And that’s the end of another 30 Days of Biking. We biked a whopping 387.5 miles this month. More than the 350 miles last April, but while the quantity is exciting to make note of, it’s more about the quality. And we had some quality experiences this month! We got hard core multimodal with bike/bus trips all over the place, did some bike moving, used the car just once, and our most exciting cargo load was a tandem trail-a-bike.

Today was wonderful. Everyone on the Burke-Gilman Trail smiled at us…although there’s a slight chance they were all grimacing at the unexpected rain. Despite the drizzle, we had a great ride to school. Martina from Swift Industries pulled up alongside and slowed to our speed for a bit for a chat, we spoke with a woman on foot at a red light about how much we like biking everywhere, and we talked to a cyclist in the Fremont bike box who told us he normally pulls a kid in a trailer. Just an ordinary day, made extraordinary by biking.

Today’s miles: 9.4
April miles: 387.5

My last-minute preparing for Bike to School Month meant I got to take a surprise trip to the school district office in SODO to get permission to distribute my sign-up sheets.

I was impressed to see there’s a bike rack and six bike lockers there–I had expected no bike facilities.

I took 3rd Avenue South and it was quite nice (though the Busway Trail/SODO Trail is two blocks to the east and even nicer)–not a lot of car movement (at this hour of the day, anyway) and hey, that crazy bus used to park by the Magnolia train yard!

The bike lanes connecting to Royal Brougham were nice–and OMG Amtrak shunting engine pushing a Sounder train car!

But I wish I’d taken Royal Brougham to the west instead of east because I ended up on 4th which is pretty busy–three lanes in either direction, no bike lane, and at this moment a big FedEx truck blocking the rightmost lane.

I moved a block over to 3rd before the awful dark bridge and shared space with bunches of buses. Seattle buses are great–very courteous and aware of bicycles and pedestrians. Until we get our downtown cycletracks, I think 3rd is the street I dislike the least.

Today’s miles: 14.7
April miles: 378.1

I was a little tired from yesterday so we puttered around the house and yard all day, which naturally meant lots of screaming and fighting. I don’t only bike because it’s fun–it’s also very necessary for our sanity to get out of the house :) Mr. Family Ride finished work and had the excellent idea to ride bikes to dinner. Someday I’ll take a regular bike for trips like this, but I was worried I might have to carry a kid or two, so I brought the Big Dummy. We took the Neighborhood Greenway, grownups in the street, kids on the sidewalk.

My daily miles reflect a trip to the copy shop later in the night to make Bike to School Month handouts–it’s always fun to transition from 30 Days of Biking to Bike Month. Dinner was only 0.6 miles each way, but we could probably get the kids to go farther, especially since it’s all downhill to get home.

The downhills are a little tricky with a cautious six-year old riding his coaster brake the whole way (he often walks these hills, but opted to ride today!) while the fearless three-year old careens down and reaches the corner before the rest of us have barely gotten started. At least he waits patiently for us and cheerily waves cars by.

Today’s miles: 2.4
April miles: 363.4

It was a spontaneous thing–we were already in Ballard and while I’d ideally have used my WideLoader and attempted this with one or zero kids in tow, today turned out to be a good day to pick up Karen’s tandem trail-a-bike. Her two kids mostly ride solo so she recently Xtracycled her mountain bike. Now she can ride solo and haul one or both kids and their bikes if need be. The kids of the TAB’s new owner won’t grow into it for a couple years so she’s letting the Family Bike organization borrow it in the interim and I’m just the courier, ferrying it from one garage to another.

The current tandem folder trail-a-bike weighs 34 pounds so this one probably does, too, but it’s a heavy 34 pounds. I’m also not the most effective cargo packer so I’m sure I made things harder than necessary. I was worried that if I carried it on the right side of my bike, it would interfere with the gears, but having it on the left side meant the gear shifter poked my front kid in the back a bit and a bolt dug into my left thigh. A smarter person would have found a tool and taken off the bolt. I opted to ride a few blocks until a bruise formed and then ride most of the remaining 6.5 miles one-handed so I could hold the hitch off my leg. The good news is that the bruise will remind me for a quite a while “at least I’m not towing a tandem trail-a-bike right now!”

Today’s miles: 25.1
April miles: 363.4

Well thank goodness I didn’t make an official pledge to avoid driving this month–I got in the car today. But we combined trips (three bike shops!) and carried three bikes so there’s that.

I recently decided to sell my Kustom Kruiser Kozmopolitan beach cruiser. It used to be my everyday bike, but I seldom ride it these days so I’m ready to bid it farewell that it may become someone else’s everyday bike. I’m consigning it at Alki Bike and Board, hoping the right beachy person will see it and take it home. Mr. Family Ride is letting his beach cruiser go, too. His cruiser is the first bike I carried my eldest on, five years ago. Sniff. It’s the end of an era. No, the end of two eras. Sniff sniff.

