I’m sure Engine Engine Engine version 2.0 will make an appearance this month and finally get a write-up, but most days when I want to coordinate school dropoff with some fast bike time, I drag the empty trailer behind the Big Dummy and leave it at preschool for four hours. This morning the bike counter acknowledged us–sometimes the trailer confuses it–and we were bike number 976 of the day at 8:54am.

After dropping the kids at their respective schools, I swapped the Big Dummy for my little road bike and met my friend Astrid to check out her new bike and treat her to breakfast as a thank you for sending me a Craigslist link to the most amazing kid bike (to be a birthday present in a couple weeks–you and the birthday boy will see it soon!). We met at Solsticio on the Burke-Gilman Trail and then hit Recycled Cycles for Brooks Proofide for Astrid’s fancy new saddle.

Speaking of fancy and new, Recycled Cycles has the 2013 Kona Ute and MinUte.

Next we rode downtown (numbers 1371 and 1372 at the bike counter this time) and as I was bidding Astrid farewell at a bike rack, who should pull up but the Jimmy John’s delivery woman I have seen around lately. Naturally, she’s my favorite…though I haven’t seen if she can track stand as well as the guy with the gold components. She pulled up to the rack, swore a bit, and manhandled a bike that was hogging two spots (and by that, I mean that she gently lifted it and moved it slightly to the side). All very exciting!

I had a bit of time before preschool pickup so I did some route experimenting for a Critical Lass ride to Pedaler’s Fair. I think I finally got it sorted out on this third attempt.

I still had a bit of time, because I always seem to have extra time when zipping around with the road bike so I stopped in at Wrench Bicycle Workshop. Last night on the Menstrual Monday ride when my bike started squeaking, Kelli of Yoga for Bikers said it means my chain needs lube. Kelli is among the new round of soon-to-be Cascade Bicycle Ambassadors and she’s already ambassador-ing!

So I pulled the preschooler home in the trailer and later on we used the Big Dummy again to pick up his brother. Slow bike, fast bike, slow bike.

Daily miles: 18.4
April miles: 62.3