Kidical Mass Giving Thanks Pie n' Chai Ride

By the way...Hello again!  I have been enjoying an unplanned hiatus from blogging.  The time away has been lovely and relaxing (especially while my grad-student husband was on his summer break), but I've missed writing for this blog.  And I've missed hearing from you, all the friendly people I've met here.  If you've written me an email while I was on unofficial hiatus, please know that I was not checking that account while I was away.  I'll be composing my replies over the next few weeks -- thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, if you're in Eugene, we'd love to see you tomorrow at Kidical Mass!  I'm helping to organize and bake pie for the ride, and it would be gratifying to see some familiar and some new faces at Cesar Chavez Elementary tomorrow.  Here's the official blurb:

The weather is just right for cozy mittens, warm drinks, and delicious pie!  Join us for a short and sweet afternoon bike ride from Cesar Chavez Elementary to the Whiteaker Community Center, where we can play outdoors or nosh on homemade pies and hot chai tea inside (decaf rooibos version will be available for the kids, of course).  Along the way we'll stop to admire some fabulous new improvements to our bikeways, and create a simple thank you to our city for making it safer for families to walk and bike through our neighborhoods.

We always ride safe and legal, and all kinds of family bikes are welcome!  Remember your mittens and hats for the coziest possible ride.  Bring lights in case we'll be out after dark. 
 
Questions?  Find more info at www.kidicalmass.org.  Hope to see you tomorrow!

 

Bike Commuter Night Out

If you live in Lane County and are interested in getting started on a bicycle, or perhaps in bicycling more for transportation, I hope you'll join me at the Bike Commuter Night Out tonight, beginning at 6:30 pm at the Hilyard Community Center.  Folks interested in a discussion about women and bicycling may also want to attend: this event features a panel of six women cyclists (including me) who will be speaking about getting around by bike.

Paul Adkins will share a presentation about bicycle commuting.  If you don't yet know Paul, he is a great resource for bicycling here in Eugene.  He's one of the founders of Kidical Mass, and teaches the GEARs Confident Cycling class (there's one beginning soon).  He's also a bicycling activist and a father of four great kids.  I hope to feature his family in an interview here soon!

After Paul's presentation, the panelists will discuss obstacles to bicycling, as well as our own successes in overcoming those obstacles.

Hope to see you there!

Learning to Ride a Big-Kid Bike

After two years of regular balance-biking, we've started helping Big get the feel of a big-kid bike.  Choosing a balance bike for Big when he turned two was a no-brainer for us.  As a teacher, I've heard a lot about the benefits of balance activities for children's development.  Did you know that the more intelligent a species is, the more its young play balance-oriented games?  And does this mean that cyclists are a more highly evolved group of humans?  (Obviously I'm joking, folks.)

Helping Big learn to ride a pedal bike has been a little more challenging than I remember balance biking to be in the early stages.  Big has always been on the slower end of normal in terms of his mastery of gross-motor physical milestones (walking, running, etc.), so I'm not certain that he's completely developmentally ready for pedal biking right now.  (I've read that most kids are ready sometime between 4 and 6 years of age.)  He absolutely loves working at it, though, so we're doing our best to give him lots of opportunities to practice.  We've been reading tips from other parents on the internet, asking friends for advice, and improvising a little here and there to see what seems to work.

Our basic strategy has three simple parts:

1. Continued balance biking for fun, for maintaining a sense of balance, and for teaching new skills
2. Practice with pedaling when his bike is connected to mine via the Follow Me Tandem coupler
3. Practice pedaling and balancing on gentle slopes with a parent running alongside (usually holding the back of the bike most of the way)

 
There's a spot near our house with a nice little slope to it where we like to go.  One parent runs alongside Big, mostly helping him get the feel of pushing off with his feet and then starting to pedal.  We do hold his bike with one hand (typically on the back of the saddle) to help him feel more confident and get up a little speed.  Once he's had a few minutes of practice, we'll start to let go for a few seconds at a time.  We always let him know before we start that we're going to begin letting him balance the bike on his own.

