I should be packing for our trip to Portland for Fiets of Parenthood 2014, but instead I’m looking at pictures from last year’s Fiets of Parenthood because it that’s much more fun. Here’s my Flickr album of all 167 pictures!

We headed down by BoltBus with my Big Dummy and had an action-packed visit: hanging with Kath of Portlandize, biking with Andy to see Olive Rootbeer and Dingo (this was before Olive’s bike was stolen and recovered), playdate-ing with Elisabeth from Seattle, joining part of the group ride to Trek in the Park (the part before it went uphill), and all that before Fiets!

We joined the Kidical Mass ride to Fiets and volunteered to be the caboose. It was a huge group and we hung back with the sweetest little pedaler and his family. He was quite the trouper and refused my offers of a lift until after we had gone up and over the Hawthorne Bridge. The rest of the Mass was gathered, waiting for us on the Waterfront Trail and several other cargo bikers tried to get in on my action. I explained to them I had called dibs, plus I was the caboose who had hung back with him (happily, mind you) the whole time, so I finally got to collect kid and bike. He came up to me a bit later and invited me to his birthday party; his mom said that’s his way of saying thank you.

My kids were on the course a lot. I borrowed bikes so they could ride the kiddie event, then they rode with me, and then they rode with Chele to earn her some extra points (extra points for each extra kid). She tipped the bakfiets and they were fine, like “Hurry, hurry, hurry, give us the cargo and get rolling!” Yes, they’re used to being tipped over. Bad for my pride, good for Fiets. Chele wins my Fan Favorite vote, by the way. She rocked that course! Most impressive after her slow and cautious approach in 2012. The only way to excel at the tricky 2013 course was to nearly tip…or have a small wheelbase, like the winning Brompton, to negotiate those tight little turns. Andy’s pictures were much better than mine so I’m borrowing some of them. See all his pix here.

Photo courtesy Andy Schmidt

Photo courtesy Andy Schmidt

Photo courtesy Andy Schmidt

Photo courtesy Andy Schmidt

I didn’t realize this at the time, but I think I was the fastest mom! Results weren’t broken down by gender so no prize for that.