Looking forward to a spin

I suppose I cannot accuse my husband of being a rotten blogger when I'm no better.

Our year with the Dutch bike is coming to a close and I think my husband is already in mourning. It's amusing to think that I can't remember a time when we didn't have our Dutch bike. We go everywhere in it. School, church, the grocery store, the farmer's market... we've even taken it out for an afternoon at the Brookfield Zoo, about six or seven miles from here.

The convenience of hauling two kids on a bike can't be beat. Parking for cars has become such a pain in our community, but there are plenty of bike racks. I highly recommend the Dutch bike as a more convenient solution.

My husband and I have been discussing what to do when our Dutch bike experience is over. Of course, we're toying with the idea of buying one ourselves, but we're still on the fence. First, it's quite expensive, so it's not worth buying unless you know you're going to use it. With all the snow this past year, our poor Dutch bike spent way too many months shivering in our garage unused. Second, we only have a one car garage. As our guest, we allowed our bike the comforts of our sheltered garage instead of either one of our family cars. If we were to consider purchasing a bike of our own, we would have to figure out a more permanent solution that didn't involve kicking a car out of our garage. Third, our children are already a bit on the big side for this model. If we were going to purchase a Dutch bike, we would have to go with a larger, more expensive model. Then, we would have to wonder how long it would be of use to our family. Once our children started riding bikes of their own in a year or two, would we need such a large bike any more? Fourth, I'm only 5"0' all. I can't reach the pedals at the bottom, so my riding these bikes have never been a viable option. We have never had a problem with this, but now that we must consider the value of the Dutch bike to our entire family, as opposed to whether or not we can get by on just the Dutch bike for a month, it becomes part of the equation.

Anyway, a part of me really hopes we work something out. Our family will seem a bit small without the Dutch bike.

Dutch Bike

The weather is finally cooperating on a more consistent basis to allow us to use the dutch bike. We're considering another car-free month for ourselves at the end of the summer. This time, it'll be to say good-bye to the bike we have grown so fond of over the past year. We were just thinking today that if we put a seat in the back for one of the kids, our entire family could ride the bike at the same time. It would be a bit of a workout for the driver, but I think my husband would be up for the challenge, provided we didn't have to go too far.

February Thaw

After spending a couple of months in hiding in our garage, the bike got to get out and stretch its wheels a little this past weekend. The roads were clear enough such that we could take the kids to church in the bike. Unfortunately, it seems our kids have grown a little over the winter and with their big chunky coats and the rain tarp on, they did a fair amount of jostling over space during their bike ride. Hopefully, when it really warms up and we can "let the top down", they won't have these issues. The good news is that the kids were really excited about riding the bike again. I think they've missed it.

Coming off the high

The car-free month is over and has been over for a few days, but we have yet to take our car out. We haven't needed it. CFD has been continuing to take the bike to go grocery shopping and we haven't needed to go anywhere else so far.

I'm sure CFD would love to be permanently car-free, but I think he's going to have to work up his leg muscles, physical endurance and find better bike routes first. Today, our first weekend off the challenge, we have some place to go and it's 20 miles away. I don't doubt that he can make it one way, but we have to come back too. Public transportation does not lend itself well to where we're going and the Dutch bike is too large to be allowed on buses or trains, so mixing the two isn't much of an option. So, for today, we're going to have to take our car. I'll make CFD take comfort in knowing that he would be transporting three adults and two children in our sedan, so we'll be making full use of our vehicle.

I do think that we will be driving less over the course of the next year. CFD likes biking. He prefers it to driving, not only for the environmental factor, but because he likes moving. I need a new bike to do any more biking. We discovered during this challenge that my bike is probably beyond repair. Perhaps in the spring, we'll get me a new bike. Until then, I'm content to use more public transportation.

We did it!

We celebrated the completion of our car-free challenge today, by going out for drinks. Transported by our Dutch bike, of course. I hopped in the cargo bucket with the rain cover on and I felt like a little kid again, squeezing into a small space, rolled up in a ball. My husband got a good laugh out of it, as did I.

Well, I applaud my husband for his efforts with this car-free challenge. Now that we've successfully completed our month, we'll have eleven more months of stories to tell.

Less than a week left!

Our car-free challenge is coming to a close and we are still going strong. We've taken the kids to school, gone shopping, gone to church, gone out to dinner, gone to the doctor's office, and gone on dates, all the things we would have probably done in our car, in our Dutch bike instead. Since my husband is exhibiting signs of being a rotten blogger, I will blog on his behalf and tell you that as the primary and only operator of this Dutch bike in our family, he really loves this bike. He is thrilled that he has had this opportunity to ride around in this bike and he looks forward to eleven more months of it. If I know him as well as I think I do, he'll be trying to talk me into purchasing one of these things for our family over the course of the next year. He's hooked.

I think Christmas came early for my husband this year. I don't think there's anything I could do for him to top this -- well, except maybe allowing him to turn our entire front, side and back yard into vegetable gardens, installing rain barrels on the ends of every downspout, increasing our compost heaps and installing solar panels on our roof. I love my husband dearly, but if his steaming compost pile gets to be larger than the size of our car this winter or if rows of corn suddenly burst out of our lawn this spring, he'd better be prepared to pedal fast on whatever two wheeler he has in his possession because I'll be chasing him in my four wheeler that runs on non renewable resources!

Fire Truck Bike

Here's the bike dressed up as a fire truck. We used red poster board, a little construction paper and put mirror images on both sides of the cargo bucket. Okay, so maybe I spent a little too much time on it and got more excited about it than the kids, but that can be our little secret.