Category Archives: Family Bike

Bike To Work, Car-Lite, Commuting, Family, Family Bike, Simple Living, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Who is winning?

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2013 Wisconsin Bike Challenge

As it has been in the past, Ingersoll Rand is participating in the Endomondo National Bike Challenge and I’m tracking my miles on the site.  The first year that we participated the only miles that were taken into account were transportation miles.  There was a cool calculator that told how much C02 and money were saved by people riding their bikes instead of driving.  Now, any miles on a bike are included and the number of participants is skyrocketing.  This means that my choices to live in town and therefore have a shorter commute are pushing me down the leader board, into the 200′s.  This isn’t winning and making me feel less than awesome.  I did a little digging on the site and found that I tracked 776 car-replacement trips in the past 12 months.  THAT makes me feel a little more awesome! The question becomes how and why should I be awesome?

I’ve been reading Jon Acuff’s book Start and have decided that I just need to stop trying to find my dream job and just keep being me and allow the awesome to come through.  While I was reading the first few chapters of the book I wrote down a few things that I want to be awesome at:

  • Husband
  • Father
  • Bikes
  • Community Building/Placemaking

You’ll notice that blog author isn’t on there. According to Jon, you have to draw a start line and go.  First and foremost I want to be awesome in the eyes of my wife and kid(s), if I fail there it’s definitely game over.  Bikes and placemaking are next in line – I want to prove to people that the car is definitely not a necessity and that by getting people out in their yards, parks and other public areas that society as a whole will benefit.

You’ll notice that none of the things that I want to be awesome at include my job.  See, my job simply allows me to make money to support my family and to help me on my path to awesome.  My job is ok, but it helps me to be awesome.  I don’t have complete control over my job, but I do on my start line, if I become awesome enough and one of those things on my list becomes my job, great.  If I become awesome and a new job opens up, great.  If I become awesome, and this blog becomes awesome, and makes me money to support my awesome family, great.  Even if I stay in the same job and I’m awesome, I’ve got that going for me…

1lessminivan is going to be the tale of me figuring out how to be awesome to my family and hopefully to the people around me.  I’ve tried in the past to immediately make the blog into something much larger than it really is.  It’s basically a journal and maybe someday somebody else will read it and find inspiration to become awesome too.

Mileage for 5/6/2013

Car: 0.0
Bike: 15.61
Walking: 3.17

Family, Family Bike, Simple Living Leave a comment

Neighborhood Love

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Our growing little family has moved into the best neighborhood in La Crosse. There are neighborhoods with bigger, fancier houses, but the Hillview division of La Crosse is in my mind the most desirable place to live. Lindsey and I have been taking walks through the neighborhood since we moved in to our new house, and repeatedly we have randomly commented “I’m so happy we moved here, this really is the best place to live in La Crosse.” Why is this neighborhood so special? Several Reasons come to mind:

The Neighborhood begs you to come out and play.

Right at the end of our alley is Myrick Park, which is a perfect place for a nice walk through the park and nature trails (Linds and I have a nice 2 mile loop from our back door, through the park and a quick loop out on the marsh). If you have kids the park is home to Kid’s Coulee, which is a great playground for kids of all ages to get out and play, and socialize with other children. This will enable us to use our small backyard for a garden, and a place to hang out with friends and family since we have the great playground literally across the street. If you’re looking for and educational experience for your child, look no further than the Myrick Hixon ecopark, which offers; “marsh trails, greenspaces and adventure playscapes to the spectacular atrium of the EcoPark Center, families, friends, school groups, visitors and organizations appreciate the inventive opportunities for community, learning and just plain fun of the EcoPark.” And finally if you need to get away for some exercise, take the trail at the end of the block under Highway 16, and you can experience miles of hiking, biking and skiing trails year round!

Old fashioned neighborhood.

While Lindsey and I met by moving into the same neighborhood, I only met the people immediately surrounding my house in the old “neighborhood.” We’ve been in the new house now for 2 months and I’ve met everybody around the house, across the street, even down the block and other streets (minus the college kids of course, who are only outside to put the beer cans in the recycling bin). People in this neighborhood are always out and about. Everybody waves when you are out and about, they always say “Hi.” I’ve been amazed at the hospitality shown in the neighborhood.

Connected

The best part for me is that I’m close to everything via bicycle. I’m 2.2 miles from my work, which is very easy for me to be able to not only ride to and from work every day, but I can also come home for lunch so that I can see my family more! Grocery shopping is even easier since I can get to the grocery store 100% on bike trails (well ok, I do have to ride about 100′ on a park street). The same bike trail connects up with several rails-to-trails bike paths so literally 100′s of miles of car free trails are right at my door step! Mountain biking is available via a trail at the end of the street. It’s really quite easy to leave our car parked for days on end!

