moominmolly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
moominmolly) wrote2009-08-27 09:52 am
moominmolly) wrote2009-08-27 09:52 am
baby's first bike tour
Despite my awful (and frankly kind of debilitating) sunburn, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dilletante and I managed to get N on the trail-a-bike on Tuesday and out for our first family bike tour.
Let me say that again, because I've been waiting to for years: FAMILY BIKE TOUR.
It was a little more modest than we'd originally planned, of course. That's how these things go. We had thought it would be fun to take all day Tuesday to bike along the commuter rail down to Providence, get a hotel, and take the train back the next day. After all, on a tandem, D and I have extra power -- more than enough to tow a little girl -- which makes us limited only by her attention span. And that attention span has recently proven itself to be rather long for trips she's motivated to take. It turns out that the promise of spending the night in a hotel with a pool is a strong motivator, so I didn't have any trouble conceiving of her taking four or five two-hour chunks of bike trip.
There were two problems, though: (1) she'd never been on a tagalong bike before, and (2) I had to sleep all morning because of the goddamned sunburn. Also, as it turned out, (3) we were a little bit petrified to take her on the road, despite having thousands and thousands of bike miles under our wise parental belts. OK, and also (4) we had the inevitable mechanical failures and setbacks. Four problems. But! We conquered them, threw some clothes and bathing suits in a little backpack, and set out on our newly-minted 12-mile journey to the end of the Minuteman bike trail.
At first, Natalie was a little frightened. After all, even a slow ride on the back of a tandem is a lot faster than she ever goes on the tricycle in the backyard at preschool. This caused her to shift wildly from side to side which (as you can guess if you've ever captained a tandem) made the handling and steering go from "tricky" to extremely difficult. So we walked up the hill near our house, got back on, and coasted down the other side. By the time we had covered the two-ish miles to Davis Square, mostly by protected bike path, she had learned to relax, try to balance, and just enjoy herself.
Heartened, we kept our curious bike train moving on down the path, and N began to get up enough confidence to start pedaling rather than just riding. Unfortunately, she chose a bad moment to do this, and fell halfway off the bike as we went over two big bumps. Since she only fell halfway, she got her leg stuck against the moving wheel and thereby got a big abrasion on her thigh. Poor bean. We cleaned it off as best we could, patched it up, and cuddled her on the grass in the park behind Alewife. She vowed never to get on the bike again. I asked her to get up just so I could take one picture, which I would then show todancingwolfgrrl so that she would say "OOH WOW!". N agreed. Here it is:
Once on the bike, she consented to keep going, so go we did. We made a game out of calling bumps: when my front wheel hit a bump, I'd say "Badump!", which would then chain back with D and N each calling "badump!" as their respective wheels went over it. This gave us a game to play and also gave N a bit of warning to hang on. It wasn't long before she was yelling about how happy she was and how wonderful it was to be biking. Too true!
We sailed over the 128 overpass on our bikes, waved at the cars, and turned off the path to check into our "POOL HOTEL". The pool was closed for the night, but she was not fazed; we ran around and ate delivery Thai food and D told her stories at bedtime since we hadn't brought any books. Later, after she was asleep, we luredzsquirrelboy to sit outside the hotel room door and play Chrononauts with us in the hallway until there were noise complaints and we were forced back inside the room. The next day, we had a lazy and wonderful ride back: we stopped in Lexington center for lunch, Arlington center for ice cream, and stopped at a little pond to run around for no reason:
Natalie, being tallish, articulate, and capable, was mistaken for a 5-year-old (she's 3). I could have made the same mistake myself a few times with the way she took to this crazy biking business. We called out bumps, yelped at our echoes under bridges and tunnels, sang songs together, listened to made-up stories, told jokes, collected comments from other bikers, and just generally had a marvelous time.
More, please.
dilletante and I managed to get N on the trail-a-bike on Tuesday and out for our first family bike tour. Let me say that again, because I've been waiting to for years: FAMILY BIKE TOUR.
It was a little more modest than we'd originally planned, of course. That's how these things go. We had thought it would be fun to take all day Tuesday to bike along the commuter rail down to Providence, get a hotel, and take the train back the next day. After all, on a tandem, D and I have extra power -- more than enough to tow a little girl -- which makes us limited only by her attention span. And that attention span has recently proven itself to be rather long for trips she's motivated to take. It turns out that the promise of spending the night in a hotel with a pool is a strong motivator, so I didn't have any trouble conceiving of her taking four or five two-hour chunks of bike trip.