In my view, the most important thing we're helping Big do in these practice sessions is build confidence and an image of himself as a bike rider.  As with teaching children to read, I believe it's important for early experiences to be pleasant and build an identity of competence.  We try to offer him lots of specific, positive feedback about his efforts to help him feel more confident.  He's proud to be on a big kid bike, so it's easy to keep him feeling good.

One tip we gathered early on was to help Big learn how to lean into a turn.  When I asked Paul Adkins for advice about teaching kids to ride, he mentioned that this could be a tricky skill for kids to master.  (He and his wife Monica have taught three of their own children to ride bikes, so they have had plenty of experience.)  We help Big get the feel of turning on the pedal bike, but he actually gets the most practice with leaning into turns on his balance bike.  On our way to the park, we seek out driveways with a gentle slope, and Big bikes to the top.  He then glides down towards me (I stand at the bottom of the driveway, right in front of him), and turns to avoid me and get back onto the sidewalk.  He loves this game!  Neighbors on our route, I hope you don't mind all the hubbub in your driveways.

I think that the most important thing I can do at this point is to figure out a routine for pedal bike practice that works well for our family.  We don't practice as often as we'd like to, mostly because we need two adults to really make this activity work (one to help Big, one to occupy Little).  One downside to Austin's graduate studies is that our time all together as a family is more limited than we would like it to be.  My friend Heather and I are both helping our boys practice with their pedal bikes at the moment, and when we compare notes, we always remind ourselves that consistent practice is what our boys most need.  Short of giving Little some kind of really unusual treat to keep him busy, I haven't yet figured out a way to keep him happy while Big and I practice riding together.  Heather, maybe we should have some bike-practice playdates at the park?

If you're looking for more information about teaching children to ride a bike, I recommend you check out some of these resources:

• Sheldon Brown wrote a nice tutorial about teaching children to ride bikes.
• Kathleen Wilker wrote for Momentum Magazine blog about making a homemade balance bike for her daughter, and about how her daughter learned to ride a bike on her own.  (Kathleen, if you're reading this, I didn't realize that your blog is called "Families on Bikes" until after I had begun my Friday Family on Bikes interviews!  Oops.)
• I enjoyed reading this article from The Exploratorium (a fantastic science museum in San Fransisco and a fixture of my early childhood) about what really happens when we steer our bicycles.

While I'm figuring out ways to support Big as he learns to ride a pedal bike, I also get to enjoy watching Little discover the balance bike.

I hope you've been enjoying your bike as much as my two little fellas are enjoying theirs!  And if you have a favorite trick for teaching kids to ride bikes, please send it my way.

Friday Family on Bikes...Mine

First, an introduction:

I'm Emily.  I work mostly as a stay-at-home parent to Bigger (age 4) and Little (age 2).  I also work one day a week at a rural elementary school as a writing teacher.  Both of these jobs are my dream jobs.  My husband, Austin, is a superhero: he works full-time as a carpenter, and spends his evenings in graduate school studying library and information science.  He is also an amazing husband and papa who makes seriously good waffles.

Austin and the boys

No, my kids are not actually named "Bigger" and "Little".  But this is Eugene, so I understand why you might be curious.

Our family bike setup:

Our family bike setup is currently in transition.  While we are awaiting the arrival of a Workcycles Fr8 Uni this spring, I am riding Austin's hybrid bike with a ragtag circus of kid and cargo attachments: a Bobike Mini front child seat with windscreen (you can get one in Eugene at Arriving by Bike), a Follow Me tandem coupler that allows me to tow Bigger's bike behind mine, and an extra-large milk crate for hauling a limited amount of cargo.

Our new bike will be able to carry two children on seats mounted to the rear rack, as well as one up front on a child saddle.  It will also have a very large, lidded wicker basket up front and panniers on the rear rack.  It will probably tow Bigger's Follow Me tandem, but I haven't entirely made up my mind about that yet.  Installing the Follow Me would allow me to carry four child passengers!

When we got rid of our second car over the summer, I considered a bakfiets or an Xtracycle, but the deal breaker for me was compatibility with the bike racks on buses and trains.  We share a garden on my mother-in-law's 7 acre property in Creswell.  I need to be able to take a bike on the bus to Creswell with me so that I can cycle (instead of walk) the three miles between the bus stop and my mother-in-law's place.  I've also heard stories of folks being denied the opportunity to load larger cargo bikes onto Amtrak trains.  So we're going to see how bus and train friendly the Fr8 can be.  It is a seriously heavy bike.

We love our Follow Me tandem coupler for a number of reasons.  Unlike most tagalong-style bike attachments, the Follow Me allows families to install rear child seats, crates, and virtually anything else on the adult bike.  Once he feels confident enough, I will be able to disconnect Bigger's bike from mine so that he can ride solo on the bike path or quiet streets, and then reattach him when we're heading into car traffic.

While I'm excited about my new bike, I also want to emphasize that it's not necessary to purchase a special bike in order to get around town with your kids and stuff!  If I had decided against the Fr8, I could have made my current bike setup work better for me.  But since we were getting rid of a car, it made sense for us to upgrade to a much nicer bike.

Little, loving his pink bike

 We also have a balance bike used by both Bigger and Little, a pink Strider.  We like that the Strider is lightweight and relatively sturdy, and that it's small enough to hold a very little passenger (both boys started on it at age two).  I would say that I feel that many of these balance bikes are a little overpriced given the quality of the product, and that it is simple to remove the pedals from a 12" kids' bike from the Goodwill for a total cost of $10 or less.  (Our neighbors transformed a 12" Salvation Army cast off into a truly awesome, custom painted balance bike that I hope to feature here sometime.)

Why we choose to ride bikes together:

As Heather pointed out last week, there are too many reasons to share all of them here!

Our decision to give up a car was tied into our beliefs about what is practical, sensible, and fair.  I think that people on bikes, foot, and public transit (and the infrastructure that supports these modes of transport) make our communities richer, more equitable, and pleasant places to live.  I believe that getting around by bike is helping my children to grow up more confident, resilient, and fit.  I think that it will help them to be more independent as they grow older and begin to be able to get around town on their own.  It almost always lifts our mood to get out by bike.  And getting rid of a car helps to free up money in our budget for other things that are more important to us.

What kinds of trips to we make by bike?  And what other modes of transport do we commonly use?

I make almost every trip by bike, by foot, or bus now.  We do our shopping, appointments, playdates, and most other trips by bike.  I ride the bus to my teaching job. We walk to various destinations close to home (the park, the bakery, etc.) regularly as well.  I've started to frequent shops within four miles of our house almost exclusively.  I've become more efficient in the way I run errands.  And because we really enjoy riding our bikes, taking the bus, and walking, I'm more likely to plan a couple of pleasant errand and park trips every other day or so.  When I was driving my kids around, I often crammed several hours of errands into one day in order to avoid the unpleasantness of errands by car as much as possible.

We also love taking long-distance trips by train.  Our most frequent trip by train is to visit my parents' house near McMinnville.  I have taken my two kids on several overnight train trips by myself, which is actually really fun provided that you have the good sense not to let your kids drink the complimentary sparking juice right before bedtime.

Austin carpools to his job as a carpenter each day.  He sometimes has to make trips of up to 50 miles with large loads of lumber and tools, so I think that this is a pretty sensible option for him.  The final few car trips I make a month (between 0 and 3, typically) typically involve and social obligations in distant areas at times when there is no bus service (or very limited bus service).  The moms at Carfree with Kids have a great post about this which is helping me think about how to collaborate with friends and family so that visiting is more convenient for all of us.  One of the goals I have for this year is to try to get to rural family members' homes at least a couple of times a month by bus.  I'm hoping that this will help us refine our rural bus trip routine so that it's more automatic for us to visit our rural family members this way.  Plus, if we're getting to folks' houses by bus regularly, they'll understand if we can't make it to some of those late weekend events.  Not to mention the fact that my kids are always asking for more bus trips!  At $3 for a day pass (the kids are too young to pay fare) it's a cheap thrill.

