Wind

It gets pretty windy here where I live.  Maybe not the worst in the country but it's pretty strong.  Strong as in 100mph gusts with 70mph sustained.  If you're interested that kind of wind is almost a category 1 hurricane (Saffir-Simpson Hurrican Wind Scale).  It can blow like this for a few hours or all day and through the night.  I've never been to the south of France but I've read about it and the descriptions of the Mistral are spot on for our winds here.  We get them as siroccos or as winter storms.  I remember one bad wind week years ago spinning my lowest gear on my mountain bike into a headwind.  It took me a ridiculously long time to get home.

So, with that background out of the way we "slept" through 50mph winds with 70mph gusts a few nights ago and woke to 55mph gusts.....between the gusty winds and the wind chill bringing the temps town into the 20's my wife and I had a quick conference at breakfast.  Do we put the kids in the trailer or drive the car?  The car won out but I still rode.  It was a kind of car-lite compromise.  Drive the car to school with the bike on top and ride from there to work.  Of course, for us, this is a non-issue since neither of us have a place to park the car at our respective places of employment.  Or, we do but since we don't drive all the time we don't have a permit so it costs a bunch.  I can park pretty cheaply at my office but that doesn't help my wife since she picks the kids up.  It actually works pretty well.  We only drive the car a couple of miles and the kids don't get buffeted and potentially tipped over (surprisingly easy to tip a trailer over).  This is pretty much how we weather the winter months when there is snow on the streets.  I ride, the car sits at school and my wife takes the bus.  In some ways it's the only real car-lite solution around here.

Schedule

One of the biggest changes I've had to make as we use the bike more and more and the car less and less is to be more aware of schedules.  It's not so much that it takes significantly longer to get places (in fact it is quicker under a certain distance going to some locations) but more about organizing.  Being in the car it's easy to think that zig-zagging all over town works.  OK, so it works but not in a functional sort of way.  On the bike, with the kids or without, short single errand trips make a ton of sense.  First, bulk and volume are not a big deal since it's one trip and then back home or to the office.  Second, weight is less of an issue.  I can shoulder a 20lb bag of cat food if I'm just riding the couple of miles home.  What I won't do is pick up that 20lb bag, stop by another store for something small and then swing by one last stop before going home.  5 minutes with too much weight on your back is OK, 20 isn't.  Third, if the kids are with me, destinations and routes become a bigger deal.  I'm fine zooming around town through any street or intersection by myself but if the trailer or tag-a-long (or both as the situation happens more and more now) is behind me I start looking for side streets or bike paths.  I've zero trust in folks driving internal combustion vehicles and about the same for electric vehicles.  We can talk about my trust of other cyclists another time.  Experience is that most people aren't really paying attention and while I can dodge around, the trailer can't.  It's surprisingly easy to tip a trailer.  It's just as easy to dump a kid off a tag-a-long (hey, they aren't really paying that much attention either :).  The fourth and last big reason schedule becomes important is figuring out what to do with all the stuff you've just picked up (besides consume less!).  This is where a cargo bike becomes both a blessing and a curse.  The first time I took the xtracycle on errands I was amazed at how easy it was.  I just stopped here, plunked the bag in the back, ran there, plunked the bag in the back, etc...  Problem was, at each stop I also took everything out of the back, carried it around with me and then put it back.  Call me paranoid but leaving a $100 pair of shoes in the cargo space on the xtra while I spend an hour in the grocery store doesn't seem the best solution to me having new footwear.  So, what's to do?  Schedule your errands.  I loosely plan my route and my type of stops first.  If something doesn't fit in and I don't really need to get it done then I save it for later (one of those short distance, single errand trips).  I've had no problems going and getting two bags of wood pellets and leaving them in the xtra while I run other errands.  I figure if someone wants $10 worth of stuff and is willing to run away with 40lbs under each arm then I'm happy to watch the theatrics and run back to the hardware store!  The reality is that most errands can happen all at once.  I find that the backpack or pannier holds everything anyway and I just carry it around.  When I have big trips or large items to get I plan accordingly and take the right bike......ah, the right bike....there's an entire post in there somewhere (depending on how much of a bike geek you are)!

Saying Goodbye

I've been driving the car a lot more than usual.  Our eldest cat has been sick and our vet is almost a half hour from our house.  Strange arrangement for our lifestyle but she's been our vet for going on 20 years and I trust her.  The car-lite lifestyle is strange.  Sometimes you hit this rhythm where you don't even think about driving.  You just grab the bike and go.  Only as an afterthought do you consider the car.  Usually after you are on your way.  Heading out to our vet after work is one of those trips where it doesn't matter how much you ride you are pretty much going to grab the car keys and leave the helmet on the table where it was.  It would actually be a nice ride out and back but time constraints being what they are and the conundrum of transporting the cats means we always drive.  The traffic doesn't help either.  The cats might actually like the bike trailer better but I've never tried it.  Our one cat hates the car with more of a passion than I do.  Can't say I like driving when he's in the car either!  Our other cat was generally stoic about the whole affair.  It was his demeanor about everything from his "brother" horning in on the food  bowl to said "brother" pushing him out of the choice spot on the couch.  He was amicable and loving and more patient than I will ever be.  Anyway, the point is how the car still figures into our lives.  Sometimes you find yourself driving a lot because of various circumstances.  In this case it was because our cat was sick and the vet is far away.  While I would have loved to be on the bike for those errands out to get medicine and such I'm grateful that the car was there.  Sometimes that's hard to admit.  I guess I'd rather think of us as living a lifestyle characterized as "bike-heavy" than "car-lite".  The car can sit  there now and "rest".  It has served it's purpose in a pinch.  I can get back on the bike.  That's something that will do more than just get me from one point to another right now.

