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09-30-08, 10:40 AM
1. Counterpoint Opus II tandem!http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/2878282489_4ab4f0ce9c.jpg?v=0
We are not a car-free family, much as I'd prefer that; but little by little we are getting more car light. I have now told my wife something like this:
I will drive the car any time you ask me to do so, but otherwise, I'm going by bike.
The tandem is a recent acquisition (and a very lucky one, since these things are kinda rare), and is especially good for this purpose because the kids like to ride it. Like last weekend, either my wife or I had to take the daughter to soccer, and the other of us had to take the son to choir, and the kids actually got in an argument about which one would get to go on the tandem (daughter won). Either way we'd be riding on some streets that seem a little dangerous for kids to be riding on their own bikes.
2. Xtracycle, for when I do the grocery shopping etc. The kids and I rode to a fiddle contest last month, with me on the Xtracycle with my guitar and my son's fiddle; the kids rode their own bikes. It was great. The kids actually wanted to sit on the back of the Xtracycle for that expedition, which I vetoed because they'd add another 100 lbs to the bike. Hills, you know.
3. And of course for my commute, my other car is a folding bike; it has to fold because I take it on the train.
My point is, we're able to function very much like a two-car family by having a variety of bicycles that fill the role of the second car. On the one hand, it strikes me as pretty extravagant to have so many bicycles; but it allows me to forgo a second car... and I'd so much rather have the bikes than a car!
We are not a car-free family, much as I'd prefer that; but little by little we are getting more car light. I have now told my wife something like this:
I will drive the car any time you ask me to do so, but otherwise, I'm going by bike.
The tandem is a recent acquisition (and a very lucky one, since these things are kinda rare), and is especially good for this purpose because the kids like to ride it. Like last weekend, either my wife or I had to take the daughter to soccer, and the other of us had to take the son to choir, and the kids actually got in an argument about which one would get to go on the tandem (daughter won). Either way we'd be riding on some streets that seem a little dangerous for kids to be riding on their own bikes.
2. Xtracycle, for when I do the grocery shopping etc. The kids and I rode to a fiddle contest last month, with me on the Xtracycle with my guitar and my son's fiddle; the kids rode their own bikes. It was great. The kids actually wanted to sit on the back of the Xtracycle for that expedition, which I vetoed because they'd add another 100 lbs to the bike. Hills, you know.
3. And of course for my commute, my other car is a folding bike; it has to fold because I take it on the train.
My point is, we're able to function very much like a two-car family by having a variety of bicycles that fill the role of the second car. On the one hand, it strikes me as pretty extravagant to have so many bicycles; but it allows me to forgo a second car... and I'd so much rather have the bikes than a car!