A bike tip for other beginning family bicyclists:

See if there are Kidical Mass rides where you live.  Meeting and talking with folks at Kidical Mass helped me build confidence about riding my bike with my children when I was just getting started.  I learned some family-friendly, low traffic routes to my favorite destinations.  I've gotten advice about family bike setups, and seen some really interesting family bikes in action.  And I've met a community of people who enjoy riding bikes with their kids.  There's a Kidical Mass in Eugene tomorrow -- meet us at 3 pm in Monroe Park!

Park and Climb

 

When I asked the clerk at Coastal Farm if they had bike parking, she suggested I lock my bike to this play structure.  While it's a little sad that there isn't a designated rack for bikes, the play structure is on display in a parking space right by the entrance to the store, so it was actually pretty convenient to park there.

The kids always play on empty bike rack spaces anyhow, so why not? 

In Good Company at the Celebrating Champions Parade

A short while ago, Little, Bigger, and I joined the big bike group riding in the Celebrating Champions Parade.  This parade was apparently inspired by the University of Oregon's recent football victories, but it also highlighted some of Eugene's other "champions".  Our particular group of was cobbled together from various local cycling organizations: Kidical Mass, GEARS, Eugene Safe Routes to School, some folks from Burley, and probably others that I was unaware of.

Image via Organic Haus
 on Flickr

At this point in my first winter cycling for transport with kids, I'm feeling a little tired of justifying my decision to get around this way.  My kids are happy to get on the bike, even in the cold or the rain.  But people occasionally take a moment to point out how unsafe they perceive bicycling to be.  Or how I could get to my destination fifteen minutes faster if I drove.  Or how it's wet outside, and aren't my kids going to catch a cold?  Me, I'm still enjoying toting my kids around on the bike.  It's always one of the most pleasant parts of my day, whether I encounter criticism or not.  Those negative voices, however, are fatiguing at best.  Some nights I come home from an otherwise great ride feeling drained from the experience of being criticized by strangers, or even worse, people I know and love.  Is it just me, or are there more critics of bicycling in the winter than in warmer months?

In any case, the good news is that there are plenty of other people out riding their bikes this winter, too.  I love bike events like this parade or Kidical Mass rides because it is so refreshing to be surrounded by pleasant people on bikes.  We rode along much of the route with my friend Heather and her son S.  Somehow, I didn't get any good shots of Heather on this ride.  She was there, lovely as ever, I promise!

Here are some of the other people we particularly enjoyed chatting with during and after the parade:

Image via shanerh on Flickr

This is easily my favorite photograph from that day.  Missy, supermom, feeding one of her three children under the age of two before the parade.  She and Shane (her partner and the coordinator of this event) have this incredible setup for getting their kids around town.  Their one-year-old daughter rides on a Bobike Mini front seat attached to their bakfiets.  One of their twin infant boys rides in a car seat in the bakfiets, and the other in the Burley trailer above.  On this ride, Missy was pulling the trailer behind her bike, but on our winter lights ride, Shane was pulling the trailer with the bakfiets.  That's three babies on one bike!

Image via shanerh on Flickr

The amazing Adkins family was there, too, doing their part to prove that you can enjoy getting around town on bicycles with lots of kids.  The Adkins are a car-free family of six, and they, too are very active in promoting and improving bicycling around here. Paul taught the bicycle commuting class I took this summer, so Bigger looks upon him with awe.  If your mom is a teacher, and then she takes a class from another teacher, then your teacher-mom's teacher must be a little better than human.

Plus, he can do this:

Here are three of the Adkins kids, plus their friend Addie (far left).  Next to Addie are (from left) Torrent, Dare, and Rainy. 

Image via Organic Haus on Flickr

And Monica, another supermom, with Sanguine seated behind her on the Xtracycle.  Mother of four kids, and a supremely charming and friendly person to boot.  She and Paul (her husband) have an impressive stable of kid-hauling bicycles, too.  (When I'm feeling a little worn down after a long day of running errands with the kids, I can always imagine what life would be like carrying four kids on my bike!)

