We’ve conducted a few tests of the Seattle Bike Counter and have to conclude it’s magical–just as I initially thought. First up was the seven-pound Kinderbike Mini balance bike with ten-inch wheels. It counted!

That double diamond is the sensor.

While we were conducting our test, a friend walked by with two three-year olds in a double jogging trailer. The bike counter ignored them. Brilliant!

Last weekend the monthly Spokespeople ride took us to the bike counter where it counted a wooden Skuut balance bike. That device knows its stuff!

On Wednesday we took Engine Engine Engine (normal bike + trailer bike + trailer) to see what the counter thought of it. It’s a lot of bike and a lot of wheels so I thought we might count as two.

The counter hesitated after we crossed the sensor, maybe because it wasn’t sure what to do, but probably to give me time to picture it thinking, “Really? You thought you could confuse me? Pah-leese.” And then it tallied us as one.

I think my testing of the bike counter is done, but there are things I’m curious about:

• Full-sized trike with the two wheels in front
• Full-sized trike with the two wheels in back
• Recumbent trike
• Minibike
• Swingbike with rear wheel swung out to the side
• Unicycle

Testing complete, our day took a turn for the less awesome. First, the imaginary reprimand from the bike counter and then Engine Engine Engine decided to teach me a lesson after having apparently read my mind this morning when I realized just what a pain it is to lug around. Ironically (stay tuned for that irony), I thought I’d be better off using the Big Dummy to drag the trailer (empty) and leave it at preschool for the day so after kindergarten dropoff I could go home and swap for the road bike to use during my kid-free time.

The preschool part of the morning went well: I remembered to take the kindergartener’s backpack out of the trailer this time. I even had a better plan than last time and wore my big Tom Bihn Super Ego messenger bag so I could put his whole backpack in with my stuff.

Disaster struck at the elementary school when I couldn’t budge the pin that holds the trail-a-bike connected to my bike. Mr. Family Ride has no trouble getting the thing off and on, but apparently I’m too impatient to make sure I’ve got the two parts lined up. The school bike racks are not as full as they used to be, by the way:

I think the fourth graders had bike lessons earlier in the year that yielded full racks.

I had plans on Capitol Hill and it probably would have been easiest to take the passenger-less trail-a-bike up with me, but I went home to swap bikes. I considered taking Mr. Family Ride’s bike since I really didn’t want to have to go into the house and change shoes (my road bike has clipless pedals), but he insists the double trailer with its old style hitch doesn’t work with his disc brakes. He’s out of town, by the way, so I entertained the idea to the point of pulling his bike out of the garage and almost pulling away from the house on it. While I’m curious if hauling Engine Engine Engine without the second conductor would be easier than with him, today wasn’t the day to find out. So in the end, I took the Big Dummy up the hill.

Had I been on my road bike, I would have gone along 10th, but on the heavy bike I prefer biking through Eastlake. Here’s the Melrose Promenade, covered in fall foliage. There are a lot of clogged up bike lanes and trails these days. Careful, folks, leaves can be slippery!

Then I got to see what it’s like to drag the empty trailer uphill. I’ve moved it a couple times with the Big Dummy, but only on flat ground. I took the steepest route home to adequately test things and it was only slightly harder than with no trailer. Good to know. I can continue to bring full-sized pillows on bike camping trips. A day full of experiments!

The three-year old was eager to ride with his new bunny basket so I tossed the five-year old’s bike on board the Big Dummy and the little guy and I rode separately to kindergarten pickup. This was also a good way to prevent disappointment at not getting to pedal the trail-a-bike home.

Hey look below, an R74 campaign sign! If you need fenders and can find a sign, see the Kent’s Bike Blog DIY fenders and panniers tutorial. I think I’ve seen more links to this lately than election stuff (OK, not really).

Two of the four blocks are too steep for the kid to pedal, but he still likes going by small bike. I don’t know why the little guy is doing the zombie slump–I’m the one who pedaled uphill all day! This is a new technique–when he’s tired, he slumps over his handlebars and lurches along and sighs. I gotta admit, I feel like doing that sometimes, too.

