Damn You, Fat Cyclist!

Just because Elden (the Fat Cyclist) Nelson can't think of anything to write on his blog, he decides to inflict another of these tag things on his fellow bloggers. Like we don't have anything better to do.

Well, uh, here I am responding so, uh, I guess maybe I don't have anything better to do.

Damn you anyway, Elden.

Here are the stupid answers to your stupid questions.

If you could have any one — and only one — bike in the world, what would it be?

I think my answer is sort of like Thoreau's when he was asked at dinner what dish he'd prefer. He said "the closest." Or as Stephen Stills put it "love the one you're with." No matter what bike I happen to be on, I pretty much always envision it like this:

(You can buy your very own copy of this print from the brilliant artist Philip Newsom here.)

Do you already have that coveted dream bike? If so, is it everything you hoped it would be? If not, are you working toward getting it? If you’re not working toward getting it, why not?

Yep, because for me my perfect bike has to be imperfect. It's got to have something I'm still meaning to tweak. It's got to have something about it that makes me work a little harder than I'd like.

If you had to choose one — and only one — bike route to do every day for the rest of your life, what would it be, and why?

I think this would be my Issaquah to Seattle commute, a bit over 18 miles each way. For one thing, this is the route I've chosen to ride about 5 days a week. It's got great mountain views, wildlife, home on one end and a great bakery and my bike shop on the other, lots of friends en-route, all the weather a guy could want, time to think and enough distance so I feel like I've earned second breakfast at the bakery.

What kind of sick person would force another person to ride one and only one bike ride to to do for the rest of her / his life?

I think Elden is only doing this to remind us that we are truly free. Or maybe he really is a sick SOB with a rich fantasy life. It's one of those two things. Or something else.

Do you ride both road and mountain bikes? If both, which do you prefer and why? If only one or the other, why are you so narrowminded?

Yeah and I sometimes ride mountain bikes on the road and road bikes on the trails. Names are a scam, man! When I was a kid we had bikes. We rode Stingrays in the woods and we liked it. Now you whippersnapper, get outa my yard!

Have you ever ridden a recumbent? If so, why? If not, describe the circumstances under which you would ride a recumbent.

I've ridden lots of recumbents. Heck I wrote for Recumbent Cyclist News for a couple of years. I had to stop riding them because they are such chick magnets that my wife wound up insisting that I go back to riding conventional bikes.

Have you ever raced a triathlon? If so, have you also ever tried strangling yourself with dental floss?

I did one years ago but it doesn't count because I was part of the three man relay team. I did the bike part, and my pals did the running and swimming part. I will run if I am chased, I will swim if I am thrown overboard. But if given a choice, I will bike.

Suppose you were forced to either give up ice cream or bicycles for the rest of your life. Which would you give up, and why?

Why do you want to limit the world, Elden? Do you want to see me suffer? This is hard because a Surly Crosscheck tastes terrible but New York Super Fudge Chunk doesn't corner worth a damn. I guess I'd give up ice cream but then I'd bike up Mount Rainier to find some snow to mix with Nutella. That'd show you, Fatty.

What is a question you think this questionnaire should have asked, but has not? Also, answer it.

“If 650B wheels are so much better for road bikes than 700c wheels and 29er wheels are so much better for mountain bikes than 26" wheels and porteur racks are so much better than rear rack and recumbents are so much better than regular bikes, why the heck do people keep buying all this other junk?”

Answer: Can I revise my just one bike answer? Because I totally want 29er/650b recumbent Moulton. Yeah, that'd be sweet!

You’re riding your bike in the wilderness (if you’re a roadie, you’re on a road, but otherwise the surroundings are quite wilderness-like) and you see a bear. The bear sees you. What do you do?

I gotta go with Jill on this one, this happens to me all the time. Surprisingly, I didn't see any bears on the GDR but I see 'em around here. Heck sometimes we see 'em in town. I tell 'em the same thing every time, "back away from the Nutella. Nothing to see here, move along. Get outa my yard you whippersnapper!"

Now, tag three biking bloggers. List them below.

Michael

Beth

Tarik

I hope they have more sense than I do and ignore this tagging nonsense.

Damn you, Fat Cyclist.

