We’ve gone south to Portland four times with the cargo bike on BoltBus now, but this was our first time north to Vancouver, Canada! Lots of pictures below, but all the pictures on Flickr here.

Friday
Our day started with an 8:15 a.m. departure on Friday:

I didn’t realize our 10:00 a.m. BoltBus had started its journey down in Portland, Oregon, so it was already half full. Remember, if there’s not enough room for the bike, it doesn’t get to go…which means I’d either need to very quickly find somewhere safe for it and leave it behind or not get on the bus at all. Fortunately the driver saw my bike and instructed me to put it in the cargo hold before any of the bags went in. Phew! I’ve never had my bike turned away, but the possibility always makes me very nervous. Meanwhile, Amtrak Cascades only allows roll-on service to normal bikes, and boxed bikes must weigh 50 pounds or less so I’d need to separate my 76-pound bike into two boxes (assuming I knew how to take apart a bike and then put it back together). So once again, hooray for BoltBus making travel with a longtail possible!

The bus was full, but I was able to seat the kids next to one another and me right behind them. That ended up working very well–probably better than had I sat across the aisle from them. They happily chatted and drew and I just had to pass pencils and pens of the requested color forward every 10 seconds. And my seatmate had seven nieces and nephews and was happy to interact with the kids and chat with me. I was in the back row and at our 15-minutes stop in Bellingham, the kids had fun sitting in the way-back alcove:

I think I’ve noticed people sitting up there for the moving parts of the trip, and that would probably be pretty fun for kids. At ages eight and six the bus was a lot easier than our first time, but it’s still not as easy as the train.

Amtrak Cascade pros for travel with kids (and everyone?)

• A dozen cars to walk through and get wiggles out!
• Dining car with food for purchase (and seating for change of scenery).
• So many potties! Including two very large handicapped stalls if you need to squeeze the whole family in at once.
• Soap and water in the potties (versus just hand sanitizer on the bus).
• Potable water in the dining car–our trip up was very hot and we drank all our water quickly (though this was my fault for not noticing the overhead vents! On the way home we put the air on and didn’t dehydrate, plus we found water fountains while crossing the border to refill–but there weren’t water fountains in the border-crossing room on our way up).

BoltBus pros

• Fast customs clearing at the border crossing.

Our BoltBus was ahead of schedule on the way up (and only 10 minutes late on the way down), and the border crossing was a breeze–we drove through the smaller Blaine border crossing so although we didn’t get a view of the Peach Arch, we passengers unloaded with all our luggage (bikes got to stay in the cargo hold) and clear customs in a private room. A train will always generate a much longer line of passengers than a full bus.

And the bus arrives next to the train station so that’s convenient!

We stayed with my friend Tonya, who also has a Surly Big Dummy (so we’re basically family!), who met us at the train station and guided us home. But before that, getting off the train we watched a guy pull a folding bike out of the cargo hold and he realized we’d met on a group ride in Portland in December. He was able to navigate using his smart phone without having to pay for an international data plan thanks to the Maplets app (which I’ve just now installed).

I was so excited to show the kids the Trans Am Totem on our way from the train station (they loved it, too):

We stopped at Terra Breads and met up with Lisa of Spokesmama because we family bikers like to flock together. My kids became fast friends with the rest of the flock and I was intrigued by the variety of bikes as we hung out in Olympic Village Square: lots of road bikes, fast tandems and slow upright tandems, a BMX crew, little kids on bikes, and clunky old commuters.

I packed pretty light for the weekend, but realized something: my kids are getting heavy!

I think it’s partly due to the fact that we don’t bike daily right now. School is two blocks from home and we walk (it would take longer to bike!), and we generally don’t leave home after school…though now that the time has changed and it’s light later, we’ll start to do so. And I only have the kids every other weekend and don’t choose to carry a bunch of dead weight on my cargo bike on my non-parenting weekends. But also: they’re getting heavy!

Tonya offered to carry a kid at the train station and they both said no because they’re shy little ornery things, but after cookies at Terra Breads, my six-year old acquiesced. Yay! (Of course then the eight-year old said yes, too, and it nearly turned into an all-out brawl, but I got them to agree to take turns).

Then we biked to the MOST AMAZING STORE: Landyachtz. I thought Tonya was making a joke about cars, but they’re a Vancouver-based longboard brand! Tons of demo longboards, indoor skate park, bike repair, fancy coffee, oodles of pinball machines (including The Addams Family, my fave!!!!), and outdoor patio with lots of seating.

Landyachtz is on the Adanac Bikeway (Adanac = Canada backwards) so there were few cars and lots of bikes, making it was easy to test ride as many longboards as we wanted to.

Saturday
Saturday was sunny! And cool. Big kid in the winter jacket was probably overly bundled and little kid in short sleeves runs weirdly warm, but I was just right in wool sweater and awesome new Canada v Mexico soccer scarf.

My big kid soon demanded his turn on Tonya’s bike and I was able to keep up with her and her son as we traveled along a terrific bike-friendly route across town. I visited alone 11 months ago and got to bike the excellent downtown Vancouver protected bike lanes with Tonya and Lisa so it was OK that we skipped any downtown action this visit. The traffic calming is amazing!

We soon arrived at Tandem Bike Cafe for my Urban Cycling book reading. The event was fun, and Tandem now has a copy of Urban Cycling in their library, or Vancouverites can purchase their own copies at Raincoast Books and MEC. And keep an eye on Spokesmama for a future giveaway.

Tonya secured a projector and screen for my presentation so of course we argued over who got to carry it home afterwards. She won and took the big screen, but at least I got the projector. (This is what cargo bikers do, we stubbornly fight over carrying all the stuff.)

We dropped the gear at home, did some kid- and bike-swapping and made for Plateau Park.

I got to see this park 11 months ago, but it was 99% done and surrounded by a fence. It was so great to share it with the kids this time.

Sunday
Sunday started grey and drizzly, but 42 people gathered for the Vancouver Family Biking Easter Bonnet Ride! Read Lisa’s #YVRFamilyBiking Easter Bonnet Ride Recap on Spokesmama.

The clouds blew away and left us with gorgeous blue skies, but it stayed windy along the water. Our route was amazingly pleasant with multi-use paths, bike trails, separated bike lanes, and quiet streets.

Our destination was the Wild rabbits of Jericho Beach because Easter! We only saw a couple bunnies, possibly because they sensed the eagle watching us all from a nearby tree.

After the ride we hit Granville Island. We visited the island five summers ago (by car), but the kids didn’t remember it. The spray park was open our previous visit and I think the play structure was different and bigger. Still awesome, though!

And then back to the bus. For travel away from Vancouver, one gets to BoltBus through the train station which is nicer than standing out on the street like in Seattle and Portland. Our border crossing was quick again, but our driver reminded us several times to have our papers filled out and worried aloud it might take a long time, so maybe it’s not always fast. There was also a border control agent who pre-checked all our stuff while we were waiting in line, looking for problems. It’s interesting how differently things work on one side of the border than the other. When driving in years past, I’ve been impressed by the signs to turn off engines and the convenient holding areas to move cars efficiently towards the crossing on the Canadian side versus the inching-forward traffic jam on the U.S. side. But it’s been a while so maybe it’s better now.

The 5:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. bus ride home was not as easy for the kids as the 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. ride up, but we made it! Pulled in at 9:10-ish, loaded up at 9:18 and home a bit over an hour later.

All in all, an awesome time! We’ll visit again in the summer. But it’s tempting to travel by city bus to the train and borrow or rent a bike or bikes in Vancouver. We’ll see.

Monday morning the kids and I escorted Russ and Laura of The Path Less Pedaled to their BoltBus and found ourselves downtown with three bikes, no school, and unexpected great weather. I don’t really like biking downtown with the kids so we don’t do it often. I prefer to bike “scary” places as one unit, either on the Big Dummy or tandem + trailer bike, but during non-peak hours it can be fun to be on three separate bikes…though we resort to quite a bit of slow sidewalk riding.

…but first, here are my photos from the kid-free weekend with Russ and Laura. And allow me to confirm that the breakfast burritos at TNT Taqueria are excellent. And our evening burritos mentioned in VLOG 027 were from Rancho Bravo. Seattle: not just coffee.

“VLOG 026 – Cranksgiving Seattle – Day 2 Part A” is the best of the Path Less Pedaled videos because Pixie gets the most airtime:

but VLOG 025 – Bikey Seattle Day 1 and VLOG 027 – Bikes Bikes Bikes in Seattle! are also great.

Back to the family biking stuff…
Our first stop was 5.5 blocks to Back Alley Bike Repair. I thought we had done a combo of street and sidewalk, but my Strava recording makes it look like we stuck to the sidewalk the whole way. Jackson Street has streetcar rails and can be pretty busy. At the bike shop I looked into replacing lost gloves and stolen helmet, but didn’t make any purchases. The kids signed the shop copy of “our” book, URBAN CYCLING: How to Get to Work, Save Money, and Use Your Bike for City Living. Fun fact, even the page that looks like it’s signed by me isn’t–it’s been forged by (outsourced to?) Stevil Kinevil.

Then we rode a whopping 1.5 blocks to the Klondike Gold Rush Museum and National Historical Park. I thought we had stuck to the sidewalk since it was so close and on our side of the street (and rails), but Strava says we took to the road so I guess that’s what we did. It’s all flat down here, by the way, which makes it easier riding in the road with kids, knowing we can move along at normal speed and not uphill crawl speed. It’s a great little FREE museum, by the way. We spent a lot of time this visit and learned much more than last time. The kids were game to sit through the 25-minute movie, something they usually don’t have the patience for.

Then we went 16 in-street blocks (16!) and one park block through Occidental Square to get to Westlake Park for a snack and playground break. This took us along the 2nd Ave Cycletrack. I let my speedy seven-year old zoom ahead since he knows to wait at intersections. If there weren’t so many people in cars who either don’t notice or ignore the NO RIGHT ON RED arrows (we saw two such people today) I would have urged him to go through ahead of me. While stopped at a red light at 2nd and University I pointed out the silhouette for Sher Kung–one of 240 placed around Seattle on Sunday for World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. We attended the memorial ride for Sher Kung two years ago, which was the reverse of this part of our route (Westlake Park to Occidental Park). The kids sat on the Big Dummy that day and we felt safe in the company of hundreds of other bikes, but I wouldn’t have let them bike downtown on their own back then.

From the end of the 2nd Avenue Cycletrack we biked two blocks of Pike in the street. As you can see, I took the Big Dummy just in case either (or both) kid wanted a lift, but I got lucky and didn’t have to tote anyone.

Fun times at Westlake Park and the Holiday Carousel looks ready to go in a few days. The kids aren’t currently carousel fans so we won’t come back down for it.

From Westlake Park we rode the sidewalk for 10 blocks: a block of 5th alongside Westlake Center to cut across McGraw Square and stick to the sidewalk of Westlake until the street car rails peeled off. FYI, BUS ONLY is for bikes, too. Then we got back on the sidewalk for the last block of Westlake between Mercer and Valley because it’s a mess.

And then that long glorious stretch of the Westlake Bikeway. I learned that the yellow strip I thought was a divider between bikeway and sidewalk is actually a bike bridge between hot lava and piranha-filled river! It also looks like an effective way to avoid the carpet tacks.

There’s also a new trick called “The Limbo”…but also sometimes called “The Limo”. Pedal fast to build up speed and then coast past your mom like this:

We stopped for sushi in Fremont, then biked home at 4:30 in the dark (ugh, yes, dark at 4:30 p.m. way up here). We ride three sidewalk blocks up from the Burke-Gilman Trail before we can ride a couple street blocks. Yahoo for those sidewalk blocks this time because they brought us face to face with a new cat! He’s super friendly and the kids have named him Fluffy Star Nightmare.

I had the pleasure of biking around Seattle with Elena Studier today, visiting as part of her Summer by Rail trip.

Waterfall Garden Park

From the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) press release:

With school and finals behind her, college sophomore Elena Studier this summer is taking her bike on an epic 38-day multi-modal “road trip” across the country by rail, visiting more than 18 cities and 15 states. Studier, 20, spent her school year interning with NARP and sketching out her big adventure. She kicks off her trip in New York City and will make stops in 20 locations—including Glacier National Park in Montana–before concluding more than 10,000 miles later in Washington, D.C. on June 20, 2016.

She’s about a quarter of the way through her trip, having visited six cities over nine days.

I caught up with Elena and Sean Jeans-Gail of NARP shortly after her arrival to the Emerald City, at Zeitgeist Coffee, conveniently close to King Street Station. They were just wrapping up a meeting with representatives from Sound Transit, whose offices are in Union Station, our former train station, located just across the street from King Street Station. The lobby, the Great Hall of Union Station, is open to the public and worth checking out.

I was doubly excited about the opportunity to connect with Elena, having just taken the train with my bike the day before. My trip was a pretty exciting one–something was going wrong with the radiator and just before we made it to Tacoma where they would add more water we stopped to let a train go by in the other direction and couldn’t get started again. A freight engine came 12 miles down from Tacoma to take us the rest of the way to Seattle and we were only an hour and a half late. I add this to a growing list of Amtrak Cascades mishaps with:

• Train with “unknown power problems” ran out of gas two miles before reaching Portland.
  Apparently the fuel gauge was broken. Fortunately we were seated on the right side of the train to watch the fuel truck (“We’re going to have a fuel truck come by and see if that might be the problem…”) do its thing so the kids suffered through the two-hour delay just fine.
• Car rammed train bridge and we had to wait an hour for an inspector to say it was OK to chug over.
  We stopped at Olympia for that hour so the smokers could get off and smoke.

