From the category archives:

Child-related issues

Co-rider: the good, the bad, the ugly

by Dorea 11.26.2012
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I really love riding with our youngest (R, now almost 3 1/2) on a front-mounted bike seat. It’s pretty much my favorite way to ride with one kid, provided we don’t have to haul much stuff with us. Thus, I was pretty sad when it became clear he was growing out of his bobike mini. [...]

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Kids’ walking personalities

by Dorea 01.23.2012
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Rebecca wrote a great post recently at Green Baby Guide that got me thinking about the impact of kids personalities on walking for transport with small children. Rebecca is a carfree mom with a fantastically unmotivated walker, and she bemoans the constant judgment of parents who push “big kids” in strollers even though no one really bats [...]

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What we ride

by Dorea 01.09.2012

I thought it might be useful for readers to know in more detail what bike gear we use to ride with our kids. Sure, we ride our cargo bikes, but we also ride (and have ridden) several other more standard (and more affordable) set-ups. So, here is some basic info about our current rotation. I [...]

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Car culture and kids toys

by Dorea 01.02.2012
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Like many families, we’ve just had a channukah-induced influx of toys into our house. Recent improvements in storage mean that we actually do have space for these toys, and they have been keeping our kids delightfully busy. We are also blessed with considerate grandparents who remember our space constraints, often giving our kids craft sets [...]

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Family Bike Shopping Part V: The Final Verdict

by Dorea 11.04.2011
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(See also Parts I, II, III and IV) In a final round of consideration, we looked at some of the higher-end bakfiets, looking for something essentially like Mike’s bike, but with a better raincover and a less finicky kickstand latch. The trimmest I found was the well-regarded Workcycles Bakfiets Short, which is available in the [...]

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Family Bike Shopping Part IV: The third and fourth bikes we almost bought, Joe Bike & Neat Bike Box Bikes

by Dorea 10.31.2011
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(See also part I, part II & part III) After ruling out the Zigo, I was able to take our friend’s Gazelle Cabby for a spin. Now, we weren’t actually considering a Cabby for reasons I’ll get into in a minute, but before riding the cabby, I hadn’t been thinking a Bakfiets-style bike, with the [...]

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Family Bike Shopping Part III: The second bike we almost bought, the Zigo Leader

by Dorea 10.30.2011

(See also Part I for info on why we were shopping and what we were looking for and Part II for the first bike we ruled out) After ruling out the Sun Atlas, the next bike we considered was the Zigo Leader. It looked like it would have great weather protection, and since it was [...]

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Family Bike Shopping part II: The first bike we almost bought, Sun Atlas Cargo

by Dorea 10.25.2011
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Back in part I, I described why we decided to wade back into family bike shopping. At first, we were just looking to find a longbike that would be easy for Angela (5′ 1″) to get on and off of, and possibly be a more stable ride with two kids. That approach led to the [...]

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Family Bike Shopping Part I: Why another bike?

by Dorea 10.19.2011

At long last, we’ve settled on a new family bike. Family and cargo bike shopping can be a daunting process, with limited access to test rides (see our previous desperate plea), limited knowledge available at local bike shops, conflicting info available online, and a confusing set of options that have different strengths and weaknesses, and [...]

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Accidents happen.

by Dorea 07.27.2011

I was in a minor bike accident with the kids last week. We’re all OK now. We’re even all back up on the bike. But it was really scary. And it was 100% my fault. At the end of a long week on my own with the kids (Angela was away teaching at a math [...]

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