Let me start by apologizing that no, it wasn’t a bike move.
Also, you’re not the first to ask ;) I used a PODS (Portable On Demand Storage) portable storage container.

There are many brands of movable storage containers, some that operate only in certain regions, and I’m pleased to report I found my PODS very convenient. Choosing arbitrary dates for the container when booking it was the hardest part, but it ended up working out just fine. I had the container at our house for a week and gradually carried all our stuff into it…alone, because I was too stubborn to ask for help, which I don’t recommend. At one point while collapsing under the king mattress in the basement stairwell for the third time I muttered, “I wish there were two of me!” so do consider using a movable storage container, but also consider enlisting help. Then we camped out in sleeping bags for a week because that’s how long it takes the PODS to make its journey. I traveled down solo by train to meet the PODS and unload (with help for the few big items this time–I learned my lesson) in just a day.

I used the largest of the three container sizes (16 feet, holds 3-4 rooms worth of stuff). Fortunately, my many recent forays to the thrift store to give away years and years of accumulated needless stuff paid off and I was able to fit just about all of our belongings into the one container. I originally booked two, with the smallest of three sizes (7 feet, holds one room worth of stuff) to arrive right after the big one was picked up, but it was easy to cancel the second container as soon I could tell everything would fit in the first PODS.

While I thought I had put just about everything in the PODS it turns out those “just a few essentials” left out to use during the moving process somehow expanded. In addition to my train trip down to meet the PODS, I also took a trip down with my friend Michelle in her Westfalia camper van packed with quite a lot of leftover stuff.

One of the hardest things was deciding which bike to leave out. I wanted to get everything except for my new Brompton folding bike in, but I ended up not being able to fit my Surly Straggler into the PODS (not for lack of hefting, whining, falling, getting scratched, getting chain marks on a bunch of stuff, etc) so that was the bike I left out. That ended up working to my advantage because after the container left I borrowed a Haulin’ Colin trailer (I have the special hitch on my bike already) so I could make one last thrift store run. And then I took the Straggler down on the train (and the Brompton back up).

I ended up renting cars twice for visits to Portland to look for housing with the kids (after a couple solo trips that were easy to do by train and bike). The first time we got stuck with an SUV. I always like getting the smallest car possible for better gas mileage and easier parking. Previously I’ve always refused the “For the same price you can upgrade to a larger vehicle!” thing, but this time it was paired with, “Oh, and your small car won’t be ready for a few hours” and that unexpected delay would have put a big wrench in our plans. At least that made it easy to bring bikes along so our weekend wasn’t all spent in the car.

After so much driving, I couldn’t stomach one more car trip so we made our final move by train. And surprise, surprise, I somehow still had a lot of stuff to carry. I had the Brompton with me and it played the role of luggage cart marvelously. Most notable was when a homeless guy on the last bus leg of our trip (after bus, walk, train, walk, light rail) took one look at me and said, “Wow. I’d been feeling sorry for myself with everything I have to carry, but look at you!” I’m happy to have brightened his day. It pains me that I’m sometimes mistaken for being homeless just because I’m on a bike, but I do like that having a bike along (even when it’s not overloaded) often makes me more approachable to homeless people. It’s not the most apparent way bikes unite people, but it is indeed a thing.

I’ve left behind some amazing friends in Seattle (whom I hope will all come down to visit!) as well as some great bike events that I’m happy to say will all live on in my absence: Kidical Mass with Familybike Seattle, Seattle Critical Lass, and #coffeeoutsideforher. We look forward to visiting Seattle to play bike tourist and see what changes and what stays the same. There are already new protected bike lanes going in downtown!

We spent a super-fun August week in Portland on an e-assisted Douze cargo bike front loading bakfiets style kid hauler provided by Clever Cycles. They have a lot of family/cargo bikes in their rental fleet, but I wanted “The one Elle had and liked so much!”

Photo by Cory Poole

All the pictures: Portland, OR – August 18-24, 2016: 223 photos.

Thursday, August 18 – 8.2 miles

One nice thing about bringing a bike to Portland is that we have wheels to get to and from the train- or bus stations. We generally take the bus once a month to visit the orthodontist 20 miles away, but we bring bikes so we don’t have to walk a mile or add a second bus transfer. So we’re not the best walkers…especially with luggage. This trip went as expected: walked across the street to catch the bus (easy peasy), then walked a few blocks to the train station where we had the obligatory discussion and investigation for stairs and elevators locations. One kid currently won’t use elevators and I wasn’t about to lug the big wheelie bag down a long flight of stairs so we worked out a plan together (of course interrupted by a helpful stranger letting us know the location of the elevator and my explaining that we were just accommodating the non-elevatoring kid, but thanks!) and split up. Always a fun little adventure and something I always forget is going to crop up. In Portland we had to walk a bunch of blocks from the train station to the bus stop and just missed the bus…but it’s a high-frequency line (does Seattle have that??) so we only had to wait 10 minutes. However, those 10 minutes involved a very curious bee and lots of screaming. And it was really hot. And then we walked two blocks from the bus stop to Clever Cycles and we all survived!

The kids ran straight for the Lego table while I test rode the bike with Leonard, perpetual employee of the month. He’s a stuffed dog my kids have loved since meeting him five years ago during our very first visit to Clever Cycles and if he ever disappears, my firstborn probably stole him. Pic from our first visit to Clever Cycles:

Then I test rode with the kids and they complained that the small box was cramped. It was, but I love riding a bakfiets when in a flatter-than-Seattle city so there was no chance of me swapping for a different bike. p.s. Douze makes three sizes so don’t worry if you’re in the market! And anyway, adding the luggage after they said they were cramped made them appreciate what room they had. Like most things in life, it’s all relative. I grabbed a Yuba Cargo Strap (psst…there’s a hidden cargo strap theme for the week) from Clever Cycles to attach the bag and we were totally fine for the half-mile ride to our Airbnb.

We ate dinner in and since it was only 7pm, we headed back out so I could show the kids Tilikum Crossing: Bridge of the People, the largest car-free bridge in the United States. I’ve been down to Portland a few times without the kids recently and have crossed the bridge countless times, but this was their first time. Super fun!

And then we joined the Thursday Night Ride for the first half hour. I saw a bunch of people I know and was surprised to see a few Seattleites! Turns out there were a bunch of people in town for the International Open Streets Summit. There are always a lot of amazing bike things to see in Portland, but I think the most amazing sight tonight was the guy with the parrot and Pomeranian on his bike.

Friday, August 19 – 10.6 miles

We attempted to start our day with second breakfast at Slappy Cakes (griddles built into all the tables–so dangerous, the kids love it!), but the wait was too long so we hit the playground in Laurelhurst Park to kill enough time until Bricks & Minifigs opened. But first, speaking of killing things, the e-assist went out! At the bottom of a hill! Less than 24 hours with the thing and I was smitten so I sucked it up and begged the kids to walk uphill for one block as I pedaled up and we went about our day with plans to return to Clever Cycles in the afternoon. Portland is fairly flat, but any incline is noticeable with an unassisted cargo bike (I can appreciate any and all hills on my Big Dummy, for instance), so I was relieved we were uphill from everything else once we got up that block.

Let me tell you about Bricks & Minifigs: bins of used Lego bricks sold by volume! Tons of individual pieces ($3 seal yay! $9 pig I will never stop calling “The $9 pig, ugh”)! Current sets! Retired sets! Party rooms! Apparently they’re building one in Seattle!

Oh, and Fred saw me post on Facebook that we were here so he came by to say hi. So easy to pop around the corner from work when you’ve got your bike at your disposal.

After lunch at slightly lower elevation, we hit Clever Cycles while the kids played with more Legos and I swapped the e-RAD mid drive Douze for one with a BionX. Pretty similar, though I thought the e-RAD felt more powerful. But the BionX has a boost button for picking up speed from a stop, which is great for getting going through an intersection since the e-assist doesn’t kick in until you’ve started moving. Extra helpful with a heavy cargo bike.

Then we visited Books with Pictures for comic books and to visit owner Katie Proctor, who is wonderful for a lot of reasons, but I find most notable for the awesome wooden boxes on her Yuba Mundo longtail cargo bike for holding an infant carseat. The store is new, this was my second visit and the kids’ first. Apparently the block was an auto body shop before so there’s no curb, just a block-long driveway. Which means no bike racks yet, until the curb goes in. But this is Portland so I bet that will happen soon. And the building is pretty and modern with AIR CONDITIONING which was really nice on this hot day. Katie arranged the front display with books all set in cold or watery places. How fun!

Dinner was at McMenamins Barley Mill Pub with kid menu and bike corral (I guess most Portland restaurants have bike corrals next to them now so it might not even be worth mentioning) via a spin around Ladd Circle because there are two cute dog sharrows.

Saturday, August 20 – 16.7 miles

We started our day with a visit to New Seasons Market which is sort of like Seattle’s PCC Natural Market, but with much better bike parking and this one by our AirBnb had a dog corral!

Then we visited Rivelo so I could get a couple John’s Irish Straps because they’re the best small cargo straps and I keep giving mine away because they’re too cool not to share.

And then the main event: Kidical Mass!

It was extremely hot out so our group was small: we three on our Douze, Ginger with her visiting sister and one of her two kids on her Circe Helios tandem bike (from Clever Cycles) with Burley Piccolo trailer bike, and Cory and daughter on their longboards.

We had a wonderful ride and ended at a water park, thank goodness!

After parting ways with friends we paid a visit to the Oregon Rail Heritage Center train museum. This used to be our main reason for visiting Portland, but it’s been years since we were all about trains. It’s conveniently across the street from Rivelo so we still often end up near it, even if we don’t go in. The old engines are all inside and there are potties, drinking fountains, tables and chairs for snacking at, and couches by the train tables and fans so it was a great escape from the heat.

We meandered home via the grocery store and a few murals. This sort of bike makes it particularly easy to stop and check out mural after mural without the kids getting impatient.

“What’s my dream? To work at Burgerville just long enough to learn the recipe for the secret sauce.”

Sunday, August 21 – 9.4 miles

Sunday was the Southeast Sunday Parkways open streets event and IT WAS AMAZING. There were so many bikes (and our two skateboarding friends) out and wonderful activities at all the parks. The kids did rock climbing, bunny petting, and bounce houses, we stopped in at a house party, I tried a BIKETOWN bike share bike.

We biked most of course, starting at Laurelhurst Park and making our way clockwise around to Colonel Summers Park. It was everything an open streets event should be, and a lot bigger than Seattle Summer Parkways and Seattle Bicycle Sundays. Not only was it longer, better attended, and packed with more activities, there were no cars! The Seattle events are more sort-of-open streets events with too few volunteers and inattentive police officers keeping some of the cars out. A friend told me that Portland originally had a similar system, but now uses construction traffic controllers who love getting waves and thank yous at Summer Parkways versus less grateful feedback from people in cars during their usual gigs. It’s really worth a trip down, and we’ll try to visit again for one next summer.

As we rested at Colonel Summers Park, getting a last bounce house bounce session in and watching everything get packed up, I watched another group of families quickly pack up to hit the road so they could be home before the cars were allowed back. It was a good reminder that not everyone feels comfortable biking on roads shared with cars and how important these events are.

We did a little more sharing car areas on our way home and visited the Burgerville drive through since bikes are allowed!

Monday, August 22 – 22.1 miles

We started our day at Slappy Cakes–no wait on a Monday!

Then we visited OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) which is always fun, and nice for hiding from the heat, it turns out.

After OMSI we headed back across the Willamette for an appointment at the Islabikes Fitting Studio so my seven-year old could try out the Pro Series. He’s in between sizes so he zoomed around on the smallish 20-inch model with flat bars, but didn’t want to try the too-big 24-inch since he doesn’t like drop bars. We’ll stick with the regular series, but the Pro Series is super cool for more serious riders than us.

That wasn’t quite enough kid biking, though, so we checked out the Lumberyard Bike Park. My seven-year old LOVED it and quickly made friends with a regular and they disappeared for an hour while I stuck to the warm up track (me on foot) with my more cautious nine-year old. It’s mostly indoor, but there’s an outdoor section the little kids explored and when we couldn’t locate them at the end of our hour, I discovered there’s a basement area, too. I don’t think I ever want to try it, but the kids had a blast.

Tuesday, August 23 – 21.2 miles

First up was another bike shop visit–Metropolis Cycles–and another cargo strap purchase–Surly Junk Strap this time. But we were really there because the kids decided I needed a bell and Metropolis was on the way to Dawson Park which was on the way to lunch with friends at Hopworks BikeBar. BikeBar is awesome for kids and adults alike. Lots of outdoor seating, as well as a little play kitchen. And there’s a stationary bike out front for powering the restaurant…though kids aren’t supposed to pedal it (shh!).

Then I took the kids up Rocky Butte to see the awesome view. I’d been up once without them when I was visiting town for the Urban Cycling book signing party at Clever Cycles. I was on my Straggler with a borrowed kid that time.

We hadn’t been up Rocky Butte long before the kid who isn’t currently willing to pee on trees needed to visit a restroom so I examined the map on my phone and we rushed down to nearby Glenhaven Park. Had I not been on the awesome e-assist bike I would have whined a little, but I figured we could easily bike back uphill after the potty visit. As it was, we ended up hanging at the playground for a long time and went straight from there to ice cream with friends.

I’m sad to see The Maple Parlor is closed because it was terrific! I particularly liked that you pay up front and then pile on the heavy toppings–no weighing involved. It’s right on Hawthorne, providing good people watching and Dingo of Olive & Dingo: Portland’s Favorite Clowns cruised by on his tallbike.

I took advantage of having a box bike for our last stop of the day and left the kids idling outside while I picked up to-go sushi.