Chris Horner is a class act

The Everyday Athlete has the story and pictures here: http://tinyurl.com/6qo82g

Fixin' to Ride

Lao-tzu said "Limiting is what results in clarity; minimizing is what results in attainment. Therefore when the external is controlled by the center, nothing is neglected. If you can attain the center, then you can govern the external." ***

I think if Lao-tzu rode a bicycle, it would be a fixed gear. Over the years I've ridden many bicycles and logged many miles on fixies. Now things run ahead, now things run behind and bicycles ebb and flow through my life. "Ownership", like this life itself, is only some sort of temporary condition.

Here and now, the government has decided to task me with stimulating the economy. Who am I to disagree? Something in my sense of propriety is offended by the fact that this Fuji League has languished on the sales floor of Bike Works for weeks. I decide to spend locally and bring this bike home.

Lao-tzu famously advises “To gain knowledge, add something everyday. To gain wisdom, remove something everyday.” Having just gained a bike, I set to the work of regaining wisdom.

The drop bars, the derailleurs, the multi-cog freewheel, the big chainring and the excess chain all go into a satisfyingly heavy bag, destined for some other machine on some other day. My hands, feet and butt know how this bike should fit me. Flat bars with bar ends, BMX platform pedals and a WTB saddle all find their proper place.

My friend Mark Vande Kamp has observed that overall, I'm fastest on a fixed gear bike and while being fast is not the point, it is an interesting phenomena. My friend Jan has also rightly noted that when derailleurs were introduced into the Tour de France, average speeds went up quite a bit. I have a theory that reconciles these two facts and it goes like this:

• Racers use gears to go faster
• I am not a racer
• I am lazy
• I use gears to go slower (shifting into an easier gear to climb)
• Fixed gears don't shift (or coast)
• The fixed gear forces me to be strong on the climbs and to spin quickly on the descents.
• Because the bike is less, I have to be more.

I don't train, I just ride. For riding, sometimes a fixed gear is just right.

The bike is silent except for the sounds of tires on the road and breath in my lungs. Pedals turn, wheels turn, the earth turns beneath us. The road goes from here to there, up and down. Geography instructs my legs, reminding me of the true shape of the land. We have negotiated a mathematical bargain, 42:16 with 170 mm cranks and 700c wheels. I no longer trade time for comfort, but today's efforts become tomorrow's strengths.

There is something light and strong and right about this bike. It gets me to work a bit faster than my other machines and after just a few days the effort is becoming effortless. I do not to tell my heart to beat, my lungs to breathe, my legs to turn. I grab this machine and riding is automatic, like a heartbeat.


*** This quote is from Further Teachings of Lao-tzu translated by Thomas Cleary, page 6.

S24O: Moolock, Nadeau and SMC Lakes

I live in a town at the base of the Cascade foothills. Riding east means riding up and if I ride north and east, turning onto old logging roads and trails, I can find the wildness Thoreau called the preservation of the world.

Mark Vande Kamp and I had a plan and a goal, a sub-24-hour overnight trip to Lake Moolock, a tiny circle of blue 3,903 feet up in the mountains. A day would be enough time to get there, a day and a night, Sunday bridging into Monday.

We don't need much, a couple of bicycles, a couple of sleeping bags. Some kind of shelter. Some kind of food. Perhaps a few comforts chosen carefully. The thermos or the stove will be weighed, comfort in camp measured against discomfort on the climbs. Each trip yields its own verdict, experience forms our personal case-law, bound not books but in our bones.

Duties keep us in town 'til 1:30 on Sunday and on familiar trails we catch each other up on bits of our lives, what kids and spouses are doing, what books we've read, what we think of the pressing matters of the day. As we leave the world of men behind, the news becomes more laconic, precise and pertinent. Single words and simple pointing is enough.

"Wow" sums up the view.

"Bear" identifies the pile of scat.

"Deer" directs the gaze toward the fleet herbivore.

"Bear" repeated does not denote the scat but the bear itself, galloping like a stocky horse, running up the road far faster than our wheels.

This is clearly bear country, lots of scat on the road. I comment to Mark that "I thought they were supposed to do that in the woods."

"Lots of folks would call this the woods," Mark wryly notes.

Moolock is one of three lakes, the highest and most remote. A crow flying from Lake Hancock would go less than a mile to reach Moolock but he'd climb more than 1700 feet to get there. And the crow wouldn't have a bicycle and camping gear. We take a longer, rockier road.

