Category Archives: Ha

Reason #6789 For Riding Bikes

Posted on October 19, 2010 by Anne | 20 comments

The other day, Josh Cohen ( aka Publicola Bike Nerd) did a post with a link to a Jay Jansheski piece Some Things I’ve Seen While Riding a Bicycle in Seattle.

A harmless fluff piece wouldn’t you think? No lectures, no stats and nary an environmental or health reason sited. He merely highlighted some positive reasons for riding a bike: because it’s just plain fun.

And before I read the comments, I too was enveloped in a blissful bike loving fog. There are so many reasons I love to ride a bike. And I daydreamed about all of them for at least 5 minutes.

This weekend we experienced reason #6789: because little detours sometimes change everything.

When you’re on bikes, you may go a bit out of your way to check out the mysterious blue glow. And when you get there, you discover it’s a giant grim reaper ( The Greenwood Reaper no less). Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in bigger than here, bikes, family cycling, Ha, kids

A “better” bike rack through dental technology

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Tim K | 1 comment

I love our dentist, Dr. Russell. He’s the kind of guy I can exchange snippy banter with while he takes better care of my mouth then the words coming out of it often deserve.

As many of you know, Anne and I are turning into bike rack zealots. So its no surprise that during my cleaning last winter, I spent some time berating him for his shoddy bike parking. The rack at his office is old, rattly, rusty, and not even secured to the ground!

To his credit, Dr. Russell didn’t jab me with one of those evil dental picks. Instead, he listened respectfully, asked a couple questions, and gave me a little hope he’d do something about it.

Last Thursday I was back for my summer cleaning. Approaching the still-in-place ratty old rack my initial disappointment quickly turned to admiration for the way he had spiffed it up and secured it with the tools of his trade:

Continue reading →

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Posted in bicycle neglect, Ha, Rack that Bike

Tagged bikes, dentist, racks, seattle, security, trees

Leaf-Blower Elegance in a Bike-friendly Package

Posted on April 1, 2009 by Tim K | 14 comments

Oma Tanker As most of you know by now, the team at Car Free Days is involved in an outright crusade to drive less and ride more. So far it’s been great. We’ve been riding (our Xtracycles and Anne’s Oma, mostly) nearly everywhere we need to go.

Those of you adept at reading through the lines, however, have probably noticed a little discord along the way. There was our son’s brush with hypothermia on the New Years cargo bike ride. There were challenging logistics for a 10pm wedding reception in Auburn. And we still get grief for the 50″ Plasma we scratched the crap out of hauling it home from Costco on the Xtracycles. And yes, the hills. Always the damn hills.

In many cases, my friends, pure people power isn’t the only answer.

We’ve dabbled with the idea of powering our Xtracycles with a Stokemonkey. Everyone we know who’s used one loves it. And Todd at Clever Cycles is a total peach. Really, the Stokemonkey is a perfect product, save one major shortcoming: They run on electricity. Franky, we just can’t condone the wasteful use of electrons wondering if perhaps a salmon got trapped behind a dam or a seagull met its demise at the blade of a wind turbine.

Though people can overlook such negatives, we at Car Free Days like to think our moral junk is of a stiffer quality than average. So that’s meant schellping our damn kids up the damn hills on our damn bikes with only our damn legs to thank.

Until now…

Continue reading →