To her left is Annette, whom I met for the first time at the parade.  It turns out that she is also a friend of my dear friend Dana, who brilliantly introduced me to the fella who is now my husband ten years ago.

Image via Organic Haus on Flickr

We enjoyed the entertainment provided by this guy, Mike Seager, who is an editor of WeBikeEugene.  And also, obviously, a clown.  The crowd loved his act.  And my kids have been approximating his performance with their own "juggling" all week long, which is the best kind of compliment.

I left the parade that day with fresh energy for my daily life on the bike.  It was wonderful to talk babies and schools and bikes with all the friendly folks we saw.  And of course, there is a certain electricity in the experience of riding down a street lined with a big, cheering crowd.  Perhaps what was most deeply comforting, though, was the knowledge that the people we rode with are doing something to make bicycling better in our town.  One of the things I love about Eugene is that lots of local activists are helping more folks like me start riding more often, or working to improve bike infrastructure, or coordinating our cycling advocacy groups' efforts with the work of other organizations.  And other people are doing their part by figuring out how to take more trips by bike.  For this I am grateful.

Many thanks to Paul and Shane for the use of their photos from the event!

Kidical Mass Pie to Pie Winter Lights Ride Tonight!

 

Hope to see you there!

Kidical Mass Eugene: The Pie to Pie Winter Lights Ride!

Dear Bike-Riding Families of Eugene,

Have you marked your calendar with the date of this month's Kidical Mass ride yet?

There will be pies savory (pizza) and sweet (pumpkin, apple, cream...who knows?), beautiful winter lights displays, and good company.  Kidical Mass is going to be picking up some of the tab.  How could anyone even think of missing it?

I think you should go do whatever you must in order to save the date.  Do it!  Now!  Before something you may not really want to do sneaks up on you.

Kidical Mass Eugene Pie to Pie Winter Lights Ride
Saturday, December 18th, 5:00 pm
Mezza Luna Pizzeria (933 Pearl Street)

See you there!

P.S.  Feel free to print out a poster to display at your grocery store, your child's school, your Birth to Three group, or share one with a friend!  And drop me a line if you have recommendations for great lights displays in the downtown or Monroe Park area.  Our family is helping with the coordination of this ride, and your input (and assistance) would be very welcome.  Many thanks!

A Little Bit of Everything

On Monday, Bigger's teachers informed me that he had spent the afternoon giddily polling his fellow preschoolers.  His question? "What's your favorite way to get around?"  He likes to ask me this one, too.  My favorite modes of transport are no secret (bikes, buses, trains, and walking), but he pretends each time that he is surprised to hear my reply.  "Really?  Me too, Mama!"

I really wonder how the other children responded to his question.  I don't see any of them arrive at school, but I do see many of them leave with their parents at the end of the day.  Almost all of them are picked up in a car.  (The one exception is a little friend of ours, who I believe arrives most mornings on foot or on his balance bike.)  Do these kids love bikes, or walks?  Do they ever go places on the bus?  Bigger refused to share the results of his survey!  I guess he didn't want me to scoop him on his big story.  Oh, well.

Anyhow, yesterday we managed to use (or connect with someone who had just used) all our favorite modes of transportation.  First, we walked to the park with our friend A.  She rode her balance bike -- a 12" bike with the pedals removed.  Little, Bigger, and I walked.

She was much, much faster than us.  Those balance biking kids can really get up some speed!  Bigger had decided to leave his balance bike at home. I didn't get any shots of us walkers -- we were too busy trying to catch up with A., and making sure that she stopped at alleys and iffy driveways.

Then we ran an errand on our family bike.  No photos of that either, but here's one of us from another day, on our crazy interim bike -- a new one is coming in March!

Photo by our neighbor, B

Finally, we took the bus to go pick up my mom (the kids call her "Mimi") at the Amtrak train station.  This was absolutely the highlight of our day.  Trains!  Mimi!  Bus rides!

My mom struggles with chronic pain, and driving her car for two hours to visit her grandkids is usually very painful for her.  Over Thanksgiving, she decided to try taking the train down to visit us instead.  Since she can get up, walk around, or recline her seat if she needs to, the train seemed like a good option for her.  She reported that her trip was pretty comfortable and relaxing.  And then her grandson handled the luggage on our bus ride home.