~=~=~=~

Monday morning our cat Jack woke us up at 5:00 am one last time.  This time it wasn't because he was being cantankerous or because he was hungry.  He woke us up to say goodbye.  We will miss the warm purr between our pillows.  I will miss the warm lap while I sit at the computer.  I hope he doesn't miss too much the warm sun spots on the carpet that were just beginning to come back as fall progresses into winter.  We will all miss him greatly.  Adieu Jackson.

Swirled coat of silk
Yours was a wonderful song
May we meet again

Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping seems the garden variety sort of activity.  Still, for some reason I have a hard time getting out of the car when bags of vegetables and cartons of milk are involved.  I've tried over the years but I seem to get stuck going to the store once a week and returning home with a load of food and a lighter wallet.  Not that I have a problem with spending money on food!  Quite the contrary.  Going to the market is perhaps one of the only activities involving spending money I do readily (with the exception of going out for coffee).  The weekly trip to the store is a high point in the week in many ways.  I love to shop for food and simply abhor shopping for anything else.  When it comes to jeans or underwear I practically run into the store and run back out after buying whatever I need.  Ordering on line is by far a more pleasant activity in my eyes.  Either way, I kind of have to be dragged kicking and screaming to go buy most  things.  The only shopping that gets much attention besides food is whatever is required for our ongoing house remodel but that's another story.

Happy

 So, if I were to take a couple of things I like and put them together, say bicycling and grocery shopping, I would simply be at it like a moth to the flame right?  Wrong.  If I can go by myself with the trailer then it's fine.  If I can go on the bike with a backpack the it's fine.  A full weeks shopping with one of the kids and I'm sunk.  They keys get dug out of the bag for a weekly exposure to the sun and we're off.  Last week my son and I went on the bike.  It worked out great but less than ideal.  I had a lot to get and we needed cat food as well (or should I say, the cats needed it).  Between panniers and trailer I was almost sunk.  One more bag and I would have had to carry it on my back, which would have been hard considering I didn't have a pack.  I had to wedge/strap the largest bag in the empty seat along side my son.  Not the safest thing to do for sure.  Although, if it had dumped he would have been happy since the bananas were on top.  All the way home he didn't realize how close he was to monkey bliss!  All told we brought home 5 bags of groceries (two of them in panniers), a double case of cat food and a 20 lb bag of dry cat food.  It makes my knees hurt just thinking about it again!  Oh, and the diaper bag and a jacket (in case of rain).

The load

The lesson learned?  Just because it's hard doesn't mean you can't do it.  Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.  In all reality if I had my xtracycle rebuilt and on the road again it wouldn't have been an issue.  Nothing would have had to go in the trailer.  Now, if I could just find the time to build that up on the new frame!  In retrospect I was a little uncomfortable with all the weight next to him but I was stuck with more than I had room for.  As my friend Jeff said the next day "looks like a box bike is in your future".

Being a bike enthusiast in some ways makes this kind of thing hard.  I'm always thinking of "that other bike" I could buy that would be better suited to this or that.  The reality is that it doesn't really matter.  Making the effort and being creative is a far more fruitful path than upgradeitis.  Still, there is that box bike.....

Let's start this thing off

Hey, look, it's another blog about living by bike.....um, yea.  Seems cliche these days.  At least it does in the circles I interact with.  Still, I think there is a lot of discourse and information sharing left.  New products that make living car-lite easier, musings, thoughts, experiences, fun pics to share are all good reasons in my eyes.

So, for me this all started off as a kid living outside of town.  Rural subdivision life.  Not too bad considering we didn't actually live in the subdivision (behind it) and my childhood home consisted of 4 acres of fields surrounded by more of the same on three sides.  Sounds great doesn't it?  Well, it was until I was around 12 and the lack of bus service and willingness of my Mom to drive me around like a chauffeur let me to realize that my trusty old Huffy 10 speed (red with yellow stripes and heavy as the lead pipe it seemed to be made out of) was more than just a fun thing to ride.  Longer rides led to longer rides and suddenly I could go to the movies on my own.  Pretty neat I thought.  That was about the only thought I gave it until now, as, 30ish years later, I reconsider my ensuing lifestyle riding bikes.  It's like Ratty says after the Mole enquires about boating.

'Nice?  It's the only thing', said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke.  'Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing-absolute nothing-half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.  Simply messing', he went on dreamily: 'messing about in boats'

 Well, if the water rat had been talking about bikes he couldn't have said it better in my opinion.  Some of the happiest moments in my life have been on the bike.  Cresting that last big hill after 50 miles of spinning in just one gear harder than you did the last ride; finding the perfect line through a corner and feeling the bottom bracket flex crisply as the bike flies through the apex; big smiles and a squeal as you daughter pedals her first feet on her own; the list goes on.  Many of the experiences that I link to bicycles are just as plausible without the bike but like Ratty and his river, bikes are in my blood.