In the past I’ve done a bit of kid-swapping when biking with friends to keep siblings from pestering one another, but today was a real day of musical bikes.

Ride one:
For starters, I took my two kids on the Big Dummy to Julie’s house where we we learned to play Go Fish and deploy a lightsaber.

Ride two:
After a while we made tracks for the flagship REI indoor play area. Julie offered anyone who wanted a ride in her Madsen and of course all four kids jumped at the chance.

That awesome cover is new and details will be up on Wheelha.us soon. Also fairly new is the Madsen’s BionX electric assist so I didn’t feel bad giving her my 75 pounds of cargo. She let me carry her little bag so I could feel like I was doing something, too. Proof that I needn’t have worried is right here on Eastlake Avenue:

That’s the fully loaded Madsen waaaay in the distance.

But before the hills, I led us to this Smart Car I’ve been eying from the Burke-Gilman Trail for a while. It’s just so fun to take pictures of bikes holding two or more people next to a car that only holds two people. I call this “Who’s smart now, little car?”

Ride three:
I think the four kids got along fine in the bucket…though I wasn’t close enough much of the time to see for myself. But my two were ready to be apart from one another by the time we left, so I took my three-year old back and the other three kids stayed in the bucket for a trek to our mutual bike shop, Ride Bicycles. Julie hasn’t put the zippers on her weather shield yet so the kids were able to move the clear panel around which they found very fun–divider between the big kids and little kid, or between the two big kids. I liked that I could receive blown kisses through the gap.

Ride four:
After the shop I took my little kid and Julie’s big kid so both sets of brothers could sit separately for the short ride to Pizza Pi Vegan Pizzeria. The only wrinkle was that my new passenger hadn’t dressed for the weather. His t-shirt and sandals were just fine under the weather shield and REI’s indoor bike parking, but we hadn’t counted on exposure to the elements. Fortunately, the intermittent drizzle was on a break and we even saw some patches of blue sky. Also, we were on our way to pizza. P-I-Z-Z-A!

Ride five:
Finally back to my regular two passengers for the ride home. It was great following a friend so familiar with the area. First she led us on the most gradual route from the bike shop to the pizza place, but even better was the route from U-District home to Wallingford. I know NE 47th Street is a future University Greenway, but don’t usually use it since I’m often on the wrong side of the street or it’s out of the way. It was perfect for today’s trip and saved us six blocks of busy NE 45th Street (where we would have been stuck on the sidewalk walk).

Behold the last year (perhaps) my kids will allow me to costume them as bike infrastructure: Seattle Neighborhood Greenways!

Those are traffic circles on their helmets:

This is after last year’s bike box and bike lane guy and two years ago old-school sharrow.

The posters on their backs (thanks, Cathy!) really helped–people asked what they were dressed as and they simply turned around and showed their wings/cape. For most people that was enough, but I also did some explaining about people- and bike-friendly streets and lauding of Seattle’s amazing grassroots Neighborhood Greenways organization.

I made the little guy’s jumpsuit from the Slanket I originally thought was so awesome (picture of him in it at the bottom of this post), but he rarely wore. Hooray for a new use for it. I think I had enough fabric to make both kids’ outfits, but I’m not very crafty (previous costumes were all staples and glue–this was my first foray into sewing), so I took the easy way out with the big kid when I found three-sizes-too-big pants and shirt and just did a little haphazard taking in. The extra sleeve became two treat bags and I’ll hang onto the remaining fabric for a future project (yeah, right–I think I’m all crafted out).

The stenciled-on sharrows on their legs were a bit sloppy, but certainly recognizable. Those black strips on the left are roads with dogs, bikes, and motorcycles sharing the road (I couldn’t find little pedestrians and cars and was too lazy to create my own). I affixed them to the sleeves with velcro so I could remove them in case we had to don jackets or rain gear.

