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.