Our first stop was Recycled Cycles to retrieve the Danish Mosquito. They weren’t able to fix the gears, but called Aaron’s Bicycle Repair and discovered the necessary parts are there. I couldn’t get the Mosquito to fit on the rack, but fortunately I only had one kid in the car so I was able to shove it in the back seat.

We dropped the cruisers off first. Here’s a pedal-powered behemoth behind the shop. You can see it in action at Alki Summer Streets.

Then on to Aaron’s new location in White Center. Sadly, the new shop is too small for the Lego table. Outside, he’s turned the closest parking spot into a bike corral with bike rack and bench. Inside we admired the Xtracycled tall bike next to a mini bike (ha ha ha) and played with the cats while Aaron got the Mosquito’s internally-geared hub working again.

My only pedaling today was riding the Mosquito down to kindergarten pickup. The kids are still adjusting to their bigger bikes so I walked the Mosquito back home while the big kid rode the little kid’s bike. I hadn’t counted on the musical bikes so we’ll do some practicing at a park before we attempt getting to or from school this way again.

I should probably mention my ridiculous car-less Plan A:
Alki Bike and Board and Aaron’s are both fairly far from me (11 miles and 13.5 mile respectively) and up very big hills so Plan A was to hook the trailer to my beach cruiser and somehow stick the three-year old and road bike in it, ride six flattish miles to the water taxi, and put everything on the bus up the hill to Alki Bike and Board (or lock up the road bike and trailer while we delivered the cruiser if they wouldn’t let it all on the bus). It would have taken all day and only taken care of one of the three bikes. So thank you for today, car. Maybe we can do this again in a few months.

Today’s miles: 3 blocks
April miles: 338.3

After delivering the kids to school I planned to attend the Grand Reopening of King Street Station’s Main Waiting Room, but it felt like the universe was conspiring against me. At home I was plagued with various wardrobe problems and equipment problems, but I eventually got the trailer assembled (to drop off at preschool), sort of attached my light, and headed out…only to run into traffic problems galore. This truck in the bike lane was the least of my worries.

At the bottom of Stone Way a guy in an SUV revved his engine and sped into his left turn as soon as the light turned green in order to tailgate the driver of a small car who turned right on red into the lane first. The tailgated motorist pulled over into the bike lane to let the SUV driver pass. And behind them came a man in a minivan with his cell phone to his ear. I came along slowly after all that excitement and wondered which of the three was the biggest threat to my safety: the road rager, the victim of road rage, or the distracted phone talker? I think it was probably the car that pulled over to escape the road rager.

Then I still saw a driver run a red light, met with a driver coming the wrong way up a one-way street towards me, and waited patiently while a construction truck turned left through a red light at the intersection I was about to cross. Sheesh!

But I finally made it to Back Alley Bike Repair, bought a new lock (one of my many equipment problems), and biked to the train station with Ben Rainbow. We didn’t notice the bike racks hidden by the construction fence–the outside of the station still needs some work–so we locked up against a planter.

I moved to the bike racks after Ben returned to the shop. There are seven of them. Covered! And nicely spaced for big bikes! Amtrak currently doesn’t allow cargo bikes on trains, but at least they can be comfortably parked while conducting business, picking up friends, or while figuring out what to do upon being denied passage.

And the train station lobby is gorgeous:

Heading home I passed by City Hall Park and saw the “chandeliers” the Bubbleman makes from discarded six pack rings and zip ties. And I didn’t experience any more bad motorist behavior.

Today’s miles: 19.8
April miles: 312.1

We biked with friends to David Notkin’s funeral today. It’s been a very sad couple of days. Many people knew him through his work, but to me he was my dear friend’s husband whose jokes made my kids howl with laughter and the boys’ yardstick for all things tall: “If I stand on this rock, will I be as tall as Akiva’s papa?”

Julie of Wheelha.us, The Transportation Nag, and Barbara met me in Wallingford for the five-mile ride north through uncharted territory. Fun fact: we waved at a bus as we crossed through the intersection in the photo above. It turns out two of our friends were onboard. Our bikes beat them to the cemetery by a longshot.

This was my first time biking by North Seattle Community College. The northbound bike lane on College Way has a gutter alongside the curb. This is the first time I’ve seen a bike lane that isn’t either a door zone or a debris zone. It’d be nice if the gutter was narrower and some of it put on the left side of the bike lane. I’m curious if cars illegally park in the wide, enticing gutter during commute time.

I also spotted a practice bus bike rack here.

The Wallingford Avenue portion of the trip was uncomfortably busy, as expected–we should have navigated a block west, but I was worried it would be steeper if we did so–but College Way and Meridian were OK. We went right by the place we’ve gone for dental pictures twice, with one more visit coming up at some point. In the past we’ve gone by car, but now I know we can bike.

We weren’t the only attendees to arrive by bike. This just represents a small percentage of the hundreds of people there, but many people looked at the bikes and smiled.

Heading home we added a fifth biker to our procession and opted to top the curb south of NSCC to access a very quiet Burke Avenue:

Today’s miles: 18.4
April miles: 292.3

We walked to and from school today, but got a little biking in when we shuttled the last batch of stuff over from the old house. Notable items in this load are the Park Tool bike stand (not as heavy as I thought it’d be), water play table, Christmas tree stand, and our two skateboards.

Today’s miles: 0.2
April miles: 273.9

While our big kids soccered, Julie of Wheelha.us and I biked our little kids to Ballard Commons Park to hit the bouncy house and bike decorating before the Spokespeople Kidical Mass ride. Car-free Julie carried both kid bikes and the rest of her family arrived after soccer via bike + Burley Piccolo trailer bike. I only carried my little guy’s bike, though the new 20″ kiddie bike didn’t quite fit in our car–Mr. Family Ride held the trunk closed with a bungee cord. Boo us. Yay bungee cords. Yay bikes!

Despite just learning how to pedal for the little one and riding pretty on the bigger bike for the big one, both my guys forgot everything and couldn’t get going so we left the kid bikes locked up at the part and they played passenger for the three-mile Kidical Mass ride.

I’m usually leery of stops in the middle of kid-oriented rides because it can be hard to get restarted, but today’s ride was great! Our first of two stops was at a RainWise house where the kids eagerly listened to Julia Field of Undriving explain rain gardens.

Then the sun broke free of the clouds when we reached the SolarizeNW home. Kismet.

So it turns out our three-speed Danish Mosquito doesn’t currently have three speeds. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I should have made sure it worked when I got it.) I was a little grumpy about lugging the kiddie bikes around when they didn’t use them so rather than drag them both uphill, we dropped the Mosquito off at Recycled Cycles, conveniently at the bottom of the hill. The sticker on the frame says “Aluminum Super-light” but that beast is as heavy (and solid!) as any kid bike.

I love seeing little bikes on big bike stands.

As well as big people sitting on little bikes. He’ll have to call tomorrow to see if he can find a replacement cable, so today only saw the grips adjusted…but at least I could leave it behind at the shop.

Speaking of truly light kid bikes, Recycled Cycles has a used 18″ Redline Micro Mini (like this, but older). Weights 11.5 pounds! It’s a beautiful little bike.

The kids organized the free reflectors and moved on to making music with seat tubes. So much fun stuff for kids in the parts bins!

Today’s miles: 13.3
April miles: 273.7

Last year we rode to Pedaler’s Fair with Kidical Mass which was great fun, but I didn’t get to spend much time at the fair. So this year we organized a Critical Lass ride over, which I intended to do sans kids. The ride worked great, the fair worked great, but the leaving the kids behind part didn’t. Oh well. But we started the day right with a stop at Dutch Bike Co for coffee (coffee!) and cookies.

The fair was at the Underground Events Center in Belltown which is tricky to access with a pleasant route. We met at the Locks and used the West Thomas Street Overpass since everything else is so steep. We stopped at the Seattle Center for lunch–and to disguise the fact that we climbed uphill only to head back downhill into Belltown. No one complained so I think it worked! The woman riding the single speed beach cruiser even said she was encouraged to start biking around Seattle (this was her first time on her bike since moving from Southern California). I’d forgotten Whirligig was going on in the Armory so there was a bit of kid pushback during lunch, but we made it out. Here’s the whole route we took:

Again, I didn’t get to really experience Pedaler’s Fair, but third time’s the charm–I’ll make it over solo next year, I’m sure. The kids were very excited about the temporary tattoos (so much so that later at the Seattle Art Museum Earth Day Celebration they wrote temporary tattoos! on the “What would you like to see at SAM Earth Day next year?”).

The bike behind the kids was fascinating–and that was before I noticed the brake. A foot lever pushed the rear fender onto the wheel to [hopefully] stop the bike.

Also outside was Bikelava – Artisan Peddled Baklava with regular and new chocolate almond hazelnut flavor. Yum! The kids are pretending to air up Frosene’s tires with Robin’s pump. Always a good distraction.

Inside we saw bikes, dogs, accessories, and stickers. Here’s Haulin’ Colin grabbing me a replacement spring from a Rolling Jackass centerstand. The one he’s handling is his new model for Kona Ute longtails. The RJ is seriously the best part of my bike. And I’m not the only Big Dummy rider to say that. In fact, the burly kickstand enabled me to leave the kids out on the bike while I ran into Dutch Bike Co for our morning treats.

Today’s miles: 18.8
April miles: 259.4