Spoke & Food is coming up Tuesday, July 30th. Twenty restaurants around Seattle will donate 20% of their evening revenues to Bike Works. You don’t have to bike to dinner for your dollars to count, but it’s definitely more fun that way!

Join me, representing Familybike Seattle, for a family-friendly, easy-paced ride from South Lake Union Park (860 Terry Ave N, Seattle, WA, meet next to the MOHAI building) to Julia’s in Wallingford (4401 Wallingford Ave N, Seattle, WA).

Gather at 5:15 p.m. and ride at 5:30 p.m.

Facebook event for this ride
Spoke & Food Facebook event

If Wallingford isn’t your dining ‘hood of choice, here’s the full list of participating restaurants.

More about the event from Spoke & Food:

The fourth annual Spoke & Food event will take place at a up to 20 host restaurants in 20 different Seattle neighborhoods on the evening of Tuesday, July 30th, 2013 from 5:30pm to 9:30pm. If you have yet to ever participate in this important and fun community building event, this is your year to do so!

Participation is easy. All you need to do is to bike to and from one of our participating host restaurants on the evening of our event. Invite your friends or family to meet you, bring your neighbors, pack up your kids or go at it alone.

Each of our participating host restaurants have agreed to donate 20% of ALL of their patron revenues from the evening of the event directly to the local non-profit that we select each year. This means 100% of the funds raised via the restaurants go to helping a local Seattle area non-profit. The 2013 Spoke & Food event will benefit the Bike Works non-profit.

Pedalheads Bike Camps had a booth at Saturday’s Wallingford Family Festival and I got this very exciting flyer:

Pedalheads Bike Camps open house!
Bike Skills & Safety Camps for Kids Ages 2 to 12

Seattle: Magnuson Park
Tues July 9, 1:00-3:30pm
7400 Sand Point Way NE
Mickey Merrium Field #7. Access of NE 74th.
Park in the parking lot of the Seattle Musical Theatre

Bellevue: Cherry Crest Elementary
Tues July 23, 9:30am-12:00pm
12400 NE 32nd St, Bellevue

There will be lots of riding and activities for all ages and skill levels so bring your bikes and your helmets (trikes, training wheels, and run bikes welcome, too). The activities will include an obstacle course, “bike bowling”, road riding skills, a safety session on helmets, and riding ramps and teeter totters.

The event is free and don’t forget, you are welcome to bring friends and family!

For more information, email leah[at]pedalheads[dot]com

Phone: 1-888-886-6464
http://www.pedalheads.com

My three-year old hasn’t been on his pedal bike since the April Cascade Learn 2 Ride class and this seemed like a great way to get him back on the horse. I also loaded up his balance bike just in case. So that’s a total of three people, four bikes traveling down the Burke-Gilman Trail. One passing woman on a road bike likened me to Superwoman :)

We started at the Pedalheads tent with the obligatory helmet spiel. But a fun one! With helmet held to the side of the instructor’s head (“What’s wrong with my helmet?”) I love that stuff!

I hope I’m not betraying any trade secrets, but it was just so fun and the sky was so remarkably blue that I had to take a million pictures.

After a couple loops through a cone-marked course, we moved on to bike bowling.

I don’t think my cones are this sturdy, but we’re going to have to try it because IT IS SO FUN! I’m not sure anyone bowled a strike, but kids went multiple frames and the instructors were so quick in resetting the pins.

And there was a ramp that looked SO BIG at first.

Then a rousing game of What time is it, Mr. Fox?

The kids were coached to gently set their bikes down before running away from Mr. Fox.

They sprinted even more quickly to retrieve their bikes at the end of each round. This is a camp that will tire the kids out!

Temporary tattoo break! (Photo taken from my FlightDeck)

Rest time over! Teeter totter! I really really wanted to try it, but they deemed my bike too heavy and I’m too klutzy to maneuver the 12-inch or 16-inch bikes.

And the ladder:

By now it was pretty hot so the instructors set up a difficult cone course and each toppled cone resulted in a nice cool sponge thrown at the rider’s back. I was skeptical, but the children all loved it.

I can’t wait to compare our calendar with theirs and see if we can attend a full camp. I’m not sure if this is mentioned on their website, but one of the instructors told me the age for enrollment is the schoolyear age so my little guy can enroll in four-year old courses already–more possibilities!

Don’t miss their Bellevue open house on July 23rd!

Yesterday I headed six miles north to check out the new cycle track on Linden Avenue. I’ve only been up this way once before and frankly I don’t remember the stretch between 128th and 145th, but it was on a weekend so I didn’t experience weekday commute traffic. The Interurban Trail before the cycle track was just as nice as I remembered.

Entering the cycle track was very exciting! We could see it from a half block away–paint for bikes in the intersection! Curb between the cars and bike lanes!

Two blocks later we hit the first traffic signal. The right-most light is for bikes, with bike-shaped light. We saw several of these and the bike lights all change with the car lights, but I’d imagine it could easily be changed to stagger start times…because that would be cool. I was also very taken with the signs: instructions for using the loop detector and directions to a bike box for making two-stage left turns.

The cycle track had lots of signage on the right (maybe I wouldn’t find it excessive if I rode it every day and I’m sure it’s just temporary) and a stripe of paint demarking the door zone on the left.

Here’s a van with all three side doors open to demonstrate the door clearance:

There are a lot of driveways cutting through the cycle track, but they’re marked with sparkly green paint, as are some of the intersections.

At one point, the separating curb disappears, but at least the parked cars create a barrier between the road and the bike lanes so it’s better than the Dexter Avenue paint-separated bike lane…although it’s bidirectional for bikes all through, so Dexter’s got it beat there. It’d be lovely to see a cycle track on either side of a street one of these days. (The woman in the car in the photo below was just contemplating parking illegally on the hatch marks and too far over to the right. She soon pulled out to look for a legal spot.)

The paint separation is better than nothing, but cars are free to park too close to the bike lanes:

And construction could more easily take over. But it was nice that rather than have bicyclists merge with car traffic, parking was temporarily removed and the cycle track moved to the parking lane.

The last bit of the cycle track has reflective pylons in the middle of the painted gutter between the parking lane and the bike lanes. I laughed when I first saw them because they made me think of the illegally-but-politely-installed bike lane protectors on Cherry Street.

I like them…though they don’t prevent cars from parking too far to the right.

Watch Seattle Bike Blog’s video of the cycle track for a better feel for the thing:

And next weekend there’s an official party: The Street is Complete! celebration on Saturday, July 13th 10am-noon at Bitter Lake Community Center.

Heading home I was happy to see markings for a new neighborhood greenway on Fremont Avenue. I am all for cycle tracks all over the city, but when I think about my kids riding safely in the city, I think about greenways first. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every destination had a cycle track route and a greenway route?

Sometimes something amazingly significant happens in the course of a busy weekend and I worry about it getting lost in the shuffle.

Last weekend was huge: DRT on Friday (which entailed DRT prep ALLDAYLONG), Critical Lass/Fremont Fair/HONK! Fest West Saturday, and Family Bike Expo Sunday. But buried within were 5 minutes that rocked my world.

Saturday morning I set out alone on my cyclocross bike the ride the DRT course one last time, removing course markings–or decorations if you prefer a more accurate description. A Kidical Masser will mark a course with sidewalk chalk and birthday balloons, just so ya know.

Heading down towards Ravenna Park, I saw a guy and kid on a Brompton. Aw! A bit down the hill behind them I noticed another kid-carrying Brompton. What are the odds? I knew Katie was in town from Portland and had borrowed a second IT chair from Julian of Totcycle. Sure enough, it was them. I decided to finish balloon collecting later and rode back towards home with Katie and crew.

They wanted to check out the Wallingford Greenway on their way to a residence near the zoo and had already mapped things out so I followed alongside as we pedaled south and turned right on 45th. Uh, big street!

I often wonder how my bicycling would differ had I lived in Seattle before kids. There are a lot of streets I opt to avoid all together, if possible, or more often, take to the sidewalk–especially if they’re slightly (or more than slightly) uphill with little or no shoulder. I’m not often out on a bike alone, but on those rare occasions, I stay off the sidewalk for the most part, but it’s such a habit on roads close to home that I ride the route of my slow-moving kid conveyor automatically. 45th through U-District is one of those streets.

It was enlightening to see Katie and Dave confidently take the lane without batting an eye. And it wasn’t because we were a group, but because that’s what one is supposed to do.

I hear the term taking the lane often, but with one right turn I realized I’ve been doing so much wrong! I should have realized this two weeks ago when I got buzzed by a Prius. I didn’t hear a thing and suddenly it was two inches to my right. I blamed the Prius. But that’s the thing–I made it appear there was room to pass so she did.

