New wheels in the house!

Saturday morning I was driving home from riding my Nimble 9 at Alum Creek. My plan was to clean up, then take Henry and a twin out to lunch at Chipotle and finish up with some bike shopping for Henry--he's really outgrown his 16" Specialized Hotrock. I'd finally decided, bike geek or not, to start getting department store level bikes for the kids--especially at this early stage, when the bikes are simple and the kids are growing so fast. We'd probably end up with some $120 Mongoose, Schwinn, etc--whatever they sell at a sporting goods store or Target.

A few blocks from home, I spotted a garage sale with a kid's bike parked in front. Like the Millenium Falcon caught in a Death Star tractor beam, my car was pulled to the curb. It looked small, but I checked and sure enough: a 20" Specialized Hotrock, in excellent shape, marked at $70. The seller was a biker, and I was clearly a biker (in my bike jersey, spandex shorts, clipess bike shoes, and mud spattered legs). We both knew this was a good bike at a good price. Still, it was day two of his sale, and they were about to close up in 20 minutes. I offered $50, he took it, and the deal was done.

Henry loves his new bike (though he takes riding on the road very seriously):

And we still had lunch at Chipotle.

Later that day, the boys and I stopped at Bike Source to check out their hybrids. They had a very sharp 2011 Sirrus Expert on clearance, size XL, for $400 off... Hmm... might have to come back and test ride. But the key point is I also checked out the price of the current 20" Hotrock: $235! Score!

Post Preserve

With Kate still feeling a little under the weather, it was just us boys for tonight's after dinner ride. We made a quick jaunt over to #39 Post Preserve Park. The approach was a nice bike path along a pond. We spotted a heron:

Maybe it's just because we've been cooped up a for a few days with sick kids, but we found a lot to like in this playground. There was a tall structure with a pair of slides and a climbing tunnel/ramp to get up there:

 

An easy to use bouncy step, next to some hard to use (at least for me) circular monkey bars:

A giant spider web connected to the other play structure (which I didn't get any pictures of, sorry):

and a pair of bouncy horses:

 

Note as well the picnic benches and open space in the background.

On the ride home, Henry managed to shift into his easiest gear, and he had a good laugh about spinning like a hamster. He said, "I'm never leaving this gear, it's so easy!"

One down, 40 more to go.

Soma Double Cross Family Truckster Review

Aside from what are probably Russian hacker sites, I see a "lot" of my traffic (which is a relative measure, maybe four visits to date) come from links I put in my posts on my bike forums. Never one to fear pandering to my audience, I thought I would put up something that might interest these visitors more than my kids:

Or perhaps instead a quick overview of my bike train:

 

This season so far, I have a Soma Double Cross 'cross bike, pulling a Burley Picolo, pulling a Burley D'Lite trailer. Taking it from the rear:

 

The Burley trailer is something I bought third hand from Larry H. at work several years ago. It's seen some miles: the seat is starting to fail (look closely at the center), and one of the snaps has snapped off. It's also far from waterproof anymore. I've thought about either ordering a repair kit or buying another used trailer for parts, but this will probably be the last summer that the twins can both fit in the trailer. After this year, it may get mostly used for camping loads and groceries, so I'm hoping it can hang in there another six months.

Next up is the Picolo:

This is new for me this year. Compare this to my previous trailer bike, a Giant Halfwheeler that attached to the seat post:

(setup from last summer) Many bike geeks greatly prefer the Picolo because it mounts to a special rack, rather than the seat post. This is supposed to greatly reduce the input loads from the trailer bike to the front bike. But the Picolo has been out of production for several years, and was thus sought after by those bike geek dads. When I saw this one float across my local Craigslist, I jumped on it, even though it was missing the special rack that I later had to special order. The verdict: it is in fact more stable than the seat post mount type, but the trailer bike rider can still put a decent amount of torque into the system if he wants to. Especially big, burly lads like Henry. I'm happy with my purchase, but I'm not sure it's worth the $350 cost of new version vs. a typical $150 trailer bike.

