All over the city, people in love with bicycling got up early this morning to attend the annual Group Health Bike Everywhere Breakfast (formerly Bike to Work Breakfast). This is my fifth time attending, starting in 2012 when I didn’t have a choice ;) since we were in the video.

This year’s video was about the free group rides program and one of my Kidical Mass rides, filmed back in August, was part of it!

New for me this year was biking to the breakfast with friends. I was seated at Haley Keller’s table, member of the Cascade Bicycle Club board, co-owner of Peddler Brewing Co, and all-around awesome person. She orchestrated a 6:30 a.m. meeting in Ballard and then 6:40 a.m. meeting in Fremont for riding over in a group.

And we took the new one-block 7th Avenue cycletrack. That was exciting! In Seattle we get excited about one-block infrastructure because we don’t have things that connect yet anyway ;)

The breakfast was fun and I got to see a lot of friends and make some new ones, but unfortunately not see each and every person I had hoped to see.

With Kidical Mass on my mind, I met up with my friend Brad and did a route test for Saturday’s Earth Day Kidical Mass. We usually each ride Surly Big Dummies with two kids, but for this ride, I was on my single speed cyclocross bike (a reasonable choice given the flat route and the gravel portion of the ride) and Brad was on his recumbent (a very unreasonable choice given it has the skinniest tires of all his bikes and he prefers to use it out of the city). Needless to say, it went great. We saw turtles in the Center for Urban Horticulture and decided to route the ride by the runnel (optional!) because I think the kids will like using it.

After school, I took the kids and Pixie to fetch the tandem bike from R+E Cycles, now with kidback kiddie cranks back on. The mile-and-a-half walk over took forever. My big kid rode his bike, my little kid kicked a small basketball the whole way, and Pixie valiantly panted along in the 80-degree heat.

My little guy was uncharacteristically eager to help pedal and insisted on doing all the work on any uphill so I’m starting to really look forward to camping this weekend. He’s been talking more often about being in le Tour de France when he’s bigger so perhaps he means to start helping pedal regularly. My bigger kid asked when I would adjust the stoker seat for him to use so I should probably let him try at some point…it’s just that I can’t lower the seat of the Burley Piccolo trailer bike low enough for the little kid to use (due to the rear rack getting in the way) and possibly more so because he’s not as focused a stoker as his little brother.

One more thing:

I didn’t just ride two different bikes today, I rode three different bikes today! A friend came over right after school so her daughter could test ride our two Islabikes. She’s outgrown her 16″ and we have a large 20″ and a 24″. Since the kids were biking up and down the block, I decided my friend and I should do the same and we took turns spinning the tiny cranks of Gran Furismo, my minibike (it’s covered in blue fur).

When people ask me how many bikes I own (as my friend did today), I usually deflect with a, “Freak bikes don’t count, right?” Because Gran Furismo is really just for fun, not an official member of my useful fleet.

30 Days of Biking stats:
April 20 miles: 22.7
April cumulative miles: 334.2

Our bus didn’t show to take us to the dental x-ray place today! I had a plan B worked out, but that involved transferring to a different second bus in case the first bus was more than five minutes late. I didn’t even consider biking because the place is next to Northgate Mall and after having biked to the mall once–on my light road bike–I deemed it too hilly to carry kids to. This means I didn’t bother checking that old post for my saved route ideas ahead of time so when I decided once it was clear our bus wasn’t coming, we speed walked two blocks home to grab helmets and bike and followed Google maps directions for this route that wasn’t too bad.

I liked the section along 1st Ave NE between NE 85th St and NE 92nd St because it was flat, but also because it was lined with bike dot wayfinding markings. I love the old bike dots!

It also had speed bumps that appeared to have been smushed flat with age.

And on College Way N by North Seattle Community College I saw the new protected bike lane. This lane used to have the buffer against the curb–I assumed because it tended to fill with debris. This is much better, though I have a feeling it fills with parked cars for drop offs and pickups at certain times of day. Quite a few of the flexiposts were gone, most likely taken taken out by cars.

In the southbound direction there were no flexiposts, but buffers on each side of the bike lane. I don’t think I’ve seen this in Seattle before. I like that it has sufficient space carved out to someday swap the bike lane and parking lane to make it safer.

It was all uphill getting there which wasn’t pleasant, but meant it would be all downhill heading home. One of the many thoughts that went through my head during the 40-minute ride was that if it was too hilly to want to bike home with the kids, I could always leave my bike behind and bus the kids to school and then return to pedal the empty bike home.

One more thing:

Once I had the kids tucked away at school, I brought our tandem bike to R+E Cycles to get the kidback put back on, removed six weeks ago. If we can finish up Saturday’s Kidical Mass early enough, we’ll take the tandem camping.

30 Days of Biking stats:
April 19 miles: 9.9
April cumulative miles: 311.5

I checked out the temporary (“summer location”) of G&O Family Cyclery today and it’s awesome! Find them one block north and on the other side of the street from their exploded location: 8554 1/2 Greenwood Ave, Seattle, WA. I had expected an empty room with bikes tucked in every corner, but it looks like a real bike shop! They found the space only two weeks ago and when I said the flooring looked great, Davey said they installed it themselves. And there are gorgeous, large black-and-white photos on the walls. And they’re planning to replace the light sconces. Because they can’t not do things like this, says Davey. There is already a little kid corner with toys and I added our toy trains and wooden train tracks since we no longer play with them. You may remember I brought our old train table to the shop during our very first in October of 2013.

Having just returned from a week of spring break in Minneapolis (which I’ll recap tomorrow!), I realize even more just how important G&O Family Cyclery is to Seattle. Minneapolis was WONDERFUL for biking around. I saw quite a few cargo bikes/bike seats/trailers/trailer bikes, but nothing like here in Seattle. More like four years ago in Seattle–before we had a resource like G&O. Back then there were cargo bikes to be had, but having a family-specific shop like G&O has really caused an explosion (sorry, horribly choice of words!) in them. They really are everywhere! And there’s now a market of used cargo bikes as well. Not to imply that cargo bikes are the only way to carry kids, but they really are amazing machines and until our streets are safe enough for kids to ride from all point A’s to all point B’s, they’re one of the best ways for families who want to use biking as their main mode of transportation work, especially for one parent carrying multiple kids.

Today I made good use of my cargo bike by also carrying my dog and a large load of stuff to drop off at the thrift store. I have no way of weighing things, but it felt about the same weight as the kids so it was probably about 100 pounds of stuff. I was mistaken for a delivery biker twice which was pretty cool. First was at the bike rack at Mighty-O Donuts by an expectant mother. I explained that I usually use the bike to carry two kids and when she couldn’t tell due to the bike-laden nature of my rig, I pointed at the empty Xtracycle across the street to better explain what goes where…because cargo bikes really are everywhere in this town! Then the cashier at the thrift store asked if I was a messenger…after having admitted to honking the alligator horn on the back of my bike. “No, that’s a horn for my kid.” I explained and told him how I usually use the bike to carry kids, but they do make terrific delivery bikes.

One more thing: A not-so-pleasant thing happened today that I feel a bit less grumpy about after having posting about it to my Instagram:

“Hello, gorgeous!” 😡

Today was mostly a good day. I’m missing my friends in Minneapolis terribly already, but the kids and I had an great morning (hooray two-hour time zone difference making things easy when back on the west coast!) and after I saw them off to school I was excited to load up my bike with our old trains and tracks for delivery to G&O Family Cyclery, valiantly rebuilding from the wreckage of the Greenwood explosion.

A minute after I snapped this picture, not very successfully capturing the doughnuts in my front basket and Pixie in her backpack in the same frame, a guy biked by and shouted “Hello, gorgeous!” at me. I thought, “Do I know him and just not recognize him in that cycling kit? That was a joke, right? Not a good joke, but certainly just a joke, right?!” But he was a stranger and it wasn’t a joke.

To go from feeling powerful and important one moment to objectified and insignificant in the next…blech.

I didn’t cover dealing with street harassment in Urban Cycling because it’s not something I’ve experienced before. We all (yes all women) regularly face gendered street harassment on foot and I’ve always thought, “At least on a bike one can feel safer and get away more quickly” and our avoidance tactics that are pretty much second nature when walking just aren’t necessary when traveling at bike speed.

The first tweet I got about the book was a complaint that I didn’t cover this. I’m sorry. I just re-watched the WMBA’s “Cut the Catcalling” video to feel better. “Hello, gorgeous!” is nothing compared to things I’ve heard on foot and compared to the things I’m sure dozens of friends heard today, but like I said–it was a first on my bike. It took the wind out of my sails.

Call me strong. Call me impressive. Say, “Wow, I’ve never seen so many boxes on a bike before!”

30 Days of Biking stats:
April 18 miles: 9.8
April cumulative miles: 301.6

One #coffeeoutside a week isn’t always enough for me, so I love when I can make it to En Plein Air Coffee Club (EPACC). This one is on Fridays at 8:00 a.m. and at different parks each week. There’s a mailing list signup at the bottom of the EPACC.org website to be alerted of the Friday site on Thursday.

Today’s was close to home, along the Ship Canal Trail, at a nameless park our preschool often played at.

Here’s this week’s mailing since I don’t see it on the EPACC blog yet:

EPACC will meet along the Ship Canal Trail.

Emperor Saga of the Heian Period held flower-viewing parties with sake and feasts underneath the blossoming boughs of sakura trees in the Imperial Court in Kyoto. Poems would be written praising the delicate flowers, which were seen as a metaphor for life itself, luminous and beautiful yet fleeting and ephemeral. —Wikipedia

The En Plein Air Coffee Club will meet for hanami Friday 8th April 2016 at 8am underneath the cherry trees along the Ship Canal Trail west of the Fremont Bridge. Here’s a map.

One more thing: I know of one other regular Seattle #coffeeoutside: Wednesdays at 7:00 a.m. at the Madrona Park picnic shelter. That one usually has a Tuesday reminder on jdgesus’ Instagram.

30 Days of Biking stats:
April 8 miles: 10.2
April cumulative miles: 155.2

Once a month we turn a trip to the orthodontist into a big adventure by taking bikes. Our orthodontist is 20 miles away, in Issaquah (hometown of Modest Mouse if you’re not from here and think Issaquah sounds familiar) so we do a bike/bus combo trip. We usually take the Sound Transit 554 from downtown, but our appointment was later than normal and we were able to take the much closer-to-school/home Sound Transit 556 bus. It was our first time on this line and the route is completely different so that was exciting.

We take my Bianchi Milano city bike (“the old mamabike”) when we use the bus since my Big Dummy is too long and too heavy to go on the bike rack. It was easiest when it had two kid seats and we all fit on the bike, but now it just has a rear seat and one kid has to ride his own bike. Actually, today it had two rear seats because I brought it’s original rear seat, a Bobike Maxi, along to give to a friend. The new rear seat is the Bobike Junior, suitable for my now bigger kids.

I didn’t strap the extra seat on very well at the beginning, but my six-year old helped by holding it on. The extra seat also meant I couldn’t drape my eight-year old’s bike over the seat(s) and ride the bikes two blocks to school and had to walk them side by side–such a pain! I’m not very good at ghost riding (riding one bike while dragging another with one hand).

Issaquah is a great town. When the kids were littler, they loved the train-themed playground and adjacent train museum (they still like the playground, but don’t care so much that it’s train-themed). They also love Maurice, the barber in the Cut Loose Caboose next to our orthodontist, and happily get their hair cut there while Daisy, the Pomeranian, looks on from the cupola. There’s also a salmon hatchery and we can’t leave without lunching (or dinnering in this case) at the Issaquah Brewhouse (crayons and kid menus, Duplo table, board games including Battleship).

One more thing: My friend who now has the Bobike Maxi recently wrote an excellent blog post: If you’re not biking, you’re part of the problem.

30 Days of Biking stats:
April 6 miles: 18.1
April cumulative miles: 118.8

The Emerald City Bike Ride was AMAZING! The new SR520 will have a bike lane that won’t be open for a year, but for one weekend the city closed the freeway to cars for a few hours and allowed runners on Saturday and bikes on Sunday. And a lot of people took advantage of it. I read horror stories of stranded celebration-goers on Saturday, and on Sunday I experienced a much less over-packed, but still over-packed, situation. The marked route wasn’t equipped to move as many people as were allowed to register for the ride, but despite a horrible bottleneck at the beginning and quite a few during the course of the ride (several of these were caused by people on unicycles who rode two abreast and were hard to pass, interestingly enough), it was a blast.

No photos of the jam-up at the beginning, but see all my pictures here.

The route

The ride opened at 7am, and everyone had to start by 8:15am (to be off the bridge by 9:30am and release it back to the cars). So I set my alarm for 5am (oof), and met a few friends for breakfast at the 5 Point Cafe. The cafe was out of the way (I live really close to the start of the ride), but it’s open 24 hours. Also, I’ve seen the place a million times biking the kids to the Seattle Center so there was no chance I was going to grab an extra hour of sleep and miss a chance to go in. I hit the Fremont Bridge at 5:45am and was number 39 on the bike counter. I have a feeling most of the previous 38 bridge crossers were up late Saturday night, not up early Sunday morning (the bike count resets at midnight). I saw a few women biking the other direction on Dexter a few minutes later (soon to be numbers 40 through 42 on the bridge)–they had numbers on their handlebars and helmets and were also headed for ECBR, probably breakfasting somewhere closer to the start. They shouted a cheerful hello to me and I smiled, but wasn’t awake enough to whoop back at them.

I’m not often up to see the sunrise and it was gorgeous.

The light on the bridge was great, too, once we finally walked our way far enough through the backup that we could ride.

I read that there were over 7000 participants and assumed I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew whom I hadn’t intentionally hooked up with, but I ended up seeing so many of my friends! I saw a ton of family bikers, which was very heartwarming. I hope they all fared OK during the initial backup. I know it would have taken a lot of work to keep my kids happy given how long it took to get to the actual riding, especially given the early hour!

The 520 bridge was pretty hard to ride–I was surprised to see that one side of it was open to cars after all so bikes were confined to just half of it. The shorter course (8 miles versus 21 miles) was just over the bridge and back so once we navigated our way through that, the second part of the ride wasn’t as congested.

I know people who have biked the I-5 express lanes in the middle of the night and it’s awesome! I mean, I hear it’s awesome. Seeing it in the daylight was even more awesome. And the course was much much longer than just the express lanes. We got to ride an amazing amount of I-5! I loved how everyone pulled over to the side to take pictures as soon as we got onto the I-5 bridge. It’s just that cool to get to ride on the freeway!

And then the tunnel!!

I didn’t check out the snack stops since they were so crowded, but I hear there was great food at the International District one, and I got to talk to a lot of friends at the Lake Washington one while Marley refilled her water bottle.

There seems to be some hope that this could be an annual event. I sure hope so!

One more thing: 10 of the below miles are from a bike camping trip, to be recapped in the next blog post.

30 Days of Biking stats:
April 3 miles: 41.8
April cumulative miles: 77.6

Today, as last year, Astrid and I led the 30 Days of Biking 2016 First Weekend Seattle Ride. There were 20 of us and it was ten miles of fun! And the weather was terrific. The day started grey and cool (which wasn’t so bad because I’m a bit sunburned from yesterday’s beach visit and riding around in the sun all day) and I didn’t think we’d see blue skies all day, but we ended up with a beautiful day.

We met atop Kite Hill in Gas Works Park and I forgot to post ahead of time that it’s easier to ride up the backside so most of our riders negotiated the tight switchbacks up the front, oops.

Like last year, we rode through the Caffe Appassionato drive-thru because they allow bikes! There aren’t many places like that in Seattle.

It’s not the cleanest system because then I make everyone carry their coffee by bike a couple blocks to Fishermen’s Terminal so maybe we’ll change things next year.

We were able to walk through the Ballard Locks with surprising ease and I realized how different it is to walk a recumbent bike–there aren’t handlebars at convenient walking height.

Stopping at Peddler Brewing Company was great with tons of room both in the sun and shade outside, with easy bike parking. We arrived hours before the food truck of the day, but made do with the prepared sandwiches and salad they have on hand.

I love this ride (all two times we’ve run it) because it attracts lots people I haven’t met before. I’m not sure why and only thought to ask a couple riders how they found out about it (Facebook).

One other thing (ooh, maybe this is my theme this year! One more thing at the end of each post): one of the riders assumed I wasn’t coming along on the ride when he saw my shoes. I was confused–did he know me? Was he alluding to my experience at Chilly Hilly and making a joke? And why didn’t I take the time to consider an appropriate response to future shoe comments back when I wrote that post? Two of my sweet friends were about to pounce on him with defensive words about shoe choice, but I stammered something about “Yes, I ride my bike in these shoes” (the silver ones from yesterday’s photo, btw). Shortly before this, Alyssa rode up in pretty green flats and declared “I’m wearing my pro shoes.” I said I was only wearing pro shoes because I thought it would be too cold for flip flops. So my homework is to come up with something nice and confident to say about shoes that more gear-oriented cyclists might find surprising.

April 2 miles: 12.3
April cumulative miles: 48.1

For many of us (thousands of us!) April means 30 Days of Biking:

30 Days of Biking is a pledge to ride your bike every day in April, any distance, any destination, and share your adventures online. Hashtag #30daysofbiking. For every 2 pledges, we’re donating $1 to World Bicycle Relief. Help us reach 10,000 pledges in 2016!

I love 30 Days of Biking and have joined the fun since September 2010. Last year some friends posted what I took as a negative blog post about 30 Days of Biking and it quite upset me. I’ll admit I’m overly sensitive so hopefully most people weren’t so affected. I try to be careful not to say thing that would influence anyone to bike less based on my own biases. Of course not everyone will want to participate in 30 Days of Biking, but for me personally, it was a big part of becoming an everyday biker and I will never stop appreciating it for that. And of course not everyone needs to participate in 30 Days of Biking. For some people this is because biking each day of the month isn’t challenging for them. But I remember when it was for me. I worry about forgetting how different and sometimes difficult things were while getting started. I often think about the first time I rode up Stone Way without stopping…and the first time I rode up it twice in one day. Nowadays it’s no big deal, but I don’t want to lose the memory of when it often defeated me. And I don’t ever want to forget to the extent that I sound smug.

Anyhow, 30 Days of Biking posted this to the 30 Days of Biking Facebook page and it made everything better:

Since this is Day 1, there’s something we need to talk about right away. Let’s have a little heart-to-heart. So here it is: If you miss a day, it’s OK. We obviously can’t control what doing 30 Days of Biking feels like for you, but we don’t want you to feel shame or guilt about having missed a day. This isn’t about shame. It’s about encouragement and celebrating the bike life.

Think of ‪#‎30daysofbiking‬ as a river. You can step out onto the riverbank for a moment, but that doesn’t stop the river from flowing onward. You can jump right back in, and (we’re mixing our metaphors here but bear with us) pedal harder, or just do two rides in one day, or do a bonus ride in May. It’s all good. Just don’t quit! Keep riding with us.

So yes, it might be annoying to see thousands of us posting to social media with the #30daysofbiking hashtag for a month, and I blog much more often than normal to keep track of my days and miles (and once again hopefully a theme will emerge, but I dunno). I like to think of it as a view into the daily biking life of a regular family biker/urban cyclist…though perhaps for a more-exciting month than usual since it’s fun to “go big” for 30DoB.