But back to today…we crossed I-5 in the right lane and I should have led our bikey group two lanes over, into the righthand left turning lane, but I was on autopilot and before I knew it, there wasn’t time to move left so I apologetically told them I usually head onto the sidewalk to push the walk button to make the left turn. Of course a car had pulled into the intersection and was blocking the curb cut so I apologized about that, too. I find myself apologizing a lot when riding around our city with others.

When the light turned I pointed out most cars are getting onto the freeway so we should have the right lane to ourselves. Dave didn’t hear me and rode up onto the sidewalk. Of course I felt apologetic about that, too. I’ve seen tons of people ride the sidewalk there, but still.

One block later we turned right onto Seattle’s first Neighborhood Greenway. Phew.

As we rode along, I shared my favorite zoo routes: “I usually ride the sidewalk of 46th because it’s the least steep” (Shut UP, Madi! Shut UP!) “…uh, but you’ll probably prefer 50th because there’s a bike lane, though you’ll have to use the crosswalks to make the left turn and they take forever.” Yes, yes, they’d gone on 50th yesterday, it was fine.

We parted ways a few blocks later and I swapped bikes to lead Critical Lass with the kids and our happy group took the lane on NW 58th St as we checked the progress of the Ballard Greenway and not until much later in the day–maybe when I navigated my way through cars in the Westlake parking lot or through naked painted people in Gas Works Park, I can’t remember which–the enormity of the ride with Katie hit me.

It’s going to be hard to change my bad habit of hugging the right of the lane too closely, but I’m going to work at it.

And there are classes! Cascade Bicycle Club offers Urban Cycling Techniques–tomorrow, even! I’d like to take a class alone, but there’s even an option for families–Family Biking Skills, with the next class on September 22nd.

I think this was our first time donating a full bike-load by bike. It was fun to wait in the drop-off line behind a car. The kids were totally into it–probably since this was their first self-directed toy purging. They regaled the donation guy with stories about the retired toys.

The idea was to travel to the thrift shop with a full bike and home with nothing new…or maybe just a couple kid clothing items. I found the kid clothing items, but also a set of like-new TV trays. $12.99–or $9.99 considering the $3 off coupon our donation netted us. Now my laptop has a stable perch. And I get to bring our old usable-but-wobbly TV trays to the thrift store next trip! And, OK, OK, a couple toys came home with us, too.

Our TV trays then accompanied us to the zoo for a couple hours and finally along to the Bicycle Urbanism Symposium where our bike was part of the Family Bike Expo. I was a little embarrassed to show up with an impulse purchase on my bike, but I guess it’s appropriate and authentic of family biking.

Photo courtesy @LMBikes

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I got the idea for these while reading one of the numerous CPSC recalls involving infant/child products newsletter about hooded sweatshirt drawstrings posing strangulation hazards.

I picked up some locally-made ReUsies snack and sandwich bags during a half-off sale, but anyone more crafty than I can DIY it: with cloth and PUL or oilcloth which that tutorial just taught me is the same thing–I had no idea!

I found two of my removed hoodie drawstrings–sadly, not because of the recall, but because it annoys me when my three-year old tugs on them–and cut them to a length that would fit over kiddie helmets because I know I’m not organized enough to remember to distribute feed bags before helping get helmets on. Then I just sewed them into the sandwich bags, near the edge so I don’t compromise their waterproofness. Voila!

I think constant snacks might be enough to keep Little Man Strangle Hands from messing with his brother once it gets too hot to keep the snowboard jacket/straitjacket on. He wore it today–the exposed toddler arms above are just for the sake of the picture.

Ballard Bike Street Party to celebrate the end of Bike Month. My Commute Challenge team was awesome! Even with me, the captain, laid up the last six days with the flu. Blech, I haven’t had the flu since 1988 and I don’t think I’ve ever been this sick. Now I just feel like I have a cold. Go Team Family Ride!

Riding to the street party was OK…though maybe it’s a sign I wasn’t quite ready to be out and about when I was riding head down, huffing up a teeny hill and didn’t realize the person I exchanged “hi!”s with was my husband. Fortunately the kids clued me in and he didn’t seem to notice I mistook him for a random well-wisher. We pulled over and he turned around to [wait while I finished a coughing fit and] check in.

The street party was big fun, with lots for kids. KEXP had this cool pedal-driven art project. A turntable spun a piece of paper around while kids squirted paint on it. And the bike! It’s a longtail cargo bike made by someone at 20/20 Cycle.

I was smitten by the kickstand:

The Cascade bicycle license plate making was very popular, but my guys seemed to have the most fun with the magnetic board at the Elliott Bay Seawall Project.

Here’s the cutest bike passenger of the day. I think that’s an Outward Hound Pet-A-Roo Front Carrier worn on the back. (Outward Hound! I love it!)

The dog (and his human carrier) were in the “Share Your Style” Bike Fashion Show put on by Hub and Bespoke. As were we–they’ll let just anyone in! We did it last year, too. I couldn’t resist the free Fun Reflector stickers, Theo Chocolate, and bike t-shirt this year. It pays to play. I’ll stick a picture in here if one surfaces from Cascade or Hub and Bespoke.

Also in the fashion show was Ian of Bicycle Benefits ($5 sticker on your bike helmet saves you money at participating businesses all over town). This guy is so cool–read the Seattle Bike Blog profile on him.

The Cycle Saloon was also at the party so the kids sat up on seats (and freaked out at being so high–babies) and I got to ask the driver some questions. Apparently passengers can have booze on board now! With an easy-to-obtain banquet license. I verified they don’t have a motor and a car battery runs the lights. On the way home we discovered there are two Cycle Saloons in the fleet when we saw another one on The Missing Link. Way to go, Cycle Saloon! (This picture is from a month ago, by the by.)

Once we got past The Missing Link I let my pedaler ride ahead of me. Then my balance biker wanted to join him for the last mile. It takes a lot longer and it’s often quite nerve wracking when they’re both out there, but I was very relieved not to have to lug them up that last hill. Good timing, too. I got home to read Kids are the true indicator species of a bike-friendly city, written by BikePortland’s Jonathan Maus while he’s visiting Copenhagen.

That’s Super Hi-Vis Man we’re riding by, by the way. A lot of people have been reporting seeing him (how can you not??) on the Burke-Gilman Trail lately.

Local people, did you know you can borrow a bike rodeo kit from Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation for free? I’ve known, but hadn’t done so before today. I wasn’t sure of the kit’s size so I brought cargo bike and trailer. I think with careful loading (which I personally don’t find very easy with a kid or two along) and adequate tie-downs, I could have fit everything either in the trailer or on the bike. Plus, one can borrow just part of the kit for a smaller rodeo and less to carry. (It’s not a requirement you pick it up by bike, by the way, but that is, of course, the most awesome way to pick it up.)

This was the first time I’ve conducted a fun helmet fitting. Just approach a group of kids wearing your helmet sideways and ask what you’re doing wrong and once the giggles die down, everyone is very excited to have buckles adjusted and straps tightened.

We didn’t set up every station–mostly because I wasn’t very organized and hadn’t recruited sufficient volunteers, but many of the safety skills seemed more appealing for slightly older kids and our crew was largely made up of kindergarteners. Slow Race was my personal favorite. I especially liked shouting, “Ready! Set! Slow!” (That’s my own invention :))

As you can probably guess, the winner of Slow Race is the last racer to finish without leaving his/her lane or putting a foot to the ground. In the heat pictured below, racers were confronted with an oncoming balancing biking little sibling for extra excitement:

I had trouble drawing straight lines. I’d love to make something like the Chalktrail I could attach to my Big Dummy. Of course then I’d probably discover I can’t ride in a straight line very well, either.

We also did several rounds of Rock Dodge and Tight Turns. Kids repeatedly asked if we could have a Fast Race so I explained everything was safety skills related. I finally relented and said they could have their own unendorsed Medium Race. I don’t think that ended up happening, but things did devolve into a cone-running-over melee for a while.

I’d like to do another one and perhaps throw in some bike decorating and a parade at a certain time. For today’s event, a bunch of kids were ready right at 10am…but we weren’t! So that’s something to change for next time, too. Handing out stickers to race winners and then to everyone else seemed to keep everyone chipper–Cascade gave me a bunch of I [heart] Bikes stickers. The kit came with sidewalk chalk so we did fine without any extra equipment…though apparently it’s also very fun to bring one’s own spare old helmet and drop it from very high to demonstrate its usefulness.

Heading to the rodeo, we bike trained in a more traditional manner–me in front of the kids. I usually have them go first so I can watch them and I wonder if it’s hard for parents to make the switch to trailing kids. Or do they start like that? It all makes me nervous.