The Picolo, by the way, has six speeds to the Giant's one. So far, this has been no benefit: Henry only has the hand strength to move the twist shifter over the few smallest gears, and on the very smallest gear, the chain line is so bad it causes the chain to consistently derail off the front sprocket. I ended up setting the limit screws to block this. Also, the Picolo doesn't have a water bottle mount like the Giant, so I need to rig something up here.

And then there are my wheels:

A 60cm Soma Double Cross, built from the frame up (as virtually all my bikes are).

I run kind of unusual gearing: a 38/26 front with an 11/34 9 speed rear. That gives me a decent, wide range cruising gear, with a useful bailout gear for steep hills. When dragging these kids around, it doesn't take much for a hill to be "steep." Probably, a 22/32/42 would be even more useful, but I like the double rings. Flat pedals let me ride in sandals or whatever I have on.

 

A key item for pulling a trailer bike is wide handlebars (drop bars, in my experience, are always too narrow). These are On One Marys, flipped, with Sram twist shifters. I'm not sure why, but I really like this combination. Comfortable, looks good, easy shifting. Somehow, the flipped Mary works to make up for short top tube of the Soma.

 

If our adventures every go really late (or into the fall), I have a dyno light up front. It's just a cheap Sanyo hub I bought used with a $35 Avenir light, but it's a surprisingly effective setup. Certainly it's good enough for riding dark multi use paths. The fork is a Nashbar carbon model from my parts bin. A good steel fork would be better for attaching racks and panniers, but my steel fork is happily nested on my Surly Cross Check.

So here's my checklist of what makes a good family truckster:

- a reasonably stiff frame with moderate trail. The Rawland that's shown above wasn't good in either regard: it was downright sketchy with a rear load input. Fun to ride unloaded, though.

- wide bars for leverage, at least 24"/60cm. My Marys are about 650mm, and they're great.

- wide range gearing with easy shifting. I love single speeds more than most, but even in flat Dublin, I find myself shifting on grades that are imperceptible to anyone not towing 150 pounds. You're shifting a lot!

- fat tires, because you can't always dodge stuff

- fenders, because kids like to hit puddles. So of course you need lots of eyelets then to install your fenders (and racks more than likely)

- flat pedals, because, c'mon, you're not riding for your PR, and it's fun to feel the wind in your toes.

- good brakes, because you're stopping a big load. V brakes are fine, though (discs are also nice)

- good standover clearance, because you're straddling the bike flat footed while your stoker gets ready.

If you're thinking this sounds like any run of the mill hybrid... you're right. Hmm, maybe I'll have to think about one of those myself!

But, you say, you're really curious about how the Soma stacks up against the Surly? Stay tuned my comrades!

Floater

The kids like to play with water. Sometimes, we fill up a tub so they can fill their squirt guns, float their boats, etc. Sometimes, we leave this filled tub out for a while.

Sometimes, the results aren't always happy:

Reward Ride

So possibly too much information here, but we've been struggling to get Henry and Sam to be free of their diaper at nighttime (Kate has been dry for many months now). I promised the kids that if they were dry on Sunday morning, I would take them out for ice cream. Bribery proved very effective moving Henry along with other bathroom habits (the reward then was a camping trip, and it worked splendidly, thank you), and it worked here as well--three dry kids come this morning. Right after breakfast, they were asking when we could go out for ice cream.

After lunch today, we headed to our local Jeni's ice cream--if you're going to reward, reward well, I say. Henry was fixated on dark chocolate, Kate wanted any kind of chocolate, and Sam was happy with some Buckeye peanut butter combo. By the time I'd decided on my whiskey and pecans ice cream and paid for it all... Henry was already done.

 

You know what's hard? Taking a good picture of three kids in a restaurant.

A quick detour to the library, and we were on to the park for the day, #37 Monterey Park.

 

Sorry residents of old Dublin, but the playground here was nothing special. Nice enough, but no features that really caught our eye. However, the surroundings were quite nice: there was a (currently dry) creek with a bridge:

and a hill that was a nice to change from the usual flatness of our other parks. We climbed to the top, and the kids immediately commenced rolling down:

 

As you can see, wearing a big, frilly dress didn't slow Kate down at all.

Just one down, 41 to go.

Saturