Where My Little Ones Will Ride

 My kids just continue to grow up lately.  Isn't it funny how that happens?  You think that you've got age 2 1/2 all figured out -- just how to finesse a reluctant visit to the potty chair, or how to help someone take a deep breath at the end of a tantrum...and then everything changes again.

We are thinking about kindergarten for Big next fall, since he'll turn five in June.  (Five!  I can't believe it.)  Transportation has figured heavily into our discussions.  As I map out some of the possible routes to school and consider the conditions we might be cycling in (dark, early mornings, with impatient auto traffic), I find myself wishing for little improvements.  I'd like to see our gold-rated cycling city transformed into the kind of place where I'll feel comfortable letting my sons ride their bikes around town on their own once they are a little older.

What if our bike boulevards looked a little more like Portland's neighborhood greenways?  I'm sure that anyone who has ridden a bike down 15th Ave has wished that the city would change the orientation of a few stop signs so that it's easier to get across some of those busy north-south streets.  And some serious traffic calming efforts would make places like Monroe friendlier for kids and families on bikes.  (I occasionally see one of my former students, now a teenager, riding his bike along the sidewalk on Monroe.  We can teach people over and over that it's safer to ride in the streets, but younger and less confident cyclists will continue to ride on sidewalks until we offer them alternatives that really feel safe.)

Cycle tracks, pedestrian refuge islands, path connections -- I want the city to know how I think Eugene could help families like mine get around better on bikes or on foot.  And I want to learn more about what my neighbors in other parts of the city need, too.   If you'd like to help Eugene grow up a little, join us at the Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan Open House tonight.  It's a drop-in event at Saint Mary's Catholic Church, downtown by the library and the transit center.  See you there, sometime between 4-7 pm.

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.

Snow Day!

We had all sorts of bicycle errands planned for today: grocery shopping, a park trip, and a run to the library.  When I woke up, though, I saw a light dusting of this outside.

Snow!  In Eugene!

While I believe that cycling in the snow can be fun, practical, and safe (check out Dottie from Let's Go Ride a Bike, and Julian on Totcycle), I didn't have the confidence to set out on my bike today.

The reason I chose to walk rather than bike today is that the ride quality of my current family bike setup leaves something to be desired.  Frankly, in slippery conditions with a full load (meaning kids + groceries or other bulky cargo) it's like riding a bag of squirrels.  I LOVE riding my bike -- don't get me wrong.  And with a few inexpensive improvements (namely rear panniers to replace the high-center-of-gravity milk crate and a cargo bike kickstand for stability when loading and unloading), this bike could get me where I want to go with greater agility and grace.  Well, greater agility anyhow.  This bike is lots of fun, but it's more circus pastiche than elegant vehicle.

Actually, do you know who loves this bike? Teenage boys.  Every single time I go out for a ride with my son's bike on our tandem coupler, at least one teenage boy notices and appreciates our bike.  Using slang that makes me feel very, very old.  ("Sick bike!")

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to upgrading to a bike designed to carry lots of kids and cargo soon.  My Workcycles Fr8 should be arriving in March.  March!  How terribly long for such an impatient me to wait!

In the meantime, Grandma M very kindly combined our shopping with hers and dropped off all the groceries we will need for our holiday feast tomorrow.  Thank you, Grandma M!  Austin took the morning off from work to play with Little in the snow.  The last time it snowed here, Little was only a few months old, so the experience of seeing familiar streets and gardens covered in snow felt very new to him.

 

Bigger had spent the night at Grandma M's after our bus ride, so he was snowed in (if less than an inch of snow and ice can be described that way!) in Creswell.  He had a grand time taking care of the chickens, horses, and other animals down there.  Here he is checking out some snow on a cold frame and helping to clean out the chicken coop.

Back in Eugene, we walked through the snow to get ingredients for Austin's eggnog waffles, and then later through the slush to drop off the weekly egg order for Little and Bigger's teachers and pick up our CSA from Open Oak Farm.  (They still have spaces available, if you are reading this locally...)  By the time we returned from picking up our CSA, it was dark outside, and quite chilly.  Perhaps it was in the twenties?  We were pretty warm in our regular cold weather uniforms, with an extra layer of wool sweaters or long underwear thrown in, and gore-tex mittens for Bigger and I.  Little made do with a mismatched set of mittens we dug up from last year's winter clothes.  We tied them to a length of yarn that we had threaded through his sleeves so that he wouldn't lose them, which worked well.

 

There were lots and lots of cyclist out on the Amazon bike path.  They were going perhaps a little slower than usual, but otherwise, things seemed fairly normal, even with lots of ice patches on the path.  Alas, my camera was feeling irritable and would not capture any of the bikes, only their tracks in the snow.

If it snows again this winter, I'd be curious to try cycling in it.  And I've had a few too many frustrating experiences with stability on my current family bike to ignore the upgrades I know I need any longer.  Does anyone out there have thoughts on how I could make my bike less wobbly when loaded up with cargo?