On New Year’s Day the girls and I joined about 100 or so others for the annual BTA New Year’s Day ride. After a long trip down to Southern California it felt great to get out and pedal around the city. As an added bonus it was Danica’s first ride ever! Danica is my 4.5 month old daughter and since she’s getting pretty strong we figured it’d be OK to strap her car seat in the trailer and go for it.
I used two inner tubes to snug down her car seat and stuffed the trailer full of blankets and toys to keep her occupied. She loved it! Every time I looked back she was staring at the sky and the trees, making sweet little noises. I pulled her and Juli pulled Eleni (my 3 year old). Of course it started raining right as we left and there were some stiff headwinds but eventually we made it to the waterfront where the group was waiting.
We started out riding with everyone up and over the Burnside Bridge but since Juli hasn’t ridden since before Dani was born and I had to stop a few times to tend to the little one, we were left behind. No worries though, there was still plenty of hot cocoa and cookies waiting for us at Laurelhurst Park.
After a nice lunch on Belmont Street we headed home via the 42nd street bike boulevard to our place in North Portland…passing by a ghost bike memorial and the new bikeway network signs in Hollywood.
It sure feels good to be home.
Here are the rest of my photos.
Thanks for reading.
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That is great that you are getting your kids out in the trailer! We first took our son on an organized ride when he was 2 months old. It was the 2001 Northwest Tandem Ralley in Pendleton. He got a little cranky that there wasn’t a comfortable place to snuggle up with Mom and get some food, but for the most part he did great. our philosophy has always been to get the kids out on the bikes as soon as it is safe and they can handle it. The car seats fit great inside our Burley d’Lite as well. Now, however I would like to purchase one of these: http://www.bakfiets.nl/images_openingpagina/rotate.php
Does anyone else want to go in on a shipment from the Netherlands?
Scott, there’s lots of good info about Bakfiets and buying them in the US in this Portlandtransport.com article.
Scott, I love those Bakfiets…I have been dreaming about them for a long time now.
Oh, you already saw that post…nevermind!