San Juan Island

Jul19

We’re on San Juan Island for a few days with visiting Minnesotan friends. Today we took a scenic bike ride from Friday Harbor to Roche Harbor. When we were looking at the map with the bike rental guy, I mistook “flattest route” for “flat route.” It was a tough ride! Next time I think we’ll just drive or take the island bus, but it was a good experience (now that it’s over). Half way there we met Mona the dromedary. She is super friendly and ate apples from passersby. Baby Rijder snoozed through the whole encounter, but the other boys had a blast. And camel is the new squirrel. I can get Brandt to stop whatever he’s doing and look at the camera by saying, “Oh, there’s a camel right behind me!” Heh.

I pulled Brandt and a four-year old in the trailer behind me and they had a great time together, but were a heavy load. Dan joined the rest of us later in Roche Harbor both because he was done working and wanted to hang out and also because we ladies needed a ride home. Dan’s ex-messenger bud was happy to ride back and took the biggest kid with him so the rest of us would fit in the car. I hear Lopez Island is the flattest of the San Juans (there’s that word “flattest” again) so perhaps we’ll try that one next time.

Family 4th at Lake Union

Jul4

Riding the bike to Gasworks today was definitely the way to go. People arriving by car and on foot were in a huge line waiting to get their bags examined before they could enter the park, but bikes rode right into the special bike rack area with our own bag check. I took both boys in the double trailer. Baby Rijder is getting more comfortable in it, but he occassionally tugs at the helmet and it’s best when he snacks.

Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival

Jul3

We took an exciting new bike route over the Fremont Bridge down to South Lake Union for the Wooden Boat Festival. As much as Brandt loves tug boats, he does not like tug boats that honk their horns loudly every fifteen minutes so the boat show was not the success I had expected it to be. He did find one little boat he liked, Compadre, and went aboard a few times. Eventually the tug boat horn blowing got to be too much so we headed inside the building where the boys played in the kiddie play area.

Done with the big boats, we headed farther east along the lake for lunch at I Love Sushi. It’s so nice over there! Totally felt like San Diego’s Shelter Island. We dined outside right on the marina and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the little playground and watching the tall ships stage a fight from a safe distance.

Part of the ride seemed a little sketchy since it went through a series of parking lots. I think this is the same route for getting downtown which is a ride we need to make one of these days. I’d also like to ride to the Water Taxi and get over to West Seattle.

Spoke and Food

Jun29

This evening was Spoke & Food, an event in which participating restaurants give 15% of every cyclist’s bill to Lettuce Link. Dan came home early so we all rode together to Blue Star Pub in Wallingford. Brandt was very excited for the sea anemone (calamari) appetizer. Baby Rijder liked them, too. Not sure if fried squid is optimal baby eatin’, but the little one wants to do everything the big one does.

Trick rider

Jun22

We took the balance bike down to the lake this afternoon. Brandt is getting pretty fast on it. I can’t wait until he goes continuously. He’s got a weird habit of laying it down periodically to sprinkle gravel on the spokes. I have yet to figure out what he’s thinking, but I’m sure there’s a hilarious explanation. We saw a guy doing bike tricks at the community center and Brandt was very intrigued. He hopped up on the planter (on foot, the bike stayed on the ground) and ran around, probably plotting his future bike stunts.

Double trailer

Jun16

Baby Rijder and Brandt rode together in the double trailer for the first time. Baby Rijder was not a fan of the bike helmet, but Brandt was very helpful and fed him snacks until he fell asleep. Unfortunately I didn’t have the foresight to pack baby-friendly snacks, so Baby Rijder got his first dose of Trader Joes schoolhouse cookies. He likes sugar.

Our first stop was CounterBalance Bicycles to get the road bike’s gears fixed. In the past I would have just walked to Gregg’s in the neighborhood, but after a $100 tuneup on the city bike during which they didn’t even fix its gear issues (issue they built it with!) I decided I’d rather bike half an hour to a real shop. And it was so worth it! They were incredibly nice and fixed it for free, immediately. Not immediate enough for Baby Rijder to stay asleep, but our second stop was University Village, just down the hill so he didn’t have to deal with the bike much longer.

Both boys fell asleep on the ride home. BR cried a bit and Brandt fell asleep during the noise and then Mini conked out shortly thereafter. So not a completely successful outing. The solo road bike rides will have to wait a bit until BR can better tolerate the helmet.

Cyclocross-ish

Jun15

Brandt’s on his new bigger Kinderbike now. It’s a much better fit than the Mini was. He’s mostly been riding it on the path around the lake, but this afternoon he took it up a ramp of the community center. He didn’t want to ride back down the ramp, but rather carry the bike down the stairs. Go, little cyclocross guy! I ended up being the one to carry the bike down, but some day he’ll do his own heavy lifting.

Twilight Crit

Jun5

We rode to Ballard for the Second Ascent Twilight Criterium this afternoon. It was so cool! The boys were both very taken with the caution tape separating the spectators from the course, but they also liked watching the bikes zoom by. I wanted to set Brandt up on the podium in first place, but he insisted on standing on third since three is his favorite number now. Mini wasn’t too interested in being first place, either, because he’s recently figured out backing down stairs and that’s all he wanted to do.

Bike to Work Day

May21

This afternoon we biked to Ballard for the Bike to Work Day after party and the Kidical Mass ride. The weather wasn’t too bad when we arrived, but as soon as we hit the road for the group ride, it started raining soooo hard. We took cover under a bridge after a few blocks to put on our rain gear, but we were already drenched by that point.

The original plan was to ride west to secret beach for a picnic dinner, but the new plan was to head east (towards home, yay) and have dinner at Tacos Guaymas in Fremont. But a few blocks after the bridge I thought I heard Kim shout “hail!” and assumed Julian would only cancel the ride in the event of snow or hail. For the record, it wasn’t hailing, but it was awfully miserable out. It turns out Kim was shouting “Hales!” so we pulled over at Hales Ales and had a terrific time. I was initially upset that Dan couldn’t come along, but it worked out well because he drove over to rescue us after dinner and drinks. Everyone else was brave and biked home.

U-District Street Fair

May15

The boys and I spent the first half of this gorgeous day at the U-District Street Fair. We tried something new and bungee’d the umbrella stroller into the bike trailer and I’m so glad I did so because it got very crowded as the day wore on. I’m not sure we’ll hit this event again, but we saw some good stuff. The bounce houses weren’t free so we skipped those, but we watched plenty of musicians, a tap dancer, balloon artists, and not quite as exciting: saw some giant chicken the website made a big deal about and spotted Dave Matthews (I think–it may have been some other smelly-looking dude).

After we walking the entire street fair, we continued downhill to Gasworks Park to watch boats and sea planes. Dan was able to take a break from weekend work and join us for a bit, too. After biking back up Stone (nonstop–yay!), I was too tired to ride one more block uphill to get to the house, so Dan headed home and the boys and I went six more flat blocks to the Green Lake playground.