It was summer back in Issaquah but there is still snow on the banks of SMC Lake. We hope, vainly, that SMC is some polite abbreviation for some vulgar name from a rougher age but later Google, that modern killjoy of contemplation, will tell us that SMC stands for Snoqualmie Mill Company.

We press on and up. Lake Nadeau (about which Google will later prove be refreshingly ignorant) has some ice on its surface and snow on its orbital road.

Moolock, the Chinook word for elk, is wrapped in ice and fog. At 6:45 PM we've reached its bank but found no welcome. We retreat to SMC and settle in for the evening.

The small comforts are comfort enough. A stove and a kettle, a hot meal and a hot beverage. A warm sleeping bag and a shelter against the dew. Because this is bear country, what remains of the food is sealed up and stored away from where we'll sleep.

I wake at 2:00 AM. The sky has cleared, the stars blaze with a clarity that the city has forgotten. I'm reminded of a line from a poem and title of an Edward G. Robinson film I saw years ago, "the night has a thousand eyes." I rise, pee like a bear in the woods, have a bit of warm coffee from my thermos (a luxury that earns its place on every trip) and burrow back into my down nest.

The sun clears the crest of Moolock Mountain about 6:00 AM and Mark and I have our first breakfast of the day before packing up and rolling back to a lower, louder world. Descending is far quicker than climbing and even taking the time to stop at Twede's Cafe in North Bend for a big second breakfast, we're back in Issaquah a bit after 11:00 AM.

GAIT: Cyclists, Walkers, Crimefighters!

My job at Bike Works goes late enough in the day that I'm often not back from Seattle soon enough to attend GAIT events and meetings. But last night, while walking to the market with Christine, I crossed paths with first Jeff Youngstrom and then Bob Miller. Both Jeff and Bob recounted their adventure on the Bridges of Issaquah ride. It's a great tale highlighting how the simple act of getting around by human power can help make the city better. It also is a wonderful example of just how handy an Xtracycle can be. You can read all about it on the Gait blog here.

Help needed to load bikes to El Salvador, Saturday June 28th, 2008

My pal Meg Watson from the Village Bicycle Project forwarded me the note below. Meg, Dave and all the others at VPB do wonderful work (check their website for details) and these bike load sessions are always super fun. I'll be taking Saturday off from the shop to help out and if any of you Seattle area folks can come on down, we'd love the help. You can see pictures from previous bike loading parties here and here.

-----Original Message-----
From: Village Bicycle Project [mailto:ghanabikes@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 9:54 AM
To: vbp@pcei.org
Subject: Collecting and Loading bikes June 28

Greetings,

Help us load nearly 500 bikes for CESTA (the El Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology). Loading is at the Total Reclaim warehouse, in Georgetown, (directions below). We'll start at 9, and finish by 5 PM. Refreshments will be provided.

We are also accepting donations of ADULT and adolescent (24" wheels) sized bikes. Please no children's bikes, we have too many now.

Our new partners in El Salvador have gotten bikes from Bikes Not Bombs in Boston and Bikes for the World in the DC area. Both BNB and B4W send bikes to VBP partners in Ghana. The rising cost of shipping has encouraged us bike collectors and shippers to economize. We will send more to Pacific side receivers, and the East Coast will send more across the Atlantic.

Here is a bit from an interview with CESTA's director, printed in Red Pepper, April 2007 http://www.redpepper.org.uk/ (and accessed today at bikesnotbombs.org)

"From global climate change to pedal-powered garbage carts, thinking globally and acting locally comes readily to El Salvador's Ricardo Navarro." He recently found himself meeting then-World Bank president,James Wolfensohn, to demand that the bank scale back its investment for fossil fuel exploitation and mining. "The best birthday present President Wolfensohn could give to the world's poor would be to stop bank funding of fossil fuel and mining projects and invest in wind and solar," he said. [more on line]

Hope to see you! Special thanks to all who've helped collect and load more than 1400 bikes already this spring in Seattle, Sammamish and Bellingham.

dave

DIRECTIONS to the loading:

By bike from Beacon Hill, go south on 15th Street and cross the freeway at Albro Pl. then take the first left. You'll be on Corgiat, go about half-mile, the road curves sharply to the right, then you'll see the warehouse, 1915 on the left. If you keep going you'll be on the railroad tracks.

Driving from downtown Seattle, take I-5 south about four miles to Albro Pl. Swift Dr. exit 161. Go straight at the off-ramp traffic light, you'll be on Corgiat, go about half-mile, the road curves sharply to the right, then you'll see the warehouse 1915 on the left. Keep going and you'll be on the railroad tracks.

From Tacoma on I-5 take Albro Pl. Swift Dr. exit 161turn left, cross over the freeway then take the first left you'll be on Corgiat, go about half-mile, the road curves sharply to the right, then you'll see the warehouse 1915 on the left.

website pcei.org/vbp

Village Bicycle Project is a program of Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute, pcei.org

The Seattle Century benefits Bike Works and the Bicycle Alliance of Washington

On July 27th, 2008, a century ride will happen right in my local stomping grounds. The Seattle Century (or Half-Century if 100 mile rides aren't your thing) will benefit two of my favorite bike groups, Bike Works (my current employer!) and the Bicycle Alliance of Washington (my former employer!). It looks like there is going to be good food, a very pretty course and lots of support. I'll be working the 100 mile loop as a roving mechanic. For more information (and to register to either ride or volunteer) visit www.seattlecentury.com. You can also register for the ride at Bike Works.

The Erickson is for sale

I built-up the Erickson in just the way I thought it should be for a rando/touring bike and rode it around for a while. It really is just about perfect. A couple of dings in the paint and a tiny dent in the top-tube, but very, very sweet.

And not right for me. Too pretty. Too boring. Nothing left to do on it. And that whole "pump painted to match the frame" scene was never anything I aspired to.

I really like a bike that I'm comfortable beating the heck out of. I bike I can fold up and schlep on the bus & train or a bike I can take into the back-country, past the places where the pavement ends. So I'm sticking with my converted MTB Speed Cruiser and my Dahon D3 for my adventures.

On Wednesday the Erickson is going up for sale at Bike Works. I don't need this bike and the shop can use the money.

We're selling it the way it's shown here. This is the breakdown:

$ 450 -- Erickson Touring Bike 52cm c-c seat tube, 54 cm top tube
$ 20 -- Fenders & flaps
$ 24 -- Rear rack
$ 20 -- Cateye Velo 5 computer
$ 20 -- Koolstop salmon brake pads
$ 16 -- SRAM chain
$100 -- 2 Planet Bike 1/2 Watt Blaze headlights, 1 Planet Bike Superflash tail light, 1 Planet Bike Blinky 3 tail light
$ 50 -- Front & Rear bags
----------
$700 (with tax, the total will be $763). If you know anybody who'd like a very sweet bike, have 'em come on down to Bike Works. I don't think the bike will stick around the shop for too long.

--
Kent Peterson, Shop Manager
Bike Works
3709 S. Ferdinand St.
Seattle WA 98118
hours: 12-6 Tues - Fri, 11-6 Sat, 11-5 Sun, Closed Mondays
206-725-9408 x3

Three Men On Wheels

Years ago, I discovered the books of Jerome K. Jerome while poking around in various used bookstores. His most famous book was published in 1889 as Three Men in a Boat and eleven years later Jerome published a sequel to that novel called Three Men on the Bummel. Both books are travel stories describing the adventures of three friends and both works contain some very funny scenes. Since many English speaking readers aren't familiar with the German term "bummel", the later book was published in the US under the title Three Men on Wheels.

Many of the scenes involving bicycles in Three Men on Wheels still ring true today. Here Jerome and his friend discuss saddles:

"Can you think of any saddle ever advertised that you have _not_ tried?"

He said: "It has been an idea of mine that the right saddle is to be found."

I said: "You give up that idea; this is an imperfect world of joy and sorrow mingled. There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard. There was that saddle you bought in Birmingham; it was divided in the middle, and looked like a pair of kidneys."

He said: "You mean that one constructed on anatomical principles."

"Very likely," I replied. "The box you bought it in had a picture on the cover, representing a sitting skeleton--or rather that part of a skeleton which does sit."

He said: "It was quite correct; it showed you the true position of the--"

I said: "We will not go into details; the picture always seemed to me indelicate."

He said: "Medically speaking, it was right."

"Possibly," I said, "for a man who rode in nothing but his bones. I only know that I tried it myself, and that to a man who wore flesh it was agony. Every time you went over a stone or a rut it nipped you; it was like riding on an irritable lobster. You rode that for a month."

"I thought it only right to give it a fair trial," he answered.

I said: "You gave your family a fair trial also; if you will allow me the use of slang. Your wife told me that never in the whole course of your married life had she known you so bad tempered, so un-Christian like, as you were that month. Then you remember that other saddle, the one with the spring under it."

He said: "You mean 'the Spiral.'"

I said: "I mean the one that jerked you up and down like a Jack-in-the-box; sometimes you came down again in the right place, and sometimes you didn't. I am not referring to these matters merely to recall painful memories, but I want to impress you with the folly of trying experiments
at your time of life."

Here's what Jerome has to say on the subject of "overhauling":

I have had experience of this "overhauling." There was a man at Folkestone; I used to meet him on the Lees. He proposed one evening we should go for a long bicycle ride together on the following day, and I agreed. I got up early, for me; I made an effort, and was pleased with myself. He came half an hour late: I was waiting for him in the garden. It was a lovely day. He said:--

"That's a good-looking machine of yours. How does it run?"

"Oh, like most of them!" I answered; "easily enough in the morning; goes a little stiffly after lunch."

He caught hold of it by the front wheel and the fork and shook it violently.

I said: "Don't do that; you'll hurt it."

I did not see why he should shake it; it had not done anything to him. Besides, if it wanted shaking, I was the proper person to shake it. I felt much as I should had he started whacking my dog.

He said: "This front wheel wobbles."

I said: "It doesn't if you don't wobble it." It didn't wobble, as a matter of fact--nothing worth calling a wobble.

He said: "This is dangerous; have you got a screw-hammer?"

I ought to have been firm, but I thought that perhaps he really did know something about the business. I went to the tool shed to see what I could find. When I came back he was sitting on the ground with the front wheel between his legs. He was playing with it, twiddling it round between his fingers; the remnant of the machine was lying on the gravel path beside him.

He said: "Something has happened to this front wheel of yours."

"It looks like it, doesn't it?" I answered. But he was the sort of man that never understands satire.

He said: "It looks to me as if the bearings were all wrong."

I said: "Don't you trouble about it any more; you will make yourself tired. Let us put it back and get off."

He said: "We may as well see what is the matter with it, now it is out." He talked as though it had dropped out by accident.

Before I could stop him he had unscrewed something somewhere, and out rolled all over the path some dozen or so little balls.

"Catch 'em!" he shouted; "catch 'em! We mustn't lose any of them." He was quite excited about them.

We grovelled round for half an hour, and found sixteen. He said he hoped we had got them all, because, if not, it would make a serious difference to the machine. He said there was nothing you should be more careful about in taking a bicycle to pieces than seeing you did not lose any of the balls. He explained that you ought to count them as you took them out, and see that exactly the same number went back in each place. I promised, if ever I took a bicycle to pieces I would remember his advice.

I put the balls for safety in my hat, and I put my hat upon the doorstep. It was not a sensible thing to do, I admit. As a matter of fact, it was a silly thing to do. I am not as a rule addle-headed; his influence must have affected me.

He then said that while he was about it he would see to the chain for me, and at once began taking off the gear-case. I did try to persuade him from that. I told him what an experienced friend of mine once said to me solemnly:--

"If anything goes wrong with your gear-case, sell the machine and buy a new one; it comes cheaper."

He said: "People talk like that who understand nothing about machines. Nothing is easier than taking off a gear-case."

I had to confess he was right. In less than five minutes he had the gear-case in two pieces, lying on the path, and was grovelling for screws. He said it was always a mystery to him the way screws disappeared.

Thanks to the wonderful work of the people at Project Gutenberg, books such as these, and thousands more, are easily and freely available in electronic form. I get most of my etexts, which I read on my Nokia N800, from Manybooks.net. Manybooks doesn't just have the Gutenberg books, it also has many books and stories by contempory authors whove chosen to release their works under Creative Commons licensing.

How to transport an infant by bike?

Brian Ecker of Portland Oregon emailed me asking about transporting his infant son by bicycle. My wife and I dealt with this issue years ago and our friends Brad and Claire have some good current experience transporting their young son, so I included them in the email discussion. I got the OK's from everybody to quote the discussion verbatim and post it here.

First up, Brian's query:

Hi Kent,

I'm an avid cyclist in Portland who also happens to be a new father of a 6 week old. My wife and I own a car (hybrid) but rarely drive as we live in close-in Portland and have access to most everything.