Wednesday, August 24 – 0.7 miles

I crammed kids and luggage onto the bike for breakfast at nearby Tiny’s Coffee before returning the bike to Clever Cycles. Kath was a dear and carried my suitcase on her bakfiets while Kelley walked with us. This was just a few blocks to the bus stop, mind you, but you’ll remember we’re not accomplished walkers so it was plenty. It was great to have company.

In closing

What a trip! HUGE THANKS to Clever Cycles for the use of the Douze. We were able to cover 90 miles over the week and go everywhere and do everything! I’m eagerly waiting for winter to be over so we can plan another visit. Obvs, Portland is visitable in the winter and we do that, too, but I want another visit like this one.

So much new! Amtrak Coast Starlight recently started allowing roll-up bike service (previously bikes had to be boxed) and while I’ve heard from lots of people that the Coast Starlight often runs late, I couldn’t pass up a chance to give it a go because all our past trips have been aboard the Amtrak Cascades line. Also, PETS CAN RIDE NOW! Just small pets, but my pet is small! LOOK: Pets are free if you book in the next few days! Otherwise it’s $25. So I packed up bike and dog and headed down to Portland for a weekend recently: Coast Starlight on the way down, Cascades line on the way back up.

Main take-aways about Amtrak Coast Starlight versus Amtrak Cascades:

My loaded-up Surly Straggler:

All my stuff is in my two big panniers (Swift Industries Roll Top Panniers), Pixie’s in the front basket, Timbuk2 Muttmover Backpack is bungeed atop my rear rack.

How dogs ride
Pixie was required to be in a carrier while moving around the train, but it was OK for her to sit on my lap–though not directly on a seat–so I used the backpack for boarding and walking around the train (to and from observation car, restroom, and cafe).

The long walk from the baggage car
The first thing I noticed as I wheeled my bike halfway to Tacoma to reach the baggage car at the front of the train was that this was a loooooong train. Amtrak Cascades is short with the baggage car at the back, right by station. I’m not sure this is intentional for passengers with bikes, but I’ve always been seated in one of the closest two cars. I upgraded to business class once when it was really cheap, but after having to lug my heavy panniers the length of the Amtrak Cascades train I realized it wasn’t worth it. This train was sooooo much longer than that. I really don’t like carrying my panniers around, but stronger people, or those with lighter panniers, might not think this is worth consideration.

Wi-Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum
Coast Starlight only offers Wi-Fi in business class. I’m not sure if Cascades’ patchy Wi-Fi is better or worse, though. I always think I’ll get tons of stuff done aboard the train and spend most the time frustrated at the Internet connection. I’ll admit it was relaxing leaving my laptop off, but it might keep me from using the Coast Starlight unless I’m going farther than Portland.

Observation car
Look at all those windows!

Amtrak Cascades has additional seating in the cafe and dining cars, but I’ve only once scored a seat. This observation car was huge with plenty of available seating.

Double decker!
It’s like a real train! There are stairs! Very narrow stairs. And the restrooms are all downstairs so you don’t get to stay up top once you’re up. There’s some seating downstairs, but it looked pretty dark and lonely.

Really reclining seats
There is tons of legroom because the seats almost fully recline. There are sleeper cars, too, and were I traveling all the way to Los Angeles with the kids (which I think would be fun, but exhausting), I’d want to splurge on one of those, but a lot of long-distance passengers opted to ride in the cheap seats. It was neat sitting with people embarking on such a big trip. The woman next to me was on her way to LA and said they wouldn’t arrive until 9pm the following night (or probably later considering we were over an hour late to Portland).

One last thing
One cool thing about having the baggage car at the front of the train is that there’s a great view out the back. The view of one’s bike hanging in the dark baggage car at the back of Amtrak Cascades is cool in a different way, but this view is out-of-a-train-movie cool, right?

The weekend itself was really fun and I’ll try to write it up soon(ish), but in the meantime, all my photos are here: Portland with Pixie – October 21-23, 2016 – 269 photos

This was the video Path Less Pedaled shot with me for Clever Cycles during my BoltBus visit to Portland last month.

I hope it’s common knowledge that I love all types of cargo bikes and strongly believe that you can’t go wrong. If you’re drawn to a certain bike–even for inexplicable reasons–go for it! Odds are you won’t regret it, but if you do, bikes are certainly a lot easier to resell and try again than are cars.

That said, I LOVE LONGTAILS. Especially my own Surly Big Dummy. For all the reasons stated in the video. These days, I’m quite fond of their “LONG-evity ;)” referred to at 0:58 in the video. It’s easy for me to fit two (or three if I find an extra) kids on my deck as well as carry along their two bikes. With room for additional stuff in the cargo bags and our doggie in the front basket. That’s not to say longjohns can’t do this, too (especially with the Caddyrack rear rack by Cycletrucks), but longtails are exceptionally good at it.

Like the more-well-spoken version of me in the video says, Clever Cycles has a big selection of longtails and other cargo bikes (and folding bikes…and kid bikes…and plain old regular bikes…and kid play corner…and kid-friendly restroom) if you’re in or visiting Portland.

I’ve traveled to Portland from Seattle via BoltBus before (three round trips!), but it’s been over two years. BoltBus can accommodate a longtail cargobike if there’s room whereas Amtrak Cascades only allows regular bikes weighing under 50 pounds (so my 75-pound longtail would need to go into two separate boxes to travel on the train. And Amtrak Coast Starlight doesn’t allow roll-on service so all bikes need to travel in boxes). But the train takes $5 bike reservations so when I have a choice, I choose to take a regular bike on the train. This trip was originally scheduled to be an Amtrak trip with regular bike, but I ended up needing to bring the big bike (though I was traveling without the kids) so I switched things up at the last moment and did some breathing exercises to prepare myself for the eventuality that there might not be room…BoltBus is awesome, but BoltBus makes me nervous!

First up, pedal down memory lane of previous BoltBus trips:
July 2013 for DRT (and recap of the DRT event), August 2013 for Fiets of Parenthood, and January 2014 to go to the Islabikes warehouse.

And here’s the Flickr gallery of 84 photos from this trip.

Traveling solo meant for a lot less luggage (and a ton less snacks) than previous cargo bike/BoltBus trips: the blue bag on my FlightDeck contains three days worth of clothing, the black messenger bag contains my laptop and rain gear, and the big blue thing in the FreeLoader bag on the side of my bike is my longboard skateboard because why not? It’s hard not to fill up that free cargo space.

Loading went well! The bus was half empty so the driver let me have the middle of three luggage bays to myself (and later had standby passengers fill in around it). I had stripped my bike down of all easily removed bits (Hooptie rails from the sides, two-bike tow hitch from the back) so the widest thing behind the handlebars was my Rolling Jackass centerstand…which scraped horribly as a shoved it into the bus and a kind woman helped me lift and shove–a first! In retrospect, I should have used the skateboard to help roll it in…that’s how I’ve always moved furniture around the house, after all!

Not that I come to Portland for the weather, but I’ll admit I prefer when it’s not wet and not cold. I checked my favorite app, Dark Sky (I don’t usually purchase apps, but this is totally worth $3.99, and no, I don’t want to learn to read a free weather map) and knew I’d have ten dry minutes upon arrival. Unfortunately I wasted many of those minutes loading my bike back up and then posing for my TimerCam Pro app (also worth paying for–$1.99) on my favorite bridge, Tilikum Crossing.

My aim was a bit off–I thought I was pinching the words “TILIKUM CROSSING”. Also, it hailed a little while I was standing there so I arrived to Rivelo quite bedraggled, which isn’t the best way to present oneself the day before a book reading about urban cycling (including lots of information about rain gear!).

I continued my rounds, popping in at Islabikes (such great kid bikes!) and Clever Cycles, where I got my rear brake tightened up and my broken front-wheel stabilizer replaced (with the last Hebie one in America! Well, maybe. Probably.)…which made shoving the bike into the BoltBus on the way home quite a bit easier (no scraping RJ as the handlebars tracked in level).

And then the reason for bringing the longboard…
I met up with Ginger of Biking While Fashionable (psst, they’ve also taken a Big Dummy on BoltBus) to check out PDX Dance Dance Revolution Session #1, a longboard skateboard dance party. They intend for it to be a weekly event, Fridays 5:30 p.m. at Alberta City Park. I got to carry one of the two kids there, which was awesome, because it’s silly to have that big deck with no people or bookcases on it.

Later on, I fetched my Seattleite friend, Alyssa, from the final train of the day–she, too, left her kids behind, but also left longtail behind, thus the train rather than bus.

And the next morning we had SUN! Look at that!

And this was why I brought the big bike…I met with Laura and Russ of Path Less Pedaled to be part of a video about longtail cargo bikes for Clever Cycles. Super fun! I needed multiple takes, but my bike and book got it right the first time. Natural stars!

Last time I was down in Portland with my Surly Straggler (a normal-sized bike I took on Amtrak), I Instagrammed a picture of the bike on Car2Go bike rack because Portland has bike racks on Car2Go and no one else does. The crowd went wild! So this time we took a silly photo of my way-too-big Big Dummy on a rack. Totally doesn’t work.

And then on to the other main purpose of the visit, Urban Cycling book reading at Rivelo! Rivelo is such a cool shop. Lots of my friends ride gorgeous Rivendell bikes and they carry tons of cool smaller items, too. I got my first-ever pocket knife last visit (which I used on a recent bike daytrip I intend to blog about soon) and this time I got a John’s Irish Strap, named after John Bennett of Rivelo.

The reading was fun! And there are signed copies of the book at Rivelo still so go grab one! They make terrific gifts, wonderful for your interested-in-biking-but-not-sure-how-to-get-started friends just in time for spring and Bike Month.

Photo courtesy @kelleyas

On Sunday, Shawn Granton of Urban Adventure League took me on a tour of North Portland (thanks Shawn!). The tour outlasted my Garmin battery by a teensy bit, but here’s 20 miles of NoPo fun, including a little Statue of Liberty, Skidmore Bluffs, Kelley Point Park, the street above the off-road section of 2013 Portland DRT (spot of possibly my favorite photo ever, by @mybagisbigger), Chimney Park/Pier Park, and Cathedral Park under the St Johns Bridge.

The BoltBus trip back to Seattle the following morning was the smoothest one yet. There were a lot of people waiting to board which made me a little nervous, but the bus driver saw my bike and cheerfully told me to load it before anyone else shoved in their bags. Wow, that was a first!

And soon enough I was back home, to a land where the drawbridges raise much more often. Oh, there’s one now…

Future trips:
The kids and I plan to take BoltBus and the longtail up to Vancouver for Easter weekend, but it’s too early to book yet…another benefit of Amtrak and its much more advance calendar. And I’d like to visit Portland during Pedalpalooza for the first time, maybe once with kids and cargo bike on BoltBus and once with no kids and regular bike on Amtrak.

Two years ago we took Amtrak Cascades to Portland with the old mamabike for Fiets of Parenthood, last year we BoltBused with the Big Dummy, and this year we drove the car with the old mamabike, trailer, and kid bikes. More bikes, less green.

After nearly six years with the old mamabike (Bianchi Milano city bike), I finally invested in a SunLite Adjustable Cross Bar Bicycle Adapter for Rear Car Rack to make the step-through frame fit on the car rack more easily. It’s great! I’ve only put the bike on the car a few times, but it’s worth it to keep it level and secure. I was able to squeeze the 20-inch kid bike on the rack, too, and the single Burley trailer rode shotgun (I was able to break it down even more and shove it in the trunk for the ride home) and the 16-inch kid bike in the trunk.

We set out Friday at 10 so traffic wasn’t bad and were just a little late to join the PDX Cargo Bike Gang at the Eb & Bean artisan frozen yogurt shop.

The bakfiets belongs to Kath of Portlandize and we rode to a park together after marionberry yogurt with sprinkles (that’s what I had, anyway). I discovered since my last visit tons of traffic lights have a tiny blue dot (next to the red light, hopefully you can see it) to indicate one’s bicycle has triggered the light to change. Amazing! The little bike icon at the bottom of the photo below is where one places her wheel to trigger the light and indicator.

Portland is the best in America when it comes to bicycle infrastructure, but I experienced a couple problems. I encountered a salmoning (heading against traffic) skateboarder in the protected bike lane near the Convention Center. He didn’t notice us until the last moment, but was easy enough to dodge. Much worse was a guy that pulled his car over in front of us to park in the protected bike lane to take a picture of this movie marquee–but a couple hours before this picture when it read:

Ah, Portland. I could have squeezed around his car, but figured he’d be quick enough so we stopped and waited so he’d notice us and feel bad and hopefully think twice about obstructing a bike lane in the future. Bringing a bit of the passive-aggressive Seattle style to town.

After Dawson Park, I parted ways from Kath to visit the Islabikes warehouse and crash my friend, Alyssa’s, appointment for her daughter to test ride. Both my kids have Islabikes and we LOVE them. I’ll write about them for real at some point, but in the meantime, read this super-informative Two Wheeling Tots: Islabikes Beinn 20″ Small review.

While we were inside the warehouse I saw the strangest sight out the back door–some sort of vehicle piled with 300 wooden chairs followed by a longjohn holding a couch.

Unsurprisingly, it was Emily Finch ferrying over a bunch of furniture for the Disaster Relief Trials afterparty. I had hoped to see her new Metrofiets this week (replacing her stolen bakfiets), but it’s not quite ready so she was on her Christiania cargo trike and followed by her eldest daughter on a borrowed Bullitt.

We rounded out our big day with a dip in the hotel pool and the Disaster Relief Trials pre-party at Velo Cult. A few people didn’t recognize me since I didn’t have my regular bike along, heh.

Fiets of Parenthood Day

Saturday was action-packed with Fiets of Parenthood and DRT sharing space. This year’s DRT had a competitive Open Class and a new Replenish Class that was to be completed with a child along and was only (only!) 15 miles. My original plan waybackwhen was to try Open Class…but then Replenish Class with both kids sounded easier to make happen…but once I decided to drive with the small bike it became apparent just Fiets of Parenthood would be best. Speedy DRT Replenish Class participants were able to do both DRT and Fiets, but I didn’t think I’d be fast enough for that, and certainly not fast enough for the kids to do Kids Fiets before I did Parent Fiets.

We started with a Kidical Mass ride with the Marleaus, in town from Northern California. Peter won Fiets of Parenthood on his Brompton last year. We met near the Hawthorne Bridge, but rather than take a direct one-mile trip over that bridge, we did a three-mile jaunt via the Steel Bridge which we all deemed more kid friendly.

We headed over early to watch the start of DRT. Here’s Kath taking off with Replenish Class:

And shortly thereafter, the start of Open Class:

Longboard skateboarder (with cargo trailer) Cory Poole showed me his map and said the course looked tough:

Below is a picture of him setting off. Just as he started skating, someone ran up and handed him a GoPro on a stick. He later told me he was asked to record the first leg since he was the only hands-free competitor. Very generous–it can’t have been easy! But my favorite moment of the start was happening in the background: Joyanna, my DRT partner in crime last year finished stowing stuff in her red-and-yellow trailer and then helped her friend get her helmet on so they could have a speedier start. What teamwork!

And cargo dogs! First I saw this shortie (corgi?) in a longjohn:

And later Rando Awesome showed up in a lofty ride. I met him last DRT in a sidecar on a BMX bike, but he’s too awesome for just one bike:

The Fiets of Parenthood course was tough! First up: raised, twisty track with very narrow bridge over hot lava. Most of the kids shuffle-stepped across it, but I had to put a foot down to help drag my trailer back up on the track. Ouch, it burned!

Then slaloming through cones:

Photo courtesy Kelly Williams

Two heavy grocery bags, a ramp just wide enough for my trailer, the dropped toy retrieval, and new this year: FIRE EXTINGUISHING!

Then a new enormous teeter totter (not pictured) and the also-new woop-di-doo, shown here with last year’s winner, Peter Marleau. On one of my two practice runs I got a little off-center and dropped the trailer off the side, but we got it right for showtime.

But this year’s winner was the other Marleau, Kristi!! Behind her is Andy, who made all the course pieces, and Cafe Mama Sarah Gilbert was the hostess-with-the-mostess emcee again.

I didn’t note the kid results, but here are the Parent Fiets times. Two minutes and five seconds of the most fun ever!

And back to DRT stuff…here’s Zak, visiting from Temecula, coming in from the Replenish Class. He has a Metrofiets at home, but he’s borrowing Metrofiets framebuilder Phillip Ross’s for the event:

And the Open Class winning bike was a custom Bike Friday longtail. Or maybe it’s a midtail. It’s similar to the amazing Haul-a-Day midtail, newly available to the public.

The DRT after-party at Islabikes was hopping…despite adequate seating thanks to Emily and daughter. The caliber of the temporary bike parking in the rear parking lot was amazing. I wish I had thought to ask where all the racks came from. Good bike watching, too! I love this Bullitt with a grocery store shopping cart body as its cargo box. Part of “Team Beer” according to a sticker on the frame. Go Team Beer!

And I wish I’d seen this Perennial split frame in motion–just look at it! Is that U-lock even doing anything? I’m so confused by the whole thing. But I like it.

I also got my first in-person look at Michelle’s DIY sunshade on her Xtracycle EdgeRunner

The kids were kept busy riding the test track. It’s normally made of bike boxes, but Islabikes had borrowed a bunch of cones (dirty ones, I think they had been part of a mountain-bike- or off-season cyclocross race) which worked better for multiple bikers at once. And Olive Rootbeer and Dingo rode up on their tall bikes to wow the kids with their clown skills, storytime, and balloon twisting.

The following day I took the Hawthorne Bridge to Clever Cycles and the true meaning of the new bollards sunk in. I thought they were excessive because cars have always waited for me here–maybe even too much…on our first visit a car stopped for me when I was quite far back from the intersection and had to awkwardly wait for close to a minute while I made my way uphill to the crossing. At first I thought maybe this was to prevent weird over-waitings like that, but it’s really to add this passing lane!

By the way, the guy on the longtail that passed me complimented my bike and I resisted the urge to say, “But I have a longtail, too, at home!” and just thanked him. It’s hard not to dis the old mamabike when the new mamabike is such a cargo-carrying queen.

And then the temporary bike lane next to the road construction! In Seattle this would have probably been a BIKES MERGE WITH TRAFFIC sign. I think they might not even make those signs in Portland.

