Tag Archives: summer

Winter: A time for Planning Summer Family Bike Tours

What sort of winter hibernation do you enjoy? The Car Free Days family tried to escape the cold and dark by hunkering down at home; reading, drinking gallons of hot tea, cuddling up around the fire, and occasionally getting out-of-town to ski in the Cascade range.

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But a few winters ago we started doing something even better with the short, sucky days: dreaming about and planning epic summer bike tours.

Coping with Winter Blahs

With just over 8 hours of daylight during the winter months, Pacific Northwesterners (and Scandinavians, and Russians, and ….) must come up with some way to preserve our sanity day after dark sodden day from November through March. Residents of these northen climes rely on many different methods for coping with winter dreariness. Some use light therapy, others make regular pilgrimages to day spas; soaking in hot pools and sweating away sorrows in saunas. Still others escape altogether with vacations to warm sunny climates. For some reason the historic, go-to strategy of heavy drinking has fallen out of favor. At least in our circles.

A new twist on beating dreary days came from family biking media darling Emily Finch this past December. I spent a good part of my early Christmas vacation living vicariously through her highly entertaining winter indoor-painting-therapy-program:  Continue reading

We’re back: “I miss our trip”

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Our Pacific Coast Bike tour is O V E R . We’ve been back for a while now but it’s taken me this long to process the trip and figure out what I wanted to say about the amazing experience of riding 946 miles in 22 days with 2 tandems and 2 kids under 12.

Can I just say Wow and leave it at that? Continue reading

Xtracycle Reader (the video)

2820642182_ae39a4f07cBy now you know that the Car Free Days family isn’t always prompt about posting to our blog. We have the very best intentions to keep it from getting old and moldy, but often life gets in the way and we push those blog updates aside.

We’ve officially taken procrastination to new heights. I’m more than a little bit ashamed to admit that this video edit is almost 4-years in the making: we’ve been saving this un-edited footage since August 2008. I started to edit it a few times but I just never got around to finishing it (kinda like Tim’s plan to finish his kid bike series). Continue reading

Summer by Bike: The Video

As we’re wrapping up Summer 2010 (aside from 1980, the worst summer in 5 decades) and looking ahead to Fall, we still can’t stop talking about our terrible weather. Where did our glorious Northwest September go? (usually our favorite month of the year).

Despite the rain and clouds, we still enjoyed many fun times on the bike with family and friends. Check out the video we put together of Car Free Days summer riding.

When we watch the video we realize, it wasn’t all bad.

How about you? Tell us about your summer riding.

– Anne and Tim

Fiets of Parenthood, Seattle Style

Totcycle at Fiets of parenthood PDXSave the date for the Seattle version of Fiets of Parenthood: Sunday, August 15th from 3:00 to 6:00 PM.

We had such a great time at FoP in Portland, we can’t wait to do it all over again in Seattle.

Location and all the other juicy details will follow in the weeks ahead.

Stay tuned, mark your calendar and plan on a super fantastic afternoon of family bike fun.

– Anne and Tim

Spoke and Food Tonight

Spoke and Food is tonight, June 29th. Ride your bike to dinner and 14 Seattle restaurants will donate a percentage of their profits to Lettuce Link at Solid Ground.

On the evening of Tuesday, June 29th, we invite you to bicycle to and from one of the 14 Seattle area restaurants who have all agreed to participate in our event. In support of our event goals, the participating restaurants have also agreed to donate a percent of the revenues they receive on the evening of our event to the non-profit organization we have selected to support. This year’s non-profit is the Lettuce Link program at Solid Ground.

Don’t forget to check the participating restaurants before you make dinner plans tonight!

– Anne

Xtracycle Bike Camping (with Kids)

Lopez Island Campsite

For those of you who were wondering, no, the heat wave hasn’t lasted three weeks. We’ve just been lazy bloggers of late!

We recently returned from a fantastic short bike camping trip with our kids. Tim and I haven’t been bike touring in 15 years. Not sure why, I guess we just haven’t made it a priority. Our kids are now old enough to carry some of their own weight (both on and off the bike) so we decided to give it a whirl.

Huge success.

Our destination:  Lopez island in the San Juan Islands, a classic Northwest bike tour. The San Juan Islands are touring gems, and for good reason. Scenery is beautiful, the ferries make it fun and convenient to shuttle between the islands, people are friendly, and if you choose the right islands and the right route, the hills aren’t too bad.  Best of all, once you’ve unloaded from the ferry and lets the high-speed hordes roar past, you’re free to roam on relatively traffic-free roads. Continue reading

Summer

Saturday Morning Ride to the Market

Heading Home from the Farmers Market

Summer in Seattle is in full swing. We’re taking advantage of a streak of near perfect weather by drinking a few of Tim’s Mojitos , swimming and kayaking in the lake, enjoying backyard BBQs, visits with out-of-town friends, staying up late, reading lots of books and neglecting our blog.

Here are a few photos of our summer adventures so far. I hope you’re enjoying your summer too!

– Anne

Tim's Famous Mojitos

Tim's famous Mojitos, always worth waiting for

Kayaking on Lake Washington

3rd of July Kayaking on Lake Washington

I think Jim might be hooked

Jim Needs an Xtracycle

4th of July Bike Parade

4th of July Neighborhood Bike Parade

Bounty from the Backyard Raspberry Patch

17lbs of Backyard Raspberries

Anne Dreams of a Family Triplet

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Anne's latest dream bike

School gets out today. This time of year is bittersweet. We are all ready for a break from our normal routine and are looking forward to some carefree summer times. I’m sure the kids will be happy not to hear the words:  get dressed, eat your breakfast, put your book down, brush your teeth and we’re going to be late for a few months. Continue reading

Car-free Kayaking

Car-free Kayaking

Tim has been combing craigslist for the past six months looking for some inflatable kayaks that we can haul to the lake on the Xtracycles. We used to own sea kayaks before we had kids but sold them a few years ago. Loading and unloading the kayaks on the car and driving a mile to the lake was never worth the effort for us and we didn’t use them that often. It wasn’t that hard for us to let them go.

Still looking for a way to escape the beach crowds during the warm summer months, inflatables that can be hauled on the bikes seemed like a good solution for our summer boating needs. These inflatables aren’t going to get us to the San Juans, but are perfect for floating around the lake with the kids on a hot day.Pumping up the Boats Continue reading