With all that said, here’s my Day One:

My day wasn’t quite as epic as I had planned. My original-original plan was to bike down to Tacoma for the grand opening of the expanded Defiance Bicycles. Although Seattle has many cool bike shops, it’s fun to visit cool shops in neighboring cities, too. But when I was in Tacoma for the Washington Bike Summit a week and a half ago, I found out they weren’t quite ready to open and celebrate. Plan B emerged at the summit when I was talking to Kyla of Green River Cyclery and I decided I should ride to Auburn instead. It’d be a perfect chance to take a better route than last time. But then I ended up sending a borderline sick kid to school and didn’t want to stray so far from home in case I had to fetch him (I didn’t). The weather was GORGEOUS so plan C was to take Pixie to our favorite beach, Golden Gardens. Perfect beach day!

Part of plan B was to check out the new space of local bike bag makers Swift Industries, open their first day after moving from Ballard to Pioneer Square. I opted to leave Pixie and my Surly Straggler at home and go with my newest bike, an All-City Macho Man Disc. It’s a single-speed cyclocross bike and I got it for racing (and hopefully will race more than just once this year for a change!), but I’ve been riding it around for non cyclocross because it’s really fun…as long as I stick to flat terrain, that is.

I was a bit early getting to Pioneer Square (fast bike!) so I stopped in at Back Alley Bike Repair and invited Jake the Snake along. He got a Sitka Hip Pack he had been eying online not 30 minutes before I arrived. Kismet!

Downtown, the Second Avenue protected bike lane is a MESS right now. Lots of it is because they’re adding protective planters to the not-very-protective flexiposts (yay!) and part of it is construction. There are spots where the lane suddenly disappears and a one-block detour up a steep hill to Third (at that moment I wasn’t too happy about being on my single-speed bike). Someday, I think Seattle will add detours for bikes that are just as safe as the detoured facility. I’ve seen this in Portland (and photos in other cities) so I know it’s possible.

I zoomed home to grab Pixie and wished there was one more hour in the day so I could load my Surly Big Dummy with a load for the thrift store because then I’d have been on three different bikes for day one! But instead, I got the Straggler back out for hanging with my friend Alyssa in the evening. Yeah, I could have taken the Big Dummy even without carrying a big load of stuff, but a 35-pound bike is faster than a 75-pound bike and I was running just on time.

Side note: Alyssa and I met through our kids making friends at a cyclocross race four years ago (“You’re five? I’m five!” / “You like sharks? I like sharks!” / “That’s your mom’s cargo bike? Well, that’s my mom’s cargo bike right next to it!”)

I tucked two empty growlers in my Swift Industries pannier after discovering my Pronto Cycle Share knit cap is perfect for keeping them from clinking against one another.

Chuck’s Hop Shop is kid- and dog-friendly and Pixie saw five other dogs there while we filled the growlers and grabbed a couple pints of ice cream (Full Tilt whiskey praline and vegan mayan chocolate).

Already at Alyssa’s I remembered April 1st is the day of annual bike jousting at Sully’s Snow Goose Saloon. We both lamented we should have gone. I’m pretty sure Pixie wouldn’t have liked it. I see April 1st is on a Saturday next year so I’ll keep it on my radar. We rode past the aftermath at 11:30. It smelled like curdled milk.

Upon arriving home I realized that while I didn’t ride three different bikes, I did bike in three different pairs of shoes: flip flops to the beach, clipless on the cross bike, and ballet flats to keep my toes warm in the evening. That made me think of the recent Bikeyface: New Shoes. But I doubt shoes will be my theme of the month…if there is one.

A couple other fun things: I had a great conversation about handlebar tape at the raised drawbridge. And taught him the term shoaling when he apologized for cutting in front of me. I also saw ten friends in passing on the Burke-Gilman Trail, stopping to talk to one for ten minutes. Had a nice chat with a family biker at the Golden Gardens bike rack, and Pixie got lots of waves. And this isn’t a good thing, but two Priuses ignored the “straight only for buses and bikes” signs the entire length of Bell Street today. I lost a five-dollar bet to my friend Brad last Tuesday when I said a Prius would surely drive the street with us. It was the first time it’s never happened, and I’ve had it happen five times since then now. Other cars ignore the signs, too, but Prius drivers seem to feel particularly entitled. I hear many of them are Uber drivers–is that true? Would that make them more likely to ignore signage?

Good day!

April 1 miles: 35.8
April cumulative miles: 35.8