in bakfiets, one in Bobike junior on her rear rack, one riding the kid bike attached behind her, and one on the rear rack of the kid bike) with her. So impressive! Oh, and she baked two cakes and brought a thermos of coffee for us all!

Back to more Xtracycle accessories, I got a good look at Andy’s bar end foot pegs. Perfect for climbing onto the FlightDeck and resting little feet upon.

Once it got dark and cold I followed Kath to bike-through dinner at Burgerville, where 5% of the proceeds were supporting her friend’s kid’s preschool. I was excited to visit Burgerville because they are very accommodating of bikes thanks to the work of Portland biking mama Sarah Gilbert a couple years ago.