We had a very successful Bike to School Day! I’m not aware of a bike train to our school and would love to organize one soon, but right now it’s all we can do to get out the door on time. Also, we live so close to school we’d want to ride away from school (uphill, gah) to gather our train. Today we headed out early and encountered two families riding their bikes to school so we joined them for an impromptu bike train. Previous separate bike trips were ridden on the sidewalk, but this morning we were able to ride in the street. It was great!

Lots of kids showed up on bike–so many that I ran out of red and blue Bike to School Day rubber bracelets. Cascade Bicycle Club gave me 100 of them and we counted 115 bikes, but I suspect there were quite a few kids on bikes we missed–many parents bring bikes away after dropoff and I only made note of two of these. I promised the very upset non-bracelet-receivers I’d get more bracelets before pickup.

Heading south we saw the beginning of construction of the new curb ramps and crosswalk to help Burke-Gilman Trail users across Pacific Street. I know a lot of people who consider a crosswalk on a street like this a safety hazard, creating a false sense of security for pedestrians and bicyclists (more on Marking and Signing Crosswalks from Safe Routes to School). I’m eager to see if the motorists traveling 50 mph (I think the speed limit is 30 mph, but they certainly seem to move faster) will stop more readily for schoolkids waiting to cross the street here.

Normally, I drop my preschooler off first on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, but since I was the bracelet-hander-outter, he went to school late today. I released him to ride on his own through the bike counter (#1897) and across the Fremont Bridge so he got quite a bit of biking to school in.

Heading home from picking up 30 more bracelets–which I also ran out of, creating more tears!–I detoured from my usual route to avoid the crosswalk-installation mess and discovered a real traffic calming fixture–a new traffic circle at 41st and Sunnyside. The neighbors will take care of the landscaping so I’ll check back in a bit for flowers.

After school we went in search of a new kid bike helmet. The kids rode all the way to Recycled Cycles–it took forever. Normally we’d be on the Burke-Gilman Trail here, but there’s a long-term closure during the Burke-Gilman Trail UW makeover. This stretch of road is half one-way for cars and half two-way for bikes. I like it.

We struck out on blue kid helmet at Recycled Cycles, so back we went. Here’s the above street in the other direction. I had talked the little guy onto my bike so we moved a little more quickly now. And much more quickly than all the cars stuck at the five-way stop.

At Gregg’s we found the perfect helmet. I think it looks teal and pink, but he says it’s blue so we’re good. Now we all have Giros.

I doubt the decorators of the new traffic circle will be inspired by the Tangletown traffic circle boat, but we adore it. Its accessories seem to change every time we swing by–last week there was an oil painting propped on its windshield.

To wrap up on the Bike to School stuff, the resources I utilized were Walk to School Day and Bike to School Day and locally: Cascade Bicycle Club Bike to School and Walk.Bike.Schools!.

How do you go about finding bike routes? I start with Google maps directions and adjust per the local Seattle Neighborhood Greenways map(s). If I’m at all confused, I’ll solicit opinions from the Seattle Family Biking Facebook group since most of the members have similar requirements to mine–not too steep, not too busy–and we’re spread throughout the city. If I’m out and about I usually only use my Bike Maps app, though it only gives one choice and from current location to the spot I plug in. I know several people who swear by Ride the City and gmap-pedometer. What do you find most helpful?

Today the toddler and I scouted routes from Capitol Hill to Seward Park for the upcoming Critical Lass/Family Bike Seattle CycloFemme ride. This isn’t the route we’ll use, but I quite liked it:

It was my first time in the I-90 Bike Tunnel and the only steep part of the ride was the half block up Irving on the east end of the tunnel. It was OK with just one kid on the back, but I’m not sure I’d make it up with both kids and their bikes. Obviously, I’ll just have to come back and give it a try!

This was also my first time on the Mountains-to-Sound Trail (or MTS trail if you’re cool). I’d like to explore more of it.

I wish I’d taken more pictures of the lovely view while we were up high, but we wound our way down through Colman Park before I knew it. We stopped in at Leschi Starbucks where I ran into my doula on her mountain bike. Between the two of us and the BMX bike locked out front, it must have been the first time in the history of the Lake Washington Loop that the roadies were outnumbered by non-roadies. There were just two capital-C-cyclists there, one airing out his feet al fresco and one quietly studying his Strava inside. A bit along the Lake Washington Loop we stopped to squash Mount Rainier. Beautiful day for it!