Contact

17 responses to “Contact”

1. David Stonich | December 19, 2007 at 9:44 am | Reply

   Tim & Anne…

   we’ve been eatin’ up your site the past couple of nights. Nice work!. We’d love to join you for a double-bike-date…greek food on Capital Hill perhaps?

   Tim…xtracycle for my 29’r? Tell me how I can make it work.

   d

2. Tim K | December 19, 2007 at 11:40 am | Reply

   Hey David – we’d love to do the double date. As for the 29er — don’t you use that for mtb racing in the spring? It’s doable, but you are for sure going to want gears. The trick setup for a lot of people is the surly Karate Monkey 29er but using 26″ wheels. That allows more standover height to more easily balance a loaded bike and allows you to run fat tires (I run 2.3’s and they _just_ fit).

   If you try to run 29er wheels there isn’t a lot of clearance in the the xtracycle frame but people do it. What you really need is an old beater mountain bike frame ….

   See this thread for more on the KM and 29ers with small wheels: http://clevercycles.com/blog/?p=136

3. david | February 11, 2008 at 2:52 pm | Reply

   Hey Anne…
   I rode down to Dutch Bike Co. (great guys) this afternoon to test ride the Bakfiet. What a sweet ride…very smooth & super fun to ride. I can see a ton of Burke G. riding potential. I’m taking the family for a Bak – ride this weekend…maybe you guys can join us?

   David

4. RJ | August 4, 2008 at 9:43 pm | Reply

   Hey there,

   I just wanted to say *THANKS* for writing your blog! It’s one thing for me, a young, single recent college grad- to be showing how to get around by bicycle.. but it’s great to see a family of 4 tackle the challenge. I refer people to your site as “proof” that it can- joyfully- be done.

   So, thanks!

   RJ

5. Tim K | August 4, 2008 at 10:23 pm | Reply

   Thanks RJ. We appreciate you reading and sharing us around. The best part about you being a single-recent-college grad and doing the bike thing is that you are forming a habit that will allow you to keep doing it when your status changes. So right on.

   Once the people in a family way get into the groove it’s probably no harder for us than you. We’re having a great time. It really is NO SACRIFICE. We’re just as lazy as everyone else. If it was really that hard we wouldn’t do it. But it’s easy — people just have to shift their mindset away from the auto-americana we’ve been programmed for since the 1950s.

   Thanks again.

6. Val | August 19, 2008 at 8:33 am | Reply

   Hey folks – sorry for the short notice (we got busy! also, we can be expert procrastinators), but here’s the skinny on the Labor Day ride: http://www.rideyourbike.com/cargobikeride16.html Pass it on!

7. Noelle | May 4, 2009 at 11:34 am | Reply

   Hi I was just wondering when the car free day will be in West Seattle? Thank you so much for your time!

   • Tim K | May 4, 2009 at 2:14 pm | Reply

     It looks like:
     a) they have moved away from the Car Free Day title. Maybe it’s a little too polarizing for a mayor who’s running against a guy who already has the bike vote.
     b) and it’s May 31.
     c) check out the full calendar of these “Summer Streets” events: http://www.seattlecan.org/calendar.html

8. Val | May 22, 2009 at 12:46 pm | Reply

   Hey folks – you probably are already planning for this, but just in case you managed to forget: http://www.rideyourbike.com/cargobikeride20.html See you there!

9. Melissa Miller | May 25, 2009 at 8:14 am | Reply

   Hi Anne, I saw a comment you posted on another site regarding your OMA in Seattle. I am looking into the purchase of this bike for my son (17 months) and me. We want to get out of the car (hate it!). I keep reading comments on the OMA not being a good bike for Seattle. I’m into just enjoying the bike like I did when I was a kid and want my son to enjoy it as much as I do. I live in the Columbia City neighborhood. Any personal feedback you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Love the blog!

10. Anne | May 26, 2009 at 10:43 am | Reply

    Hi Melissa,

    Thanks for the comment. I’d love to share my impressions of my Oma. I’ll shoot you an email.