Elena is also using other forms of public transportation as she travels, to highlight the various modes available. I made use of this yesterday when I dropped my bike off at a bike shop for a tune up and grabbed a bus back home. I took Elena and Sean to said bike shop, Back Alley Bike Repair because due to its proximity to the train, ferries, water taxi, and BoltBus, they see a lot of multi-modal bike travelers. And they’re awesome.

There was also a quick stop at Waterfall Garden Park, which has always amused me since it’s quite loud, yet people sit at the tables, trying to chat with friends. But it’s unique and a quick ride or walk from King Street Station.

Next up we met up with “celebrity” traffic engineer, Dongho Chang and Darby Watson from SDOT in Occidental Park just across the street from Back Alley Bike Repair. The park is bustling with food trucks, tons of seating, games (currently a foosball table, and I’ve previously seen ping pong and giant chess), totem poles, and musicians.

Dongho led us on a tour of Seattle’s latest and greatest bike-friendly infrastructure, including the 2nd Avenue protected bike lanes, Bell Street Park, the Mercer and 5th Avenue North bike lanes, and the 7th Avenue protected bike lane (and bicycle leaning rail!). We learned a bit about upcoming improvements–some not announced just yet. Exciting stuff! I pointed out to Elena and Sean that I found it a shame we had to utilize the sidewalk so much for our tour with Dongho, but at the same time, one of the first things I told them about Seattle is that it’s legal to ride on the sidewalk here…although I also pointed out that I find it sad that I consider that such valuable information. But it really is necessary for most people riding bikes in the downtown area. For now, anyway.

Elena, Darby, and Dongho on 2nd Avenue

Marveling at Amazon’s biospheres

5th Avenue North protected bike lanes to Seattle Center

Dongho Chang pushes the “beg button”

Dongho and Darby headed back to important SDOT stuff and I tagged along as Elena and Sean headed into a meeting with Alta Planning + Design. We talked NACTO, various projects, and secure bike parking at transit stations. They had lots of great questions for Elena so I learned even more about the project. I was particularly interested to hear that rather than push an agenda of her own, Elena hopes to amplify the messages of the people she meets.

Lunch was at Pike Place Market, our bikes locked securely at the bike corral (the one on Pike Place, not the fence on Pike Street by the balloon clown), while we explored on foot. We dined in Victor Steinbrueck Park, watching Washington State Ferries on their ways to Bainbridge Island and Bremerton and the Clipper Ferry on its way to Victoria, BC, Canada, while I shared tales of bike-and-boat trips I had taken. My cargo bike and tandem bike aren’t allowed on buses (other than BoltBus) and trains, but they fit on boats! So the ferries make some wonderful trips possible, like our most recent family bike camping trip at Illahee State Park and Spring Break 2015 on Vancouver Island.

Rather than navigate the Pike Place Market crowds with our bikes to get to the elevator, I led us down Western Avenue. I discovered Western Avenue as a not-too-steep route up from the waterfront by finding a pedicab driver without an e-assist to follow. One of my many route-finding tricks. Elena agreed with me that steep downhills are even worse than steep uphills.

I apologized for the state of our waterfront, but we were soon at the beautiful Elliott Bay Trail and pedaling through the Olympic Sculpture Park and Myrtle Edwards Park. I pointed out the West Thomas Street Overpass, another not-too-steep as well as all-user-friendly route up from the waterfront.

I had to rush home to fetch the kids from school and cut off towards the Ship Canal Trail while Elena and Sean pushed on to the Ballard Locks and beautifully bikey Ballard. I look foward to reading about their experiences there, as well as the Burke-Gilman Trail (and Burke-Gilman Trail Missing Link), Link light rail, and Broadway Cycletrack.

Happy rails to you, Elena!

I just spent a wonderful weekend in the amazingly bike-friendly Eugene, Oregon. I took the train–Amtrak Cascades allows roll-on bike service for $5 (reserve ahead of time to guarantee a bike spot). The trip is six and a half hours and is often early (my train was 20 minutes early, even with some fire alarm business and the forced detraining of a bathroom cigarette smoker in the middle of nowhere–Amtrak doesn’t mess around!). One can also take BoltBus between Seattle and Eugene, but I think it might be seasonal…I can see bookable trips in February when I click around now, but I wasn’t able to find trips back when I was booking this visit. We’ve taken the cargo bike on BoltBus to Portland, but it’s an as-space-allows thing when it comes to bikes so I prefer Amtrak and the guaranteed bike spot (though cargo bikes aren’t allowed).