Car-Lite, Family, Family Bike 2 Comments

Of Midwives and Bicycles

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Riding a bike at 24 weeks!

Our first few appointments for Lindsey’s pregnancy usually left me feeling a little bit less than satisfied with our experience.  We were going to a doctor and would have almost zero conversation about the fact that we were going to be having a baby.  There was always talk of labs, numbers, weights and measurements.  Even after the ultrasound, all we got out of the doctor was “He looks good.”

Enter the Midwife

Our good friends had a midwife when they had their baby in January and were telling us stories about how great their midwives were.  So we decided to call and make the switch from doctor to midwife.  Today was our first appointment with the midwife, so I went along even though it was just a short appointment to get a couple measurements.  I thought it would be good to meet the midwife, even if it was just breifly.

We rode our bikes to the clinic, and pulled up to find a completely full bike rack.  The bike racks are covered, so I found the last corner to lock up to.  As we walked into the clinic I was wondering to myself what people were going to say when they realized that a pregnant woman rode her bike to her appointment…

…After checking in, a Physician’s Assistant came out and got us and said “Wow, you rode your bike in? What a beautiful day for that!”  I breathed a sigh of relief, as I started to realize that maybe I wouldn’t get lectured about the dangers of biking. 

We got through the appointment with the PA and Midwife (Mary Ellen), and I felt like my questions and concerns were thoughtfully addressed even though it was only about 20 minutes long.  One of our concerns was that on days that Lindsey teaches spinning classes, she doesn’t feel the baby move as much.  Mary Ellen’s reply was awesome: “When you’re  exercising, you are basically rocking the baby so he’s happy and resting.”  No way was I ready for anybody to encourage us to keep riding!

As we were leaving, Mary Ellen noticed that we had ridden our bikes in to the appointment by our helmets that we had stowed under the chairs.  We were talking about how many people had ridden in because the bike racks were full.  She then said that she had seen that I had to lock up to the outside of the rack and she had to lock her bike up to a tree.  She made a comment about my Xtracycle and thanked us for wearing helmets, because she wouldn’t have to lecture us about setting a good example for the baby!

As we were on the way out she introduced us to another midwife who said; “You rode your bikes in? So did I!”  I’m noticing a trend here, and I like it!  It’s like they knew the way to gain my trust is through the bicycle or something! 

Still riding at 24 weeks!

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Safety First…

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This weekend I set out to see whether it would be safe to mount an infant seat in a Burley and pull it behind a bicycle. Initially, I was going to take the seat down and then mount the base in the bottom of the trailer.

First I got the trailer that was graciously given to me by a good friend of mine on the ski patrol with me. I found that removing the seat back was quite easy – unhook the crossbar and remove two little sheet metal screws, and slide the seat back from the cross bar. Replace the crossbar and voila! Tons of room!

At this point, Lindsey and I decided to take a bike ride, to spy on a couple houses that were for sale in the same price range that ours is on the market for. You know, we have to know our competition. Plus, we are keeping our new stroller, infant seat at her parents house until we move into the new house. So I hooked up the burley to my xtracycle, put some air in Lindsey’s cruiser tires and we were off.

As we rolled along, I was quite impressed with how the rig reacted even though it was quite long. There are a couple sidewalks that we have to get onto to cross a set of train tracks, which also required a 90 degree turn, and the whole thing stayed on the sidewalk. Pulling it wasn’t a problem behind an xtracycle, which was awesome. As we were riding along, people were asking us where the kids were, and I was having fun letting people know that this was just a trial run.

Then, it happened. Lindsey said the words that would shut the entire program down in a heartbeat. That is way too bouncy to put an infant seat in. While we didn’t have any weight in the trailer, I knew that she was probably right and I was visibly disappointed. Lindsey thought I was mad at her, but really I just loved the idea of being able to pull a baby in a child seat. Of course I have my baby’s best interest and safety in mind, so I would never think of putting my child in any danger. But I was really hoping to be able to ride with him to the grocery store on the bike path by our house. Oh well, good things come to those who wait.

I’m still going to move forward with the video test using a doll as the baby, but I’m sure that the video will confirm that it’s a pretty bumpy ride for a baby in a Burley. That changes this blog a tiny bit too, but will focus on being very car-lite with a family, until next spring when we can pull the Burley with a toddler! A minor setback, but it’s really not even a setback, we just have to walk with the baby for a while. We can still put him in the burley and walk to stores on the paths.

All in all it was a great pre-spring day, and one ride past the awesome park that we’re going to be living a few hundred feet from, and I’m still as excited as ever to become a Dad. There were hundreds of people enjoying the first nice weekend at the Kid’s Coulee playground, can’t wait for that to be us!