Huge turnout of family and kid bikers to ride in a big decorated group in today’s Wallingford Family Festival and Kiddies Parade! I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I was inspired by Martha Stewart’s Fourth of July Bike Parade decorations, though we didn’t go for red, white, and blue this day. We had long balloons for helmet ears, pipe cleaners for antennae, streamers to weave through spokes, and Bicycle brand playing cards and sparkly stickers for spoke cards.

I was very excited to see Molly’s new mamachari bike, recently scored on Craigslist. I hadn’t heard of these amazing bikes until Hum of the City found one on San Francisco Craigslist a month ago. Very similar situation to this one: bought in Japan dirt cheap and shipped free by the owner’s company when moving to the States. This bike’s owner had a third child and stopped using the two-kid-conveying rig. Today the five-year old rode her own bike in the parade so the three-year old sat in the back seat and ceded the front seat to a big stuffed animal, but both kids fit very nicely onboard.

And Kimberly of CoolMom wowed us all with her daughter’s on-bike doll seat. This one came on the bike, but The Main Tank found this add-on Ride Along Dolly.

The festival was awesome and even better this year now that it’s in Wallingford Park rather than out on the street. The kids mostly split their time between the bounce houses and the wading pool, but they also made use of the playground and omCulture’s obstacle course. I was able to tear the little one away from the wading pool to rock out to half of Caspar Babypants’s generously long set.

But the excitement doesn’t end there! Matt of Tacoma Bike Ranch was up in Seattle to pick up a kid-sized cargo trike and brought along his extra Xtracycle WideLoader to sell me for cheap. Oh, the things I’ll be able to carry now!

Today’s miles: 1.7
July cumulative: 76.5 miles