Saturday morning I kicked off the day with an Urban Cycling book reading at Arriving By Bike™, a terrific and super-friendly family-owned bike shop. It was a good-sized crowd, especially for 9am on a Saturday. I should have taken a photo from the front, but I was a little busy talking about how much I love biking so check out these snaps by Kent Peterson:

After the reading, Shane MacRhodes, creator of Kidical Mass, led a group bike ride. I cannot tell you how exciting it was for me to be in the birth city of Kidical Mass! Not to mention seeing several friends who live down here, including the aforementioned Kent Peterson who recently moved down from Issaquah, and my friend Victor who just moved down from my neighborhood. They both seem to have found heaven on earth in Eugene.

I met Shane in Seattle when he taught my League Cycling Instructor class, but I hadn’t seen his striking Bike Friday Haul-a-Day cargo bike in person before now.

And since his trailer bike is a Burley Piccolo like mine, I was able to borrow it and one of his kids! (Kid was more stoked than photo lets on.)

There was quite a bit of kid shuffling and at one point, they were all three on separate bikes. So fun!

Photo by Sally Hunt

The amazing weather made our trip along roads and trails, across the river and back, all the more enjoyable. Just look at that sun!

Photo by Sally Hunt

Murals

Seattleite Neil Hodges paid a bike visit to Eugene a week ahead of mine and I was inspired his photos to check out some of the same places and same murals. Kent Peterson shared The Murals of Eugene on Twitter so I got a nice preview.

I got the idea to take note of murals after the Kidical Mass group ride when I rode with Sally Hunt to Bike Friday and decided we should recreate Neil’s photo.

Photo by Ron Hunt

Much of their showroom fleet was over at the fairgrounds for the Eugene Home Show, but there was still plenty to see and the first question as we entered was, “Are you here to test ride?”

By the way, many of my friends in Eugene have Bike Fridays. I love the hometown pride!

Sunday I went back by Arriving By Bike™ to sign the remaining books and my friend Maritess, also down from Seattle, humored me with a photo by ABB’s mural. See, too, ABB from the outside:

Another mural at Sundance Natural Foods, Victor’s favorite grocery store:

And two on the way to the train station, a block after the Ninkasi Brewery on the left, and at Morning Glory Cafe across the street from the train station (with awesome bike rack I want to climb!) on the right:

Had Sunday not been so drizzly, there would have been even more mural stops.

Bicycle Infrastructure

Saturday’s group ride took two of the five (I think) walking-and-biking-only bridges across the Willamette River. The trails (a.k.a. multi-use paths) and car-free bridges are awesome.

Then on Sunday Maritess on her folding Brompton and I on my non-folding Surly Straggler biked around with Eugenians Jolene and Victor on their folding Bike Fridays.

Near University of Oregon we used the two-way cycletrack and I hear there are more to come:

I also quite liked this covered cut-through:

The City of Eugene has a Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan and a Pedestrian & Bicycle Strategic Plan Update, but also some pushback from a couple businesses on much needed bike lanes. I’m not sure I’ll see any new developments come May, but Eugene is currently pretty great to bike around.

Wildlife

My photos aren’t worth sharing and I didn’t see any of the promised deer, but on Saturday I saw a nutria with Sally! I found this very exciting because I didn’t know they lived out here–I’ve only seen then in New Orleans (where they’re called jokingly “cajun chicken”).

The nutria sighting was right in town alongside a bike trail by a small river, but uphill towards Victor’s house we saw wild turkeys! And stopped a car to let them cross the street. I hear there’s a cougar in his neighborhood, but we didn’t see it.

Riding home through Amazon Park Saturday night I heard what I thought were crickets from far away, and then assumed was a burglar alarm as I got closer. Turns out it was bullfrogs! I don’t know if they were extra loud for the full moon, but they were deafening.

Next time!

I cannot wait to come back to Eugene. A weekend is not enough time to do it all.

I’ll be back on Friday May 20th to be part of the University of Oregon LiveMove presentation series. And hang around for Bike Month activities through the weekend. I missed out on seeing the Center for Appropriate Transport so that’s at the top of my list of things to do.

And once school lets out, the kids and I will come down for a longer visit. We’ll probably travel by train without a bike and rent a cargo bike upon arrival, but perhaps we’ll take the Big Dummy on BoltBus or three separate bikes on the train…but I think we’re still a couple years away from them being in charge of all their own pedaling–I worry about the trip to and from the Seattle train station as well as an entire weekend in an unfamiliar city.