    Anne

    • Melissa Miller | May 26, 2009 at 12:16 pm | Reply

      Thanks Anne, I look forward to hearing from you. To let you know I love the OMA and feel it offers all that I want in a bike. My husband is concerned with the high cost (I can’t blame him. The price is high and something we don’t want to do without doing our research first). Here is my list of what I want out of a bike and this may help you when shooting me an email.
      1. alternative transportation for my son and me (we want to get out of our car. he’s 17 months old, he doesn’t need to be trapped in a car. 🙂 )
      2. safety
      3. use of bike for hauling my son, errand running, grocery shopping etc
      4. low maintenance

      I think my two big questions are; Is this bike worth the cost? And, what about hills? I understand the breaks are not designed for steep hills especially when hauling cargo or people. I then have to ask myself am I approaching this like I did when I had my road bike and needed to conquer hills or is it all about an easy life style and if I need to get off my bike to walk up or down a hill then that is what I need to do?

      This is why I am looking for someone with a similar lifestyle and someone that lives in this city with the OMA to assist me in answering these questions.
      Take care and thank you for your time!

11. Max | November 7, 2010 at 9:21 pm | Reply

    Hi Tim and Anne, I have a technical question for you.

    Your daughter’s bike looks like it has 24″ wheels. If this is the case, what rack did you manage to find for it?

    Thanks,

    Max

    • Tim K | November 9, 2010 at 9:46 am | Reply

      Hi Max – yep, 24″ wheels. I got the rack on craigslist. I was all prepared to hack one by cutting down the legs and drilling new mounting holes, but it turns out this one has adjustable legs. Mine isn’t marked, but I’m pretty sure it’s a “Delta mega adjustable rear rack.” Lots of options on Google, and more than likely most local shops can order you up Delta products.

      I would have liked the rack to be a tad lower — I had to make a center mounting stay out of some old Blackburn rack stays (because they are really long and the used rack only came with two shortish ones — the new racks may come with more in the way of parts). This was so I could fix the rack to the seatpost clamp because the bke has a wacky mono-stay).

      This rack looks like the tubular part of the stays are long enough that you could indeed trim a couple centimeters off them and get the rack lower (you’d need to drill more mounting holes in the tubular part) and still have enough room to use the same rack on a 26″ bike. In the end, especially since I had to use the modified seatpost clamp mount, I left it as is.

      Your experience may differ according to the target bikes. Holler if you need more. I think I have some close up shots somewhere in the flickr stream.
      -Tim

12. Eric Britton, editor | February 6, 2011 at 4:22 am | Reply

    Hello. You may find some joy in the following:

    1. World Car Free Days at http://www.worldcarfreedays.com
    2. The origins of the Car Free Day: The Thursday project at http://www.thursday.worldcarfreedays.com
    3. And from World Streets – http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/category/carfree/

13. Pingback: Grand-mère rocks the folding-bike wheelie | Car Free Days

14. Emily M | March 11, 2012 at 8:21 am | Reply

    I noticed your kids ages when you went car free. My youngest is 3 years old and my middle child just turned 6. My oldest it 8 years old. We stopped using the car altogether around Christmas after cutting back a lot. We’ve been walking and using transit, but at this point, I’m looking at bikes. I thought about the Big Dummy, but I can’t put it on the bus racks and the trains won’t take cargo bikes. Which is a major draw back for us.

    I’m wondering if it’s realistic with the kids ages to have the older two on their own bikes, while I use a dutch bike with the youngest on a seat behind me. I liked the dutch bikes because they should stand up against salt, snow and ice and being stored outside under the car port. I could hook up the 6 year old on the back of the dutch bike. But I wonder if I can trust an 8 year old on a busy road. She’s well behaved and has good balance, but I’m just not sure.

    I’d go with a bakfiets, but I don’t know if I’ll get full use of it given the youngest is already 3 years old. Sorry to bug you, but you’ve already been there-done that, thought you might have some insight.