Mr. Family Ride’s friend, Martin, took a break from Minneapolis’ gorgeous weather and grueling bike races for a business trip to Seattle. He came a day early so I dragged him on a slow-speed 15-mile jaunt around town.

I don’t understand the allure of single speed bikes (other than beach cruisers at the beach and Dutch bikes used when visiting the Netherlands), but when I jokingly said Martin would be most comfortable on Mr. Family Ride’s “single speed” cruiser, he agreed it was a good plan. He wasn’t used to the cushiness–he rolled up his pant leg despite the chain guard and kept forgetting he had a kick stand at his disposal. But in retrospect, it probably was the best bike to keep him comfortably moving at my speed.

A trip to the Ballard Locks yielded a salmon smolt spotting in the fish ladder and a front-row seat to watch the fishing ship Excellence get pushed through the big lock by a tug boat. But most exciting was seeing a Yuba Mundo cargo bike as we left the locks. Not that I know every cargo bike in town, but I try to spot them all and I’ve never previously seen a Yuba. The dad was carrying two kids and lives on Queen Anne, and I didn’t notice a motor on his rig. Wow. I told him about Totcycle and Kidical Mass so hopefully they’ll come out for a future ride.

We continued along the Burke-Gilman and braved the beach for a while, but it was pretty cold out. Martin said repeatedly how nice it was to see snow on mountains again (easy to appreciate it when one’s had a mild winter!) so he got an eyeful of it from Golden Gardens.

We weren’t the only crew to ignore the temperature and focus on the clear skies–the parking lot at the beach was packed and we saw lots of bikes cruising around. We even saw three adult-kid tandem bike pairs on our ride home. That’s looking like a good idea as a future setup. Plus the FollowMe Tandem coupler I’ve already been dreaming about, I guess, since I’ve got three seats to fill. I’m not ready to think about kids riding separately yet.