We’ve been very lucky with the weather the last two years, but today started out very rainy. We met friends in the afternoon at Flying Apron Gluten-free, Vegan Bakery and Cafe in Fremont where the businesses started their trick-or-treating at 3pm, but I was scared to put the kids into their costumes. Should have gone for water-proof fabric paint! I also opted not to decorate the bike which makes me very sad. My first Halloween with a cargo bike and I didn’t make the most of it.

So we skipped showing off the costumes at Hub and Bespoke and getting special chocolate at Theo’s and biked back to Wallingford to suit up inside the Wallingford Center for indoor trick-or-treating. I’m all for house-to-house neighborhood trick-or-treating, but for little kids, it’s nice to be able to start at 3 or 4 by hitting up participating businesses–especially in the case of the Wallingford Center where it’s all indoors and dry! Last year we started in the Fremont neighborhood and I discovered so many cute little shops.

And as luck would have it, the rain let up after an hour, just as we’d exhausted the Wallingford Center, so we migrated outside to work our way up and down 45th Avenue where more local businesses were participating. It was particularly nice to go into the Kids on 45th consignment shop so I could show my five-year old where we picked up his green shirt and pants and Archie McPhee where I got the plastic figures for their on-arm roads. (While I’m naming business that contributed to the costumes, I had no idea until a few days ago that there’s an art supply store just eight blocks from me–Artist & Craftsman Supply in U-District. I got the white paint and little apple trees for the traffic circles there. We’ll be back. Often.)

I’m very very embarrassed to admit that my little Greenways didn’t trick-or-treat along the real Greenway! We made our way a few blocks south from 45th, in search of my kindergartener’s teacher’s house and ended up working our way east towards home on 42nd, rather than 44th. Inexcusable! But the costumes survived the evening so hopefully they can wear them again while they still fit.

Happy Halloween!

We attended a wonderfully bikey five-year old’s birthday party on Saturday. The day started with a parent-powered group ride, then stationary pizza party plus bike decorating, and finally kid-led bike parade. The ride came with a timeline for people meeting up along the way (or those of us who ran late):

• 11:00 meet at their place
• 11:30 at the park on the Burke-Gilman Trail between Brooklyn and University
• 12:00 at the park on the Burke-Gilman Trail next to the Ronald McDonald House
• 12:30 ending at Magnuson Park

We were about 15 minutes late, but met up with another late friend on an Xtracycle with one of her two kids in tow. Together we headed back the way we came and caught up to the party at the first park stop. There we hung out for a few minutes to wait for one more family. So despite the drizzle, here we are: six family bikes, including a woman who hadn’t biked since her pre-kid bike commuter days and had been coincidentally been storing a trailer in her garage for a friend. That green rainsuit on the kid in the middle of the picture is a Ducksday. They look awesome. My three-year old sports an MEC Newt Suit I need to rewaterproof with Nikwax and my five-year old is about to outgrown his MEC rain bibs so I’m on the lookout for something new, though most rainsuits seem to only go up to size 5T…though it’s usually a baggy 5T. (Same goes for the sizing of the Tuffo Muddy Buddy I see on a lot of kids.)

I didn’t bring kid bikes because I’d intended to leave early for a 1pm soccer game (of course that didn’t happen because who can leave a party as awesome as this?!) which meant I was free to relieve a little rider of her 20-inch kid bike so she could hop on her mom’s Kona Ute and take it easy the rest of the ride. For the record, I think I could have fit all three kid bikes: her 20-inch bike, our 16-inch pedal bike, and 12-inch balance bike if need be. I’ve never dragged two bikes behind, but I’ve seen pictures.

I love the redundancy of this Kona Ute: big kid moved from her separate bike to the deck while her little brother, who normally rides in the iBert front seat, was taking a nap in the Chariot trailer. Talk about wasted space–she could have easily fit three more kids on there! She didn’t have a solid plan for carrying the kiddie bike, though she had bungee cords along to give it a try. Her more reasonable plan B was to lock it up if her daughter got tired and come back for it later so I was very happy to be able to help.

The birthday boy’s dad met us along the trail between the first and second park stops. He pulls a trailer bike and since the star of the show was sitting on mom’s Kona MinUte (with Skuut balance bike snugly strapped to the side!) he made use of the spare seat to carry an enormous bag of balloons. Quite exciting! The kid in the photo is sporting Nutcase Removable Ear Pads which I just saw for the first time last week at Hub and Bespoke. Not as cute as my Helmuffs, but they still look and work great.

Had the weather cooperated, the whole party would have been outside, but we dried out in a room in Magnuson Park where we enjoyed ‘Zaw artisan pizza (usually bake at home, but they’ll cater baked pizzas–even gluten-free and dairy-/soy-free!), salad, and chocolate zucchini birthday cake. Yum!

A bunch of kids and their kiddie bikes met the party at 12:30 for phase two of the party. The birthday boy’s mom had made the Bike Works family bike rental fleet available to guests, but no one made use of it. However, it was still impressive that so many showed up for the party, both the indoor and outdoor portions. The kids with bikes had quite a bike course going inside the party room, but they eventually moved outside for the highlight of the day: the kid-led bike parade. I trailed behind the kids with my littles on the Big Dummy and we paraded alongside playground, dog park, and rugby games.

I followed my friend on the Ute home so I could give her daughter periodic breaks from her bike. It worked out really well, though I left the trail a mile before they would head uphill towards home. I was pleased to see a 20-inch bike fits wonderfully in my Xtracycle FreeLoader bag–even better than my five-year old’s 16-inch bike that I have to be careful to cinch in tightly enough to keep it straight. Yay, Big Dummy!

My fellow ALI grad, Shannon, set up a Family Ride on the someday-to-be Ballard Greenway in conjunction with Walk.Bike.Schools and Ballard Greenways…and Julian declared it a Kidical Mass ride, too! Forty people, big and small, showed up for the three-and-a-half mile east-west trip.

Photo courtesy Seattle Neighborhood Greenways

The ride was slow-paced enough that I let my five-year old ride solo on his pedal bike. His first time on the open road!

There were a few kids riding on bigger bikes and we got a bit behind at times, but he had a great time and was able to make it uphill on all but one block. He can stand on the pedals on flat ground, but hasn’t gotten the hang of utilizing that skill for climbing hills yet.

Our ride leader, Cascade Bicycle Club’s Robin Randels, was fittingly costumed as a queen bee–here she is at one turn-around points:

And Seattle Neighborhood Greenways Cathy Tuttle was the sweeper–complete with broom!–dressed as a witch:

It wasn’t a costume ride per se, but would have been an excellent day to unveil a decorated bike. I picked up an empty bike box yesterday, but was too tired to turn it into something last night.

This was my first close look at Totcycle’s new BULLITT cargo bike with Blaq Design cargo canopy and BionX electric assist. And a Burley Piccolo trailer bike on the back to really show off. It’s so awesome! I test rode it after the ride and almost gave up (that linkage steering as described so well by Hum of the City is hard to get used to!), but finally got the hang of it. Did I mention how awesome it is? It’s awesome!

I should point out that it’s hard to keep empty space empty. It’s nice riding around with just one kid and one kid bike (the lighter one!) on board, but the Wheelha.us brothers were minorly clashing in the Madsen bucket in front of us–no big deal, the little one was pretending to eat the big one, but we’ve been there a million times, so I offered my free seat to the the eat-ee.

After the ride I let both boys ride their bikes to Ballard Coffee Works (train table!) for the post party and then through Ballard Farmers Market, but put both kids back on board for the ride through The Missing Link. I let just the big kid loose once we got to the Burke-Gilman Trail. The three-year old was upset at having to remain a passenger and didn’t buy my argument that his balance bike wasn’t trail-ready, but he didn’t fret for long because the chain fell off the kiddie pedal bike on both sides. That was a first for me and I couldn’t wrestle it back on. Luckily, this happened a half-block past Rosebud Custom Bicycle Builds…but they were closed. I’ve only carried 16-inch (and bigger) bikes by dragging a wheel out the back, but I was able to fit the whole bike into the FreeLoader bag–good to know! So we got it fixed a mile and a half down the trail, at Recycled Cycles. The mechanic said it was an unusual thing to have happen and moved the back wheel back a bit to prevent it from happening again.

The kids were eager to ride so we rode up the sidewalk of Stone Way and then experimented with a kid-friendly route home by turning right before 45th on Allen Place. First off, we discovered the Slide to Nowhere/sui-slide I just read about on Wallyhood. Curious and exciting!

And then we cut through Lincoln High School (which I think a lot of bicyclers do) and discovered a wonderful asphalt expanse, complete with speed humps that are fun to ride both over and along. If you live anywhere near Lincoln High, it’s worth biking around during non-school times.

Owning a cargo bike changes a person. There’s a constant temptation to haul increasingly bigger and bulkier cargo loads. Personally, I’m still trying to come back from the box spring fiasco of four months ago. I think the best I’ve done is haul The Main Tank’s Madsen bucket bike after borrowing it for the Cargo Bike Roll Call:

I missed my first opportunity to haul a bike, having only owned the Big Dummy 10 days and not yet cargo-bike-minded. But then it almost happened again yesterday when The Main Tank needed to get her bike to the shop and I offered to watch the kids if she felt comfortable riding it in without precious cargo aboard.

Thank goodness Hum of the City was thinking clearly:

My rear (disc) brake is barely working! Need to take it in, but can’t put it on the car and don’t feel safe riding downhill with kids. Hmm.

— The Main Tank (@the_main_tank) October 15, 2012

@humofthecity @the_main_tank oh yeah! Duh! Lemme haul it for you!!

— familyride (@familyride) October 16, 2012

So haul it I did!

Photo courtesy Robin Randels

I was disappointed the kids wanted to stay at The Main Tank’s house to play rather than ride along. Without the seat on, they’d have to share the handlebars which didn’t go so well when we rode a Kona MinUte two miles (first mile: great, second mile: fight to the death), but we had a promising discussion about sharing and getting along.

So the load was much less exciting than it could have been. With the wheel snugly buckled in (Xtracycle Utility Belt not only good for ease in buckling through the hacked Yepp seat, great for buckling up and over the top of the FlightDeck), it felt light and cornering was just fine. I forgot to measure how long a 18-inch Big Dummy in the pocket of 16-inch Big Dummy is so I took a picture of how it stacked up next to a big van. This van (at the car rental place across the street from Ride Bicycles) is my new measuring stick. I’ll have to bring Engine Engine Engine by to compare.

The Main Tank’s brakes were in need of a tightening as well as one [brake cable?] having vibrated out of the something-or-other. I’m not the best bike maintainer, but I’m working on it. I’m very inspired by Hum of the City’s good example of keeping her brakes in tip-top shape. She has them looked at monthly. I had mine looked at when she was in town so I wouldn’t be embarrassed when she borrowed my bike. That day I decided to take my bike in every three months (this is until I take the Bike Works ABC course and can do it myself!), but after The Main Tank’s diagnosis to bring her Big Dummy in monthly I might go more often, too.

The cargo bike hauling wasn’t the only excitement of the day: I also ended up riding three different bikes in one day. Seems worth documenting.

Once back home, the kids wanted to ride their bikes so I decided to follow along on my beach cruiser. I’ve been thinking about selling my cruiser. The money and the space in the garage will be nice, but it’s more about passing it along to someone who will use and appreciate it. This bike deserves to be ridden along a flat beachside expanse. It was my everyday bike in San Diego, but I rarely ride it now (though the kid hauling has made me strong enough that its single speed can take me anywhere, even in this town). Fortunately it’s too late in the year to sell it now so I have time to really get comfortable with the idea of parting ways, but I’d love to send it to live on Alki and rule the beach.

In retrospect, the cargo bike would have been a better steed because my three-year old crashed on the way down a hill and didn’t want to ride anymore. I perched his little balance bike on top of my basket so he could walk the rest of the way home, but after a few steps he decided he didn’t want to walk, either, so I let him sit on my cushy seat while I walked us home. I wonder if there’s a way I could have perched him on the handlebars and the balance bike in my messenger bag so we could coast downhill (can you tell I’m lazy and hate to walk anywhere?), but this worked well enough.

And bike number three was my road bike to an evening preschool coop meeting. Most exciting about this was that it meant passing the Fremont Bridge counter six times today. 6 out of the 3025 total bikes for the day, that is.

After a one-week delay, the bike counter is up and running! It’s on the northwest corner of the Fremont Bridge, right here:

A lot of people turned out for the 11am unveiling. I arrived only five minutes early and had to line up my bike at the end of a long line and stand at the back of a big crowd for the opening announcements.

I eventually wheeled my bike closer so I could stand on the FlightDeck for a better view:

It wasn’t raining out, by the way. Just our first cold, grey day after a lovely run of “Augtober” so everyone bundled up in rain gear. I even pulled out my “winter helmet”–a Bern helmet that was my only helmet, purchased the day my ten-year old Giro broke, but which soon proved too hot and uncomfortable for summer days, necessitating the purchase of another Giro (new, but unused, and half price via Craigslist–yippee).

I didn’t hear everything, but I did hear the first mention of a funded Westlake bicycle facility (cycletrack, specifically, I think). Wahoo! To be completed within a year or two.

There were a couple toddlers in attendance and Leya with her small daughter in her Madsen bucket bike was the first bike to be counted! I was number ten with no kids on board. Another cute “baby” on the scene was the adorable doggie of Juliette of Hub and Bespoke. This is not the stock topper to this doggie bike basket, but if you have a dog you want to bike with, check in with Juliette about baskets.

Coming back through after the unveiling, I was number fifty-something, then on the way to preschool pickup, I was 167 and on the way back, 225. The online counter doesn’t seem to be tallying correctly just yet, but soon numbers will be available here.

Photo courtesy Cascade Bicycle Club

More bike counter stuff: Seattle PI’s Bike counter installed at Fremont Bridge coverage and Seattle Bike Counter Facebook page.

The bike counter registers bikes traveling in either direction, and on both sides of the bridge. It correctly counted bikes with trailers as a single bike and knows to ignore jogging strollers. The sensor on the west side (I haven’t checked out the east side yet) is a double diamond etched in the cement. Biking directly down the middle of the two diamonds might not register on the counter and there is enough room to skirt around the side so some bikes will get missed, but not very many. I want to do a little bit of my own testing: I’d like to see if my three-year old’s balance bike with 12-inch wheels registers and I’m curious if Engine Engine Engine counts as one bike or two.

Today I crashed my cargo bike. I was moving very slowly. There were no cars around. One kid was on the bike with me…but not my kid. Things certainly could have been worse, but as you can imagine, I feel awful. For the record, I’d be just as hysterical (actually, probably more so) if this had happened in my car. I’m cautious, but I’ve had two bike crashes since living in Seattle–the first was almost two years ago when I slipped on the ice with both kids on board the old mamabike. Now I move at a snail’s pace in icy conditions. The second was in May on the Big Dummy with no kids on board. No kids involved equals no big deal. Kids were fine, bike was fine, I have a nice reminder scar on my foot.

Today my sweet little passenger and I successfully navigated from Lower Queen Anne to Wallingford to drop my five-year old off at school, but instead of riding four mellow blocks home, we embarked on a teensy little errand for my three-year old’s preschool. Unfortunatley, that teensy errand was the to office supply store on the other side of I-5. I really hate the transition from Wallingford to U-District. In fact, I’d love fixing it to be my campaign for the Cascade Bicycle Club Advocacy Leadership Institute. I have a long list of people to get in touch with about the project, but I haven’t done anything yet. It’s a huge job and I’m scared. But in the meantime, bad things happen here. My nearest miss with a car happened here. Today was nothing so sinister–just a slippery plastic water bottle concealed by a pile of fallen leaves. This area is too unfriendly (fast cars, no room for bikes) for slow family bikes to ride in the street so I stick to the sidewalk. And sidewalk riding means curb cuts filled with debris. Not that streets–especially bike lanes on streets–aren’t filled with debris, but at least that’s usually just at the edge and easy to avoid.

I don’t mean to imply that the crash wasn’t entirely my fault. It was. But in addition to being mad at myself, I’m mad about the lack of bicycle infrastructure. It’s good I was inching along when the crash happened–we were barely moving when we went down, but the bike slipped out from under me and while the bike and I were unscathed, my passenger ended up with quite the scrape next to his eye. A scrape that wouldn’t have worried me if it was on my own toddler, but this wasn’t my toddler! So some cuddling, a safe return ride six blocks home, and a hysterical (on my part) call to a very understanding mom of the toddler later things were pretty much back to normal.

The first crash I mentioned has made me extremely wary of ice. Do I now, out of fear, steer clear of putting other kids on my FlightDeck? It’s such a tough question. Statistically, it’s not going to happen again, but it did happen. It’s impossible to predict how isolated incidents will affect one. I know people who don’t ride bikes anymore…or would never ride without a helmet…or won’t ride with their kids…for a variety of reasons. My friend’s brother had a very bad bike accident probably caused by a bike accessory. I think it was a fluke occurrance and I can’t find any mention of this happening to other users, but I would never ever ever ever (ever ever ever) use this piece of equipment.

In search of some good news, I attended tonight’s Cascade Bicycle Club Annual Membership Meeting. I didn’t hear anything new during SDOT’s Seattle Bike Master Plan presentation. But there are four public meetings coming up next months so hopefully those will yield some promising news:

• November 7 Downtown at City Hall – 5:30-7:30 p.m.
• November 8 South Seattle at New Holly – 5:30-7:30 p.m.
• November 13 North Seattle at the University of Washington – 5:30-7:30 p.m.
• November 15 Citywide online lunch and learn – 12:00-1:00 p.m.

But I did hear a couple exciting things during the Cascade update:

• In the Events category: Cascade is looking into a ciclovía-type event, but it “takes a village” and they’d need to work with a lot of different organizations to pull it off…not to mention spend $100,000.
• Education 2013 objectives: Cascade will establish a family biking program!! And the summer camps will expand to avoid the usual 20-kid-long waiting lists.
• Daily rides are utilizing Meetup.com which will reach more women bicyclists.

A week ago, hundreds of elementary school students swarmed a half mile portion of the Burke-Gilman Trail for our school’s biggest fundraiser, the annual Move-a-Thon.

I’ll admit I thought the event was soooo annoying in previous years, but having a participant this year, it’s the sweetest, most wonderful thing ever. And for the record, there are signs up ahead of time and marked detours if other trail users don’t want to weave through the kids at five miles per hour.

Most kids were on bikes, but participants also walked, tricycled, and scootered along. Parents accompanied smaller kids, including me. It was the first time I’ve felt like a helicopter parent, but I couldn’t imagine him biking alone, consider the day before was the first time I let him loose on the trail. Side note: his first trail experience was great because we were out with a friend and we kept him sandwiched between us. I think I would have been even more nervous about the Move-a-Thon had we not had this practice ride.

Even with so many kids on the trail and lots of adults who opted not to take the detour, the kids were great about keeping to the right and I only witnessed one scraped knee near the end of the event.

At either end of the half-mile course, volunteers punched cards to tally riders’ laps.

