The Labor Day Cargo Bike ride was great! Alex of 20/20 Cycle came and led the ride, which I recorded and included a map of at the bottom for future reference. Alex was an excellent ride leader and provided tons of commentary and history along the way with several “Val would have wanted you to know this”-es and a “This is a Val route!”

Our ride featured:
1 Bilenky cycle truck
2 Larry vs Harry Bullitts
2 Surly Big Dummies
1 Xtracycle EdgeRunner
3 regular adult bikes
2 kid bikes
2 kid passengers
1 dog
* Note: cargo bikes are not required. From the RideYourBike.com event page: Cargo bike not required! Val would note that every bike is a cargo bike. “It is hauling YOU isn’t it?”

I have a bunch of photos below and some additional ones here on Flickr.

I started with a bit of an extra load since the kids and I are dogsitting 20-pound Marley for a few weeks. She’s used to riding on a bike (and running alongside a bike) so our five-mile ride to 20/20 was easy-peasy. Marley got a ton smiles and I got called a superhero for carrying her. Fun!

This was the kids’ first time riding their own bikes on the new Montlake Boulevard walk/bike overpass so that was fun, too. We rode it recently with a group of friends, but it’s different when we’re all on one bike (that was the ride in which Tom of Seattle Bike Blog called me a “well-documented bad ass” and I didn’t even have a dog in my basket!).

We made it about 15 minutes before the kids demanded a snack stop. I’ve mentioned it’s fun to ride separate bikes more and more, right? It’s also very slow going, though.

I got pretty lucky in terms of kid carrying. I carried one kid for the first half of Interlaken Park and just after he decided he wanted to ride again, the other one wanted a lift. Carrying just one kid and one bike is so much easier than both. Then they both wanted to be carried for the last (flattish!) three quarters of a mile so I arrived looking like a stud.

The ride made the obligatory stop at Dick’s Drive-In.

And we spent a perfect afternoon in Ravenna Park.

The kids were game to keep riding their bikes after the picnic (which is good because they’d poured water over their heads for most of our downtime and probably would have been too cold if they weren’t pedaling) and then something very cool that isn’t all that new happened: they both walked their bikes up our last hill (I think it’s 700 feet at 6.5% grade if I’m using the Veloroutes hill grade calculator correctly…though it’s not drawing the line in the right spot). If they’re not tired they can ride up this hill. They generally ask to be carried on other hills, but for some reason, they are fine walking this one. And thank goodness…I often have to rest halfway up this hill if I’m carrying them both these days.

And here’s my Strava recording of the ride and screenshot of the map: