Well thank goodness I didn’t make an official pledge to avoid driving this month–I got in the car today. But we combined trips (three bike shops!) and carried three bikes so there’s that.

I recently decided to sell my Kustom Kruiser Kozmopolitan beach cruiser. It used to be my everyday bike, but I seldom ride it these days so I’m ready to bid it farewell that it may become someone else’s everyday bike. I’m consigning it at Alki Bike and Board, hoping the right beachy person will see it and take it home. Mr. Family Ride is letting his beach cruiser go, too. His cruiser is the first bike I carried my eldest on, five years ago. Sniff. It’s the end of an era. No, the end of two eras. Sniff sniff.

Our first stop was Recycled Cycles to retrieve the Danish Mosquito. They weren’t able to fix the gears, but called Aaron’s Bicycle Repair and discovered the necessary parts are there. I couldn’t get the Mosquito to fit on the rack, but fortunately I only had one kid in the car so I was able to shove it in the back seat.

We dropped the cruisers off first. Here’s a pedal-powered behemoth behind the shop. You can see it in action at Alki Summer Streets.

Then on to Aaron’s new location in White Center. Sadly, the new shop is too small for the Lego table. Outside, he’s turned the closest parking spot into a bike corral with bike rack and bench. Inside we admired the Xtracycled tall bike next to a mini bike (ha ha ha) and played with the cats while Aaron got the Mosquito’s internally-geared hub working again.

My only pedaling today was riding the Mosquito down to kindergarten pickup. The kids are still adjusting to their bigger bikes so I walked the Mosquito back home while the big kid rode the little kid’s bike. I hadn’t counted on the musical bikes so we’ll do some practicing at a park before we attempt getting to or from school this way again.

I should probably mention my ridiculous car-less Plan A:
Alki Bike and Board and Aaron’s are both fairly far from me (11 miles and 13.5 mile respectively) and up very big hills so Plan A was to hook the trailer to my beach cruiser and somehow stick the three-year old and road bike in it, ride six flattish miles to the water taxi, and put everything on the bus up the hill to Alki Bike and Board (or lock up the road bike and trailer while we delivered the cruiser if they wouldn’t let it all on the bus). It would have taken all day and only taken care of one of the three bikes. So thank you for today, car. Maybe we can do this again in a few months.

Today’s miles: 3 blocks
April miles: 338.3