Welcome to 30 Days of Biking: Year 2! It’s the third round of the event, but only my second time participating. Last time was big fun and I expect this round to follow suit. In addition to biking each day, I’m going to keep track of my [paltry] mileage. I’ll also time how long it takes me to get places so as I transition from a fair-weather cyclist to a proper Seattle urban cyclist, I’ll have a playbook.

I had a great itinerary planned for today: we were going to ride four miles to a playdate in Crown Hill. I know this goes against my rule of avoiding destinations with “Hill” and “Heights” in their names and I have no idea if I would have made it there without walking the bike. Now that I have my new zoo route, this is what I had planned:

Note: I don’t live at Rancho Bravo. I just wish I did! And it makes a nice impersonal “home” coordinate.

But it was raining like crazy and the kids were both coughing and had no interest in getting on the bike. I was ready to do the whole ride just to see if we could make it and then come straight home, rather than expose our little friends to their germies. Instead I eventually rallied the troops to drive to Ikea. I didn’t see any bikes at the Ikea bike rack (but maybe the employees can bring their bikes inside). My most exciting purchases were a 59-cent big blue shopping bag and 99-cent small blue shopping bag that I’ll use to protect our seats when we have to park in the rain. I lost my last set of three mismatched plastic bags so I’m looking forward to our snazzy new uniform look.

I finally got us out on the bike in the afternoon. We just rode a half mile to the Wallingford Center to meet a couple buddies at the Izilla Toys marble track. The bags worked great–first for keeping my messenger bag dry on the way over and then for keeping the seats dry while we were inside. Of course it wasn’t all perfect–after a couple hours indoors I realized I hadn’t turned the bike lights off, and I forgot gloves for the baby (his Newt Suit doesn’t have pockets) and me so our hands got really cold on the short ride home.

Daily distance: 1.2 miles
Ride time: Oops, forgot to time it (I’m not off to a great start)

28 miles cycled today! We swung by Dutch Bike Co. to get my rubbing fender fixed and have a snack, and then cut through the locks to eventually reach pier 55 (via pier 50 since I neglected to read the details of the water taxi substitution). We rode the water taxi to West Seattle and then biked to Alki Beach. The Argosy Sightseer was filling in for the damaged regular boat so that was cool. Instead of bike racks, there were bungee cords along both sides and they held the bikes in snugly.

On the way home I passed another cyclist on the way up Gilman. Granted, it was a homeless guy laden with bags and bags of recyclables, but it still felt rewarding to pass someone. Then we got caught up watching boats at the locks for a while. The lockmasters liked the Bobikes and gave the boys boat-safety-themed coloring books. Score!

We had a great victory on the way home. Brandt loves the Ride the Ducks amphibious cars (or “boat cars” as he calls them) and on a few occasions we’ve seen passengerless boat cars in Ballard and I’ve figured their overnight parking lot is somewhere in the area. Today we saw two of them and chased them down to their roosting spot. I’d never trespass onto a private dock with the car, but it doesn’t feel quite as illegal on a bike. So we biked onto the dock, but didn’t make it all the way down to the end. I was curious to see them all snuggled in, but the Hazardous Materials sign and guys in clean suits scared me off.

Lowest point yet this month: today’s ride was rushed in at the end of the night, just up and down the block…in pajamas. Tomorrow will be huge, though.

We stayed close to home in the morning with our first errand a bike-up ATM trip, which I think is my new favorite bike activity. Then we hit the children’s bookstore where we locked up to bicycle-shaped bike rack to play on their train table.

After waiting half the day for the sun to make its promised appearance, we eventually gave up and napped and then cycled down to the new South Lake Union Park where we discovered many new bike racks and lots of open space (though much of it was roped off to protect the immature grass).

It was cool riding home during evening commute time as we saw a lot more cyclists than usual. A hipster sat up in the saddle and applauded me as I huffed and puffed my way up Westlake to the Fremont bridge. I guess it’s not really that much of a hill if he didn’t need to hold onto his handlebars to ascend. I got a couple more cheers riding up Stone and a woman in a minivan slowed down to roll down her window and congratulate me. A gal could get used to all this attention. Brandt was pretty intrigued and said, “Mama, hear that??” each time someone spoke to me. Oh, and the sun finally came out around 7pm, shortly after we got back home.

I made it to Phinney without walking the bike! 84th is indeed an easier hill than 83rd. The only problem is that it’s one way the other direction, but it’s nice and wide and empty and I don’t think my .0001 mph at the edge of the road would scare any oncoming cars.

It started drizzling as soon as we left the house so I went searching for a dry parking spot upon reaching the Phinney Neighborhood Center. I thought I found one under the stairs (and proudly took a picture of it), but I would have been better off leaving the bike exposed once the rain stopped and the dripping started. However, I saw a legitimately dry spot deeper under the stairs so provided I can squeeze my way back there, we’ll be fine next week.

Took the boys to the Apple Store in University Village this evening to get my broken iPhone looked at. We usually take the Burke Gilman Trail to the west so it’s always an adventure to head east. It was quite adventurous this time as it was some sort of orientation day and the University area was teeming with teenagers wearing name tags milling about unaware of cyclists.

It was nice having the bike at U-Village because I can never find my way around so I easily circled a few times before pulling up to a map. That would have been impossible by car and taken much longer on foot. Yeah yeah yeah, I’ve been to the Apple Store once before, but I’ve got zero sense of direction.

The college freshman were off the path by the time we headed home, but there were tons of bugs out and I got one in the eye–yuck! We took a small detour on Northlake Way to better see the boats. There’s a bit of a bike path down there, but also lots of sharp rocks so I think we’ll stick to the BGT from now on.

On the way up Stone Brandt dropped his water bottle. That was a first. But it wasn’t too bad circling back and picking it up. Between that and missing two lights it was quite a relaxing uphill ride.

Finally, a real ride! Not a big ride, but a real errand-running trip: the boys and I rode a mile and a half (round trip) to the library to return some books before heading out on our camping trip. Like the ATM, the book drop is also easier by bike than by car.

Spent the morning at the zoo tiring out the wee ones and contemplated trying to find an unattended cargo trike to borrow and pedal, but chickened out (and didn’t see one, anyway). The afternoon was spent packing up for a one-day camping trip so my ride of the day was the smallest one yet, just up and down the driveway. I’m bummed for having done two lame rides in a row so I’ll just have to make it up next week.

Didn’t get around to doing a proper ride today so I raced around the block tonight.