At Clever Cycles I saw a half-a-Hooptie! I’ve been thinking about doing this myself. They said quite a few customers have done this and like it. I want to preserve easy access to my FlightDeck for a kid to hop off and push the walk button at intersections without loop detectors (maybe not an issue in Portland with all those little blue lights) and because I like sitting on my deck and I don’t fit in the full Hooptie. Others roll this setup so they can use the removed rail as a step rather than buy a set of U-tubes.

I believe that was our third visit to Clever Cycles of our four-day stay. This day I had a front-wheel stabilizer put on so it’s not all just using their kid-friendly potty and rendezvousing with friends. We also paid a third visit to Islabikes to get a rear rack for the 20-inch bike. Now to find some little panniers for it. I hear front rack panniers fit well. It seems like a sign I should put a front rack on one of my bikes so we can share bags. More cargo!

The test track cones were already gone, but the bike boxes weren’t back up yet so the kids made do in the parking lot.

This was my first time dragging a trailer around Portland and it worked OK. Parking such a long rig was a bit tricky in certain spots, but everything worked well. My four-year old rode in the Bobike maxi rear seat and my seven-year old in the trailer. The main thing I noticed was how quiet our rides were. The seven-year old couldn’t see all the interesting stuff from the bridges and when he did want to tell me something, we had to play telephone with my incomprehensible four-year old passing along the message. It was pretty fun.

It was nice being able to fit all our bikes in the elevator and hotel room; I have to valet the Big Dummy. I got pretty adept at squishing the bike/trailer into the elevator just so. It was a tight squeeze, but not tight enough that other hotel guests didn’t squish in with us most rides. I guess that’s a sign we don’t look scary.

I still can’t believe I figured out the trailer breakdown and putting-back-together. The kids took a picture of my allen-key-and-wrench technique for disengaging the trailer from the bike. I’d like to get one of those easy pins for it, but I don’t know if we use it often enough to warrant it.

Bye Portland, love ya!!

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.

Our last three trips to Portland have been by BoltBus, which means we can bring the cargo bike! It’s fairly easy, but the train is a bit easier–the kids have more room to walk around and it’s a train. So for mid-winter break we took the bus to the train station and traveled without bikes. In fact, no one on our train had bikes (unless they were folding bikes stored in the train cars). Regular-sized bikes hang from those six hooks, no cargo bikes allowed.

Our train had power problems of unknown origin which meant we had to slow down several times and got behind schedule. Two miles from Portland’s Union Station we stopped completely. Fortunately they guessed right that it was a faulty fuel gauge so after a long wait for the fuel truck, we were finally on our way. At least we had a great view of the refueling.

Eventually we got to town and walked to our downtown hotel (though catching the MAX light rail would have been easier and quicker, which we did on the way back). The following morning we took the bus to Clever Cycles for rental bikes, which came with helmets for all, locks, panniers, lights, and bells. I rented a WorkCycles bakfiets with weather canopy, because I do so love renting longjohns in flatter cities (like Alternabike’s Gazelle Cabby in San Diego).

Clever Cycles very generously added a Yuba Mundo longtail cargo bike to their rental fleet so Mr. Family Ride could ride a big bike, too. It was his first time on a cargo bike (about time!). This was also his first time on a bike with an internally geared hub…and not just any IGH, but the NuVinci N360 with Continuously Variable Planetary (CVP) transmission (it’s really really weird/cool!) so he may have been a bit distracted by the different shifting than the extra length of bike. But either way, he liked it!

But he didn’t get to do any kid toting at first because they were both excited about sitting under the weather canopy. They mixed it up, sometimes sitting crammed side by side and sometimes with one down in the front. Martina even provided an extra seat cushion for the floor, assuming one would want to perch at the prow.

Mr. Family Ride expressed interest in trying the bakfiets, but I wouldn’t let him, assuring him he’d crash immediately. Had the weather been a bit better, I had high hopes of him conquering the linkage steering of the bakfiets and then test riding and loving a Bullitt at Splendid Cycles. I used to send him links to racing pictures from the Larry vs Harry Instagram account, thinking it’d appeal to his need for speed, but he seems set on a longtail. Apparently I’ve just made it look too fun.

The kids got a little too fighty our last evening so we stuck the four-year old on the back of the Mundo and Mr. Family Ride experienced one mile of cargo biking with kid.

And wow, was it nice having the kids separated while biking.

We did more downtown biking than during previous visits and I properly navigated the Transit Mall (by avoiding it) thanks to correcting my mistakes of last time. My most exciting bicycle infrastructure discovery this visit was the width of the bike lanes of SW Oak Street heading west and SW Stark Street heading east. They’re so wonderfully wide! Was it some sort of mistake?