There were two problems, though: (1) she'd never been on a tagalong bike before, and (2) I had to sleep all morning because of the goddamned sunburn. Also, as it turned out, (3) we were a little bit petrified to take her on the road, despite having thousands and thousands of bike miles under our wise parental belts. OK, and also (4) we had the inevitable mechanical failures and setbacks. Four problems. But! We conquered them, threw some clothes and bathing suits in a little backpack, and set out on our newly-minted 12-mile journey to the end of the Minuteman bike trail.
At first, Natalie was a little frightened. After all, even a slow ride on the back of a tandem is a lot faster than she ever goes on the tricycle in the backyard at preschool. This caused her to shift wildly from side to side which (as you can guess if you've ever captained a tandem) made the handling and steering go from "tricky" to extremely difficult. So we walked up the hill near our house, got back on, and coasted down the other side. By the time we had covered the two-ish miles to Davis Square, mostly by protected bike path, she had learned to relax, try to balance, and just enjoy herself.
Heartened, we kept our curious bike train moving on down the path, and N began to get up enough confidence to start pedaling rather than just riding. Unfortunately, she chose a bad moment to do this, and fell halfway off the bike as we went over two big bumps. Since she only fell halfway, she got her leg stuck against the moving wheel and thereby got a big abrasion on her thigh. Poor bean. We cleaned it off as best we could, patched it up, and cuddled her on the grass in the park behind Alewife. She vowed never to get on the bike again. I asked her to get up just so I could take one picture, which I would then show to
dancingwolfgrrl so that she would say "OOH WOW!". N agreed. Here it is:Once on the bike, she consented to keep going, so go we did. We made a game out of calling bumps: when my front wheel hit a bump, I'd say "Badump!", which would then chain back with D and N each calling "badump!" as their respective wheels went over it. This gave us a game to play and also gave N a bit of warning to hang on. It wasn't long before she was yelling about how happy she was and how wonderful it was to be biking. Too true!
We sailed over the 128 overpass on our bikes, waved at the cars, and turned off the path to check into our "POOL HOTEL". The pool was closed for the night, but she was not fazed; we ran around and ate delivery Thai food and D told her stories at bedtime since we hadn't brought any books. Later, after she was asleep, we lured
zsquirrelboy to sit outside the hotel room door and play Chrononauts with us in the hallway until there were noise complaints and we were forced back inside the room. The next day, we had a lazy and wonderful ride back: we stopped in Lexington center for lunch, Arlington center for ice cream, and stopped at a little pond to run around for no reason:Natalie, being tallish, articulate, and capable, was mistaken for a 5-year-old (she's 3). I could have made the same mistake myself a few times with the way she took to this crazy biking business. We called out bumps, yelped at our echoes under bridges and tunnels, sang songs together, listened to made-up stories, told jokes, collected comments from other bikers, and just generally had a marvelous time.
More, please.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Congratulations on making it happen, and best wishes for all the FAMILY BIKE TOURS yet to come!
no subject
That's awesome, and inspiring.
I've actually been thinking a lot lately about FAMILY BIKE TOUR, and how to get to that ourselves in the next year or two.
no subject
I love how patient you guys are with Natlie and how creative you are at getting her consent to activities, rather than just ramming stuff through on parental authority (which was how I grew up). I can't wait to see what your little human being becomes, ten and twenty years from now!
no subject
no subject
Usually.
no subject
no subject
As an aside: when will hotels figure out that they need to rent rooms with a cozy little noise-proof berth for a kid so that the parents can do something other than hang out sound- and light-lessly in a room or be just outside? The worst part of any traveling adventure for me these days is the time after my kids' bedtime and before mine.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Want to do a multi-family trip up the Minuteman sometime? Nothing so ambitious, maybe going to Lexington for ice cream. (I haven't actually taken Benjamin further than Davis on the trail-a-bike, so we'll see how well he and I do.)
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Can you tell me more about the path you'd planned on taking to Providence? It's a trip I've often contemplated but never seriously looked at the details of.
no subject
Path! Plan! Ha. I bought a bike map...
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Oy, my vocabulary fails me.
She is very mature for 3.
no subject
no subject
Small was not tall enough for the trail-a-bike at Natalie's age -- we tried sitting her on one with the seat alll the way down and she couldn't reach the pedals. Now I can see looming ahead of us the day when she'll be too big for it.
She and I are even now packing lunch to do our first 'major' bike expedition -- a 16-mile loop through arlington, winchester, and lexington, plan courtesy of one of those laminated pocket ride maps.
no subject
16 mile ride! Ooh, have a good time! So one does eventually reach a point of NOT being petrified to have a kid on a trailer on the road...? :)
no subject