Lace Tights and Platforms

Submission from my friend J, this lady was spotted in the South End.

Advice Needed and Gratuitious Baby Photo

We've enjoyed my friend E's photo submissions here on the blog, but now she needs some advice and I'm not sure I can help her. She'll be visiting home again and bringing her European-biking boyfriend with her. He's bringing his bicycle and wants to bike from Boston to Woods Hole.

I know it can be done, my husband has done it, but his route is less than ideal. He uses the Boston Brevet 200km route to begin, then hacks together the Cape portion of it. Navigation is a major hassle, and the bike path over the bridge is almost impossible to find, with access hidden behind a strip mall.

There must be a better way!

I know some people who have biked from Boston to Plymouth. I found this Boston-Plymouth bike route online, but am dismayed to see there are 606 cues over 80km! That strikes me as extremely complicated.

Does anyone have experience/advice for how to bike from Boston to Woods Hole. Thank you!!!



And just because I'm a doting mother, here's a photo of Future Cyclist practicing his chant "Allez les cyclists!":

Success!

Now that Future Cyclist is strong enough we were able to get out for a short jaunt en famille yesterday. Our friends loaned us an old Burley trailer. We immobilized the car seat in it with a motorcycle tie-down cord (also on loan, I don't know what it's really called, but it's sure robust!) and off we went on a brand-new (and thus very smooth) rail trail.

FC prefers the bike trailer to riding in the car, and we had a few hours of bliss, but he also just doesn't like being by himself in a carseat away from his family so I can't claim that the whole afternoon was perfect. As far as we could tell his complaints were merely that he was lonely. Eventually Daddy rode alongside the baby and chatted with him until he fell asleep again.

My friend who loaned us the trailer said that once they got it life "went back to normal again". Even if it's imperfect, I know exactly what she means.

Weehoo Bicycle Trailer

Thanks to my sister visiting we had time for a grown-up bike date yesterday so where did we go? The bike store of course!

While I was there the saleslady told me about a new child trailer, the Weehoo. Upsides are said to include the enclosed chain, the adjustable seat position, the fact that it *is* a seat (not a saddle) so the Future Cyclist could nod off without falling off, and it even has pockets for water bottles.

She showed me the video on the website and I instantly said "Wow, that looks like Colorado!" I was specifically thinking Lafayette, where my sister lives, but I wasn't surprised at all when I got to their Facebook page and see that they're based just down the road in Golden, CO. Now that Coors doesn't give out unlimited free beer at the end of the tour I don't know many people who go out there (except on a bike ride) but when we're home for another family wedding later this summer I may have to check out a Weehoo - it will be a while before we can use one, but once we can it looks like just the tool to resume our bicycle adventures!

Photo from the Weehoo Facebook page

SoWa Bike

This bike was getting a lot of attention at the SoWa Open Market (Sundays in the South End). There was an Italian family touching it, I got to feeling a little bit uncomfortable with their enthusiastic appreciation - it seems that bike groping etiquette is different across cultures. Would you touch another person's bike? Most particularly, would you explore the firmness of their Brooks saddle?

The Burlington Bike

How awesome is this bike? The owner must have found a stretchy cling map somewhere, I can't figure out how it came to be so perfectly and seamlessly attached to the bike.

Certainly there is some careful application involved.

The lugs are perfect for this sort of treatment.

This was the coolest bicycle we saw in Burlington, outside of the Old Spokes Home. When I was visiting their WONDERFUL museum upstairs in their shop I got a phone call that someone very dear to me had died, so I didn't get you any photos. You'll just have to go up and visit yourselves and I promise it's worth stopping in.

Family Cycling in Burlington, VT

There were lots of families out cycling in Burlington, but this family, with kiddoes racing around and Dad on the wheelchair bike bringing up the rear, brought a tearful smile to my face. That's the most beautiful bike I think I've ever seen.

Sabertooth Bakery in Burlington, VT

I recently made my first visit to Burlington VT which, as far as I can tell, is Boulder CO with a lake instead of the Flatirons.

There were many wonderful bikes there but my first photo is the Sabertooth Bakery, because not only is her bicycle-powered bakery cute but tasty as well! I only tried a donut but it was just the right size and sweetness for a little pick-me-up without sugar shock. Hurray for bicycle bakeries!

Life is Beautiful!

Hello everyone! First off, a HUGE thank you to you all for all the good wishes!

Spending time at home with the baby has been lovely and overwhelming and I'm just now catching up on things. I've got some photos of chic cyclists to share with you, though I'm slower on the draw these days, but first I wanted to share a little about my current favorite project...

Future Cyclist was born four days after those bike date photos were taken. My mother in law said he'd arrive with the full moon, just like his daddy, and he did. This year that day was also the spring equinox, which I think is a nice day to be born.

You can't see it in this photo but his eyes are the same blue as his bicycle hat (printed on the hat is a thought bubble with a bicycle in it!) He had dark hair which is falling out now. He is very strong, he lifted his head up the day he was born, and he has five fingers or toes on each hand or foot. In short, we're thrilled.

My labor was completely drug-free and relatively short - 6 hours of active labor - which I attribute to my mental game. I tried to welcome each contraction as my body doing what it needed to do, and so I wouldn't fight it, just keep moving. Cycling training was invaluable for both overall strength but also for breathing appropriately at each stage. I was just doing what I was supposed to but the hospital staff was impressed with me. It all seemed simple to me based on cycling but perhaps it isn't?

I was impressed with the hospital as well. We delivered with just a midwife and a baby nurse. Most of the time it was just us ladies chatting as I relaxed in a jacuzzi tub. Rather enjoyable, all things considered. But our boy arrived a whopping 8 lbs 13.4 oz (4011 g) with broad shoulders. At one point at the end they urgently called in a SWAT team of highly trained OBs and nurses who averted disaster and then left us to our privacy again. I respect what Giselle Bundchen is trying to do with her homebirth advocacy, but I'm very very grateful we had that SWAT team available to intervene only that one necessary minute.

I've been on the bike once since delivering, but will be riding more and more. I can't wait for the day when I get to bring him along. Until then we're just practicing pedaling his legs (best way to help with tummy gas!).

Oh, to put it into cycling terms, I had thought that labor couldn't be much worse than the Boston Brevet Series 400K (253.5 miles and 14,951' of climbing). In the end my labor was more like a 200K for which I hadn't adequately trained. Doable, but you certainly felt it the next morning! Yet we were walking around town by day three. Hurray for bicycle training!

Bicycle Date

The single thing I will miss most in the coming months will be the wonderful times my husband and I have shared out adventuring on our bikes together. We'll get Future Cyclist on our bikes as soon as is practical but, in the absence of grandparents, it will be a little while before we get to venture out again together.

With this great weather we've been having we had to have one last bike-date, to Cambridge Flour in the morning  (always delicious) and to dinner and a movie in the evening. I should probably blame my hormones, but I just absolutely loved seeing L'Illusionniste. There is far less cycling than Chomet's last film, The Triplets of Belleville, but if you're a girl who ever adored her father, or the father of a girl, you might enjoy it. There is very little speaking, it's more of a mime, like a ballet, which allows so much more for the viewer to add herself. The animations are gorgeous - it's one of the prettiest films I've ever seen. And it's good and French, so no saccharine Disney film here, though I think the ending is beautiful, sad in the same genre as The Giving Tree.

I'm hoping to get out on the bike this weekend, but this baby is nearly past due so if you don't hear from me for a little while you'll know why, ok? Have fun cycling out there!