After two gloriously sunny weeks, today was horribly rainy. We started out the day with me on cargobike and kids on their own bikes to head to school early with snacks and stickers for a Bike to School Month Welcome Station. Sadly, we didn’t get many visitors on account of the weather (though many kids walked instead of biked–not everyone takes to cars in the rain) and having moved our party away from the pre-arranged main bike rack to under an overhang in the other playground.

As for our midday plans, I was initially excited to finally try out my flat-as-possible route up Queen Anne (though with only the little kid on board it’s not a true test of the route), but I didn’t want to make my preschooler sit still in the rain for so long so we took separate regular-sized bikes for a multi-modal adventure–three miles/30 minutes to the bus and a six-minute drive up the big hill.

It was 10:40 by the time we crossed the Fremont Bridge and despite recent record bike counts, we were only numbers 1008 and 1009 today.

This was our first time putting a 16-inch bike on a King County Metro bus, though we tested the Sound Transit rack when we participated in a Sound Transit lunchtime bike panel last month, so I was pretty sure it would fit. There must be a finite number of bus bike rack types in the world, but they all seem different here. We have yet to ride Community Transit, but we really want to take the double-decker bus, so maybe this summer we’ll discover if that one’s accommodating of little bikes, too.

I thought we’d ride down the hill (the sidewalk of 3rd Avenue), but the boss requested we bus back down so we reversed our route. I’m not much for figuring out bus routing on the fly (I still can’t believe I got us home after the bus with the broken rack in Issaquah last month), but this was pretty simple.

So we headed back down and made two little on-the-way stops on our short trek home. First up was Recycled Cycles to address my sinking saddle and have the Bobike mini bracket removed from my stem while we were already there. My preschooler is really into fat bikes so we were both mesmerized by this little chopper bike out front. It’s too big for him, but it’s definitely kid sized. It’s only $65–go check it out if you’re in the area!

Stop two was Fremont Brewing to eat a complimentary apple and let them know we’d be bringing a horde of people in for the June 1st Kidical Mass ride.

We hit the road again and after a few blocks he decided he was much too tired to go any farther, even for the flat part. He’s lucky–I would have taken my road bike, but I don’t know how to disconnect the trailer (I lost the two tools for the job Mr. Family Ride stuck in my little saddle bag and Mr. Family Ride is out of town, unable to locate similar tools for me…or more realistically, just do the removing for me). I know, I know, woe is me with three family bikes.

The kid suggested I drop a wheel in the empty basket and drag his bike. I tried this because, ya know, he’s the boss, but it didn’t seem like it would work. Instead I went with my own instincts and plopped it upside down along the back of the seat. I keep all my bungee cords in my cargobike bags (and strewn around the carport) so I held the bike in place with my teensy Knog Milkman better-than-nothing lock. It just barely fit around the bottom of the seat and totally did the trick. A couple bungee cords would have been much better, though.

Just add kid and we were ready to roll! He looks nervous because I was trying to convince him to hold onto the tree–I didn’t mention why, but it was because I was pretty sure the bike would tip over, but I really wanted a picture. He wasn’t into handling the mossy tree. Snails, mud, and guinea pig poo are OK, apparently, but mossy trees are not.