However, since the arrival of our son, I've noticed that there is really no good way to transport him over longer distances (such as the doctor) without the car. I'd like to ride him around on my bike, but all the bike trailer documentation states that children under the age of one year should not be carried this way.

Do you have any tips for infant transport?

Brian

Here's my response:

Hi Brian,

I've cc'd my friend Brad Hawkins on this note. Brad and his wife Claire have a young son that they often transport by bike trailer, so I'm hoping Brad will chime in here with his current relevant experience.

The main thing we did when the kids were young was augment the bike trailer with a carseat that we carried inside the trailer and extra padding within the trailer, making it effectively a huge, full-body helmet. In our case, I made our trailer and it had a roll-cage that completely surrounded the kid.

Did you attend the "Why Carfree cities are safer?" session at the conference? One of the hard things at the conference were that there were too many good things happening simultaneously and it was hard to pick and choose, but this was a really good one. Todd Litman, who I've also cc'd, had some very good data and interesting things to say about what choices really effect the safety of our children.

Thanks for writing and trying to make a better, safer world for our children to grow in.

Kent

Brad adds:

Transporting kids is fun. Here are a few things I've learned:

We still use the car seat for our 14 month old because it keeps his back straighter and head supported. It also gives him a better view.

Strap the lateral belt across the whole car seat and you should be good to go.

In the early months, place some foam under the car seat, but beware that this make the car seat much harder to secure in the trailer. We gave up on this notion after a few tries and went with fat, pudgy tires. See below.

We leave the transport arm on the car seat up so that there is a theoretical roll cage within the trailer roll cage.

We started with the car seat base and tied the base in, but the baby was sitting backward and wasn't ready for the bumps. Once we turned him facing forward, everything got much calmer. I don't think bikes can stop fast enough to warrant rear facing a car seat.

I like the transportable car seat too because they often fall asleep and when we get someplace, I can just take the whole thing in without waking the boy.

Keep the trailer in a place where it's easy to roll and go. If you have to carry it up or down stairs, you won't use it as transportation. We rent an extra parking space from a neighbor in our condo and keep our bikes there. We also have mini garage door clickers on our key chains so we can keep rolling all the way in our out.

My wife carries a second lock for her trailer but I haven't found it completely necessary. Just leave a toy in the trailer and everyone will know they are stealing from children. No, gas prices are high enough that I'll start carrying an extra lock too. I'll amend my ways.

Find the fattest tires you can and pump them up just enough that they sag but don't bottom out on the rim when you push down. The trailer only holds 50lbs tops so the tires don't need to be anywhere near hard.

Lubricate the snaps with chain oil so they come on and off easily. The Burley Cub we have places the cover snaps right by the trailer tongue and it's hard to unfasten unless lubricated.

As a precaution, we started with knobby tires to keep the speed down but I'm not sure that was necessary.

We still haven't started with helmets on the bike, but he knows that we wear one, and we incorporate it into play. It's one of his toys around the house. Eventually, "big boys" wear helmets. I hope that works!

Carry a blanket even in the summer. The kid is not getting an workout.

You can string some toys with a bungee cord, but that might be overkill.

Sing a lot to them so they still know you are there. We have little mimicking games going on while riding at the one year age group.

During winter months, if the plastic fogs up, it means they are sleeping. Deeper breaths fog up the inside.

The inside is surprisingly warm. I would reach in to check and find the inside of the trailer toasty and his hands warm even in the thirties.

We glued an agricultural slow moving vehicle sign on the back, tied on two blinkies, and have two orange flags on top.

Have couple of hitches around and one on each bike you might use to pull. Undoing the quick release takes too much time and makes the kid bored. They just want to click and go.

Feel free to take the whole lane. Drivers give the respect when you are packing the kids. Basically, it's no fun getting passed in your lane so don't let the drivers think it might be an option.

Just smile when the tourists start pointing and taking pictures.

I don't run any stop lights or signs anymore. I guess that makes me a dad.

Brad Hawkins

Claire adds:

One more thing (from Claire, the mom!)--we didn't transport the baby in the bike trailer until he was three months old. I think it's ok to use the car for the first few doctor visits while they're still so little, especially if it's a longer trip. The first trips we took were quite short; they've only gotten longer as he has gotten older, but we still try to time them with his naps.

Congratulations Brian by the way!

Claire