rental days two and three - after much delay

On the second day of our rental weekend, the weather was much less perfect in the sense of gosh it's nice let's go outside, but it was absolutely perfect for one wanting to try out the bike in "typical" Portland weather. That is to say, it was gray, a bit rainy and a bit windy. My mom, still staying with us, was up early and wanted to go for a coffee and to pick up some breakfast pastry type snacks. I convinced her that it was imperative we take the Bak, and so, with some trepidation, she climbed into the box and settled in under the raincover. The trip was just about two miles and after some initial worries about instability, she managed to relax. From the rider's perspective, the rain shield did a great job keeping my legs dry and blocking a lot of the wind, I hadn't ridden enough to tell if it made the bike feel heavier or less balanced. 

After getting coffee the rain and wind had picked up quite a bit - my mom had absolutely no trepidation anymore about hopping into her "snug little cocoon" to enjoy her coffee and a nice dry ride towards home and Annie's Donuts; I think she may have muttered something about it being a shame I had to ride out in the rain, but I don't think she was offering to give up her passengerly duties. 

It rained off and on the rest of the weekend, which was fine by us as we'd gotten at least one day of very nice, dry biking weather at the beginning. We took turns taking each other around the neighborhood in the bike and on a few other short errands. On our last rental day my wife rode the Bak back into inner SE Portland where we met for lunch (I had to work) before she returned it to Clever Cycles. It was rainier and windier and she seemed pretty tired, but claimed to have a had a great time on the trip.

By the end of the weekend we were pretty much hooked on the idea of a cargo bike in our near future, and we were leaning very strongly towards a long-box Bakfiets or something very similar.

We did it!

Well, we did it - we now own our very own Bak. Details to follow.

bakfiets rental weekend - day one, trip two

My mom arrived while we were putting in the newly acquired sod in the backyard, and when finished with that we were all hungry...we considered biking to a late lunch at a Thai place maybe half a mile away, but ended up walking instead as it seemed less complicated than helmeting up and strapping the baby into the bakfiets. Lunch was good, and feeling refreshed and enjoying the crisp clear unusually beautiful Portland spring day, we set out for the high-end portion of our regular grocery shopping.

Whole Foods is something like four to five miles straight down Fremont from our house. For those who don't know Portland, Fremont is a very straight two way two lane street with a few trendy-ish pretty nice little shopping areas, lots of nice houses, and a fair amount of both vehicle and pedestrian traffic. If I were riding my bike alone, I'd feel fine riding down Fremont, but there are places where it gets pretty narrow and crowded and I didn't want to ride the cargobike down it while also having to pay attention to the rest of our group. We opted for this route instead and added a little bit of distance to our trip, but overall I think it was much more enjoyable that way.

The ride to the store was pretty mellow and relaxed - sun was shining, not that many folks out driving the neighborhoods as it was mid-afternoon on a Friday - and the way home was alright too though it was near dusk and there was a lot more traffic (oh, yeah - and, for me, my bike was a lot heavier as someone had filled it with groceries when I wasn't looking).

One nice thing about having your non-bike-riding mom along on a trip is that after you make her ride about eight miles, she gets a little tired and slows way down on hills...and then you have a good excuse to circle around on the flats between rises and wait for her. Aside from a few breaks to do that, really just one I guess, and a few sections where my wife rode the cargo bike to see what it was like with a pretty good load, I managed to pedal all but one bit on the way home. There's a rather steep block - just to the west of the golf course/park if you're looking at the map - that I opted to walk the bike up (and by opted I mean decided to walk the bike up instead of abandoning it at the base because I certainly wasn't strong enough to ride it up loaded). I must say, it was not an easy push even; my wife took over for the last bit to see what it was like, and she struggled quite a bit. 

All in all though it was really an enjoyable trip to the store - even my mom who was quite tired when we got back said so - but then it was an almost perfect day for; I wonder how much we'd like it in muggy summer weather or riding headlong into a wind driven rain on the way home.

bakfiets rental weekend - day one, trip one

Early Friday morning we loaded up our son and headed down to his pediatrician's office - for his four month check-up. So, yes, he was in a car seat, and, yes, he was wearing a helmet - though I honestly have to say as his head is still an inch smaller than the smallest helmet we could find, I don't think it offered much protection other than satisfying the legal requirement here in Portland. Instead of just tossing his seat onto the floor, which even in the long box would have taken up almost all the cargo space, I used some straps I made as motorcycle tiedowns to strap his seat, atop a thick squishy foam pad, to the bench - worked great for stability for him, and if hunkered down a bit I could see his face under the rain cover (not raining, but we figured an added margin of safety from...I don't know...bird attacks maybe, and a bit warmer). After about two seconds of riding, he was fast asleep, and I think I only jostled him enough to stir from that sleep once on the trip down, though not all the streets we took were in the best of shape. 

The trip was just about 2.5 miles and pretty much downhill from our place - you can see the map here. It was a great morning and pleasant trip - the only stumble was in parking the bike; our pediatrician's office has a nice off street bike rack, but it's in a sort of open corridor that's also the wheelchair entrance and the bakfiets was either going to take up the entire bike rack or stick out and block access for wheelchairs. In the end we parked on a curbside bike rack at a bit of angle so as not to get in anyone's way. 

The way home was also quite pleasant despite being mostly uphill. We had a choice of several blocks of gradual uphill or one block of really steep - we rode down the steep and up the gradual and it worked quite well. 

Returning home from that first outing we were definitely in favor of cargo bike ownership.

as the weather turns

It Saturday morning - our second full day with the bike and the last day of my weekend - and the amazingly gorgeous clear sunny cool weather we had almost all week and turned back into typical Portland spring: still cool, but with much less sun and much more drizzle, and even a bit of wind thrown in for good measure. The reports at the start of the week put the niceness coming Friday and Saturday, but it got here early and left early as well. The upside is that this will give us a chance to see how well the rain cover really works.

Anyway - I've been on the computer longer than I'd like already doing the previous post, so for now I will just say what we did with the bike yesterday and leave the how we felt about it part until later. We had two main trips: to the pediatrician for our son's checkup, and then to the farther of the two grocery stores we frequent. My mom, in her very early sixties, showed up in between the two while we were laying a little craiglisted sod in the backyard (no - didn't use the cargobike to get the sod, though I certainly could have and I consider it; in the end I decided it would be much like time my wife I had to move 19 sled dogs {and two house dogs}, one by one in a plastic sled like you'd pull behind a snowmachine/mobile, across a hundred yards or so of flooded creek bed: certainly doable, and in the end a great story, but exhausting and not exactly how I wanted to spend the rest of the day)
.

So, here's what we did:
To the pediatrician - our route home was a little different as this has one very steep block of downhill, but on the way home we opted to make a more gradual but still direct (that is we looked for streets that went up, and avoided any down hills that we would just need to make up for later) route - I think it was about this.
To the grocery store - this trip was with my mom on her bought a few years ago and literally ridden twice prior up to now very cute Pepto pink wicker-basket bedecked bike (she was tired on the way back but declared it a great adventure upon our return home), and we pretty much followed the same track back - the difference of course being that we had about seven bags of groceries in the box along with our son and a bit extra gear/clothing/water.

All in all, this morning my legs are a little sore, but more in the good I had a nice workout yesterday sort of way and not the oh my god why did I do that to my body I don't think I'll ever be able to move again sort of way - more than anything I feel dehydrated which I suppose is not he bike's fault (though, while riding yesterday, I was considering places to attach water bottle/beverage holders) - no one else has gotten up yet, so not sure how they feel. Oh - for the most part, I rode the cargo bike, but my wife and I did switch on and off on both legs of the grocery run - she things blogs are silly waste of time, but maybe I'll get her to share her thoughts when I get around to sharing my own in the next few days.

test ride

We picked up the bike Thursday night just after what was supposed to be closing time forClever Cycles (we called en-route to say we would be late and the reply was something along the lines of, we never get out of here at six anyway); they were still friendly and I didn't feel too bad as there was another customer who appeared to have just begun looking for a travel case for a Brompton.

After just a few minutes, it helped that I had brought along a copy of the deposit receipt from when we'd booked the rental, I was out the door with the same Bakfiets we'd test rode - good old number five. After a few to replace my sweater from work with a thermal and fleece, and to put on my helmet and gloves, I was off. 

Here is the route I took (well, mostly - we don't actually live in the park, but it seemed like a better idea than giving the world directions to our door). I'm not going to say how long it took me to make the trip, but I will say I was quite surprised to find it within just a few minutes of how long the same had taken me on my mt bike the previous Friday morning. The weather was perfect, clear sunny and about 54 degrees, and traffic, for six thirty, was pretty minimal (I tried to pick the most vertically-direct route I could find that generally coincided with Portland's prescribed bike routes or at least bike friendly streets), and I had a really good time. 

This is me halfway-ish and pretty much at the top of the gradual but persistent incline away from the river.

There was only one section I didn't ride up and I sort of planned for that in that I picked a rather steep but rather short hill in one case instead of choosing a longer bit of more gradual slope (I figured if I was going to have to push it anywhere, it might as well be getting the most out of it) - if you're looking at the map/know the area, me feet left the pedals going up the ridge on the north side of the Rose City Golf Course.

First impressions of the bike were much the same as my short test ride: lots of fun to ride, very easy in the flats, a bit of work in gradual hills (and I'm well away from being able to ride it loaded up steep hills and maybe even extended gradual hills - or at least it wouldn't be much fun), gets a fair number of looks for passersby (interestingly, or maybe not, interest seemed to increase in direct proportion to my distance from downtown Portland - perhaps those living close-in are just too cool to stare, or perhaps they see more Bakfiets - personally, I think I've seen less than half a dozen cargo bikes in operation since we moved to Portland in 2007, though I have seen a few more parked here and there).

Problems so far - most are probably due to wear and tear related to being a rental bike: I'm not smart enough to get the headlight to work - I got the bottle jack to engage, the wiring is hooked up (it seems, though I was futzing with it in the dark), and there seems to only be one switch of any kind, but no light - the rear light works just fine; the bike will often drop down a gear from 5th (sometimes 4th and 6th as well - the rest of the range holds well) if you are pushing hard - this happened when we did our mini-test too but we were told it would be adjusted/fixed before the rental - not sure if they didn't get to it, or there's something amiss; I managed to have my finger in just the wrong place when releasing the frame lock and got a bit of smashed up cuticle as a result - lots of blood but surprisingly not much discomfort (and a clear lesson to remember that you DO NOT need to touch the red lever to disengage the lock - it springs back quite readily on its own).

...almost...

Well, almost time to try one out properly anyway - still several steps away from owning a cargo bike...but I'm pretty excited. In the course of my workday yesterday I happened to be driving near Clever Cycles and made a bit of detour to drive by the shop, and then another detour to check out the route we'll likely use tomorrow morning to see the pediatrician. 

Anyway - the important thing is that tonight after work we'll be picking up our Bakfiets rental to test out over the next few days. Hopefully we'll get some good picks and I'll post those here with our impressions - assuming I survive the six ish mile mostly uphill ride from the shop to our house. Fun stuff - I love new toys.