After what I thought was an impressive solo ride of 2.4 miles the day before (with water sip stops ever 30 seconds), my kindergartener managed 9 miles at the Move-a-Thon! It would have been even more, but I skipped the last hour for a Neighborhood Greenways meeting and Mr. Family Ride wasn’t able to tote our toddler on his regular bike so they only managed a couple laps with balance biking little brother along. But still: 9 miles!

And in even more awesome news, I reunited with my family at the top of Gas Works Park’s kite hill: my favorite victory spot, too!

I didn’t think to ask how they got up there. I can only make it up the back side on my longtail. On the way down, though, they opted for the switchbacks on the front of the hill. My little pedaler managed a couple turns before he had to go off course in the grass (as did I), but balance bike and Mr. Family Ride on this cross bike were able to make the tight turns.

The kids made it part of the way home, but the hills eventually proved too much and I ended up carrying kid bikes and the little kid while Mr. Family Ride ferried home our Move-a-Thoner.

Kids still have a week to collect their sponsored money, but close to 3,000 miles were tallied! Once the funds are turned in, the class with the highest participation and the class that raised the most money will win pizza parties. And one lucky kid gets a new bike.

Tonight’s Critical Mass ride saw about 75 riders, over twice as many as last time we came. I think this was partially due to the 20th anniversary of the ride and partially due to the Bike Swarm that joined up with the ride (more details about both on Seattle Bike Blog).

We took one block of one-way 8th Avenue the wrong direction, but for the most part we worked very well with traffic. There was corking at turns and through lights that turned red while the mass moved through, and most motorists and pedestrians seemed fine to let us pass.

Davey Oil was there with the whole family (which is why we went–family biking is contagious), but that was it for other kids. Davey was on his Xtracycle and other bikes of note were two tandems, a tall bike, and a couple cycle trucks…and all the other bikes, too–they’re all awesome and of note!

Much to my dismay, the ride charged up Capitol Hill, quickly, and several of us got left in the dust. The tall bike, the guy doing wheelies, and the cycle trucks packed heavy with beer all raced on ahead. But after some yelling and bell ringing we massed back up at a gas station, of all places.

We cut through Seattle University (all flat, thank goodness!), back downtown, and into the Seattle Center where we very politely wove through tourists and just as I’d hoped we would, we hit the International Fountain…though ever since Bike Snob visited a couple Bike Expos ago, I think of it as our velodrome:

“Seattle is so wet they’ve just said ‘Fuck it’ and put a fountain in their velodrome” http://j.mp/hYbTg7 via @bikesnobnyc

— VeloBusDriver (@VeloBusDriver) March 16, 2011

There was a lot of fountain circling (doh, I wish I’d thought to record the ride on Strava!) and then a lot of loitering during which several people started shouting “Gas Works!” which sounded wonderful to me as I love any ride that ends near home. I probably would have left the mass if we headed in the opposite direction and that seems to be what several riders did, but eventually everyone got back on their bikes and headed out.

We rode along the Kreilsheimer Promenade next to McCaw Hall and I thought, “This is so beautiful, why have I never been here?” and then we encountered a flight of stairs to Mercer Street and I realized why I’d never been there. The people will little bikes carried or rode down the stairs, but I joined the wimpy and wise narrow ramp takers.

I was particularly excited that we were on Mercer Street because I’ve never taken the Mercer Street underpass–Broad Street is bad enough, I figure, why subject myself to Mercer, too? But I think there will soon be a cycle track there (here’s the Mercer Corridor Project page, specifically the bottom picture). I say “think” because I’m not sure this project page means it’s a done deal or if this is just the ideal outcome and things will still change for the worse. Broad Street is miserable on the sidewalk, but taking a lane on Mercer was awesome–fast down and fast up. I thought we might take an extra exciting route to Gas Works, like over the Aurora Bridge or at least taking a lane of Westlake, but we sedately cruised through the Westlake parking lots–my usual route. Oh well. Then everyone got held up taking pictures of the full moon from the Fremont Bridge so the kids and I said our goodbyes and continued on home. I hope they’re still whooping it up at Gas Works.