The bus ride was so relaxing.  I love it when someone else does the driving.  Little enjoyed the bus so much that he wailed and screamed that he wanted to get back on the bus for at least a block of our walk.  Hello, neighbors!  I hope you like kids!

Me (with some really excellent hat hair) and Little on our favorite seats

All in all, it was a lovely way to start our visit with my mom.  There was nothing too special about it, it was just another pleasant day getting around our little town.

Longer, Wintry Rides

How do you like the flag growing out of Bigger's head in this shot?  Pretty classy, eh?

This weekend, Little, Bigger, and I set out to run an errand on what is to us (from our centrally-located, everything-within-arms-reach neighborhood) the far north side of town.  Since we were headed in that direction anyhow, I decided to try out the commute to an elementary school in that area that we think might be a good fit for our kids someday.

If you know me well, you know that I am an awful navigator.  I'm just outstandingly poor at it.  For any trip outside of my typical repertoire, I usually use google maps (don't you love the bike directions option?), then check my bike map (this helps me both orient myself to the ride and also check to see if there is a better route), then scribble turn-by-turn directions on a piece of paper.  I do okay, actually, for someone with such a poor sense of direction.  For this trip, which involved two unfamiliar destinations, I used my regular systems, but I did not check the route between the school and the errand, because it seemed pretty straightforward.  And the navigation part of the day went very smoothly.  Our route was perfect.  What I didn't realize was that what I estimated to be a nine mile trip was actually a seventeen mile one.

Mom, you should spend more time thinking about our route and less time photographing this thing growing out of my head.

Do you know what?  Even though that distance is unusual for me, we were okay.  In fact, it was a really fun ride.  Sure, there was a little whining at the beginning of our trip from Bigger, who had to wait longer than he had expected to reach a treat at our second destination.  But Little got a much longer than usual bike nap on the way there.  And on the way home, Bigger was not only less cranky, he was actually asking if we could add another leg to our trip.  And me?  At the end of the day, I felt really, really good.

Washed out but happy at the end of the ride

As I've starting cycling more and more, I find I'm just itching to get out on my bike most days.  Once I settle onto the bike, my kids and cargo piled all around me, I feel something inside me say, "Yes!  Here comes the good part!"  When I head down my driveway, I feel this rush of happiness.  There is a secret about riding your bike: it's fun.  And in my life right now, longer rides mean more fun.  Sometimes when it's late or dark, concerned friends tell me that they hope I don't have far to go.  My wish is the opposite.  I wish that I had more errands to run.  I wish that my children's preschool was a little farther away.  I wish that I didn't live so close to my favorite shops.


I start a new, very part-time teaching job this week.  (I was supposed to start last week, but the bug our family came down with put the kibosh on that.)  It is about sixteen miles from our house, at a small elementary school.  At first, I was looking forward to commuting only by bus: time to read students' work, time to knit, time to catch up with a good book.  I'm still looking forward to the bus ride, but now I'm also imagining what it might be like to try some of that commute by bike.  Before this weekend, I doubted the practicality of cycling that distance.  Now I realize how amazing I could feel at the end of the day if I did bike to work.  (And man, what does it feel like to ride a bicycle without two kids and a bunch of heavy stuff?)  My plan is to try out the route with a friend who is an experienced cyclist and see where I want to go from there.  Wish me luck!

Back on the Bike, With a New Helmet

Thursday morning, Little and I woke up feeling healthy again, but Austin was a groggy, nauseous mess.  The kids and I needed some fresh air and a chance to see something other than the walls of the living room, and poor Papa needed a quiet house.  Happily, we had a fun errand to run: Bigger's new helmet had arrived at Paul's!

Bigger has had a string of ill-fitting helmets this year.  First there was a little Giro helmet, which fit him for quite awhile.  He was starting to outgrow it, so we measured Bigger's head and cashed in a gift certificate to order this Nutcase helmet in size S/M.  This was Nutcase helmet #1.

Bigger and his 8 ball helmet with Auntie R, who gave this bike its wild custom paint job

Nutcase helmet #1 should have fit Bigger (according to the size charts) but it didn't.  We tried various adjustments to the padding and straps, and even took it into a couple of shops that sold Nutcase helmets to see if the experts could help us make it fit.  It never did.  It slid around his head in all directions, and never managed to hit the safety target for protecting the front part of the brain: you should only be able to fit about two fingers above a person's eyebrows.  (I learned this and lots more in a confident cycling class offered by our local bike club: GEARS.  This is a great class if you're in Eugene, and it's taught by two papas who cycle with their families, Paul Adkins and Shane Rhodes.  I recommend it if you are interested in learning more about biking for transportation.   There's also a class for families with kids age 5 and up: Traffic Skills for Families.)

Enter Nutcase helmet #2.  Just before we figured out that the first helmet was never going to cut it, we entered in a drawing to win a Nutcase Helmet from Arriving by Bike at the Blackberry Jamboree Ride.  Guess what?  We won.

Bigger chose this gray model in the next size down, XS.  This is the model they call the Little Nutty, and it has a dial at the back for adjusting the size of the helmet to fit smaller noggins.  According to the size charts, the Little Nutty also should have fit Bigger.  We worked with a very kind woman at the shop to adjust the fit of the helmet until it was almost right.  We had foolishly set out a little too close to Little's naptime for this errand, and had included the purchase and installation of a new rear rack on our to do list at the shop.  It was a long morning at the shop, and we finished with the helmet sizing (boring to the point of tantrum-induction for a sleepy toddler) and moved to bell ringing as quickly as possible.  When we left, crying toddler in my arms, I thought to myself that the new helmet would fit better with just a little bit more adjustment to the straps.  Adjustable dial = better fit, right?

Wrong.  In fact, Nutcase #2 would go on to win the Wost Possible Helmet for Bigger award.  Nutcase #2, adjustable dial and all, would slide sideways towards his left ear, leaving half of his head completely uncovered.  (I can't find a photo of this stunning helmet malfunction now, but will search for one to include here.)  While the smaller helmet size fit his head better, the straps on the left side were too short, and seemed to yank the helmet off the right side of his head while we were in transit.

Now, I'm sure that the good people at Arriving by Bike would have been glad to take Nutcase #2 off our hands and exchange it for a properly fitting helmet.  We have never had anything but positive experiences with them (they sold us our Bobike Mini and windscreen), and I love the mission of their shop: cycling for transportation, as opposed to cycling for sport.  But they cannot re-sell a helmet that has been returned, and the idea of this helmet going into the landfill when others could make use of it just doesn't feel right to me.  Also, Arriving by Bike does not carry Bern, the brand of helmet that we discovered fits Bigger's head perfectly.  (We read Julian's review of the Bern helmets on Totcycle, and tried one out.  It was like we had met Bigger's soul mate.  Perfect fit, good coverage, and it comes with a cold weather liner or visor.  What's not to love?)

Bigger, delighted with his new helmet

We haven't had great experiences with the Nutcase helmets for kids, obviously, but I think it's possible that certain brands of helmets just fit certain people's heads better than others.  If it's the case with shoes, why not with helmets?  I love that the Nutcase helmets are available in so many fun colors and designs.  It seems to me that the Nutcase helmets have been a part of the rebranding of cycling -- it's not just for people who are comfortable in spandex.  Lots of stylish women in particular seem to choose Nutcase.

We're going to hang on to Nutcase #1 (we have a friend in need of a new helmet that we suspect it may fit), but we're looking for a new home for Nutcase #2.  Are you interested?  Check back next week (or spread the word to folks who might be looking for a kid-sized helmet that they may want to check in next week), when I'll be giving this helmet away.  We'd prefer a local kid (Eugene, OR), but if there isn't one, we'd consider shipping it to someone whose child has tried on an XS Nutcase and is sure one would fit its new recipient.

Now I'd better get going.  We have a big day of bike errands and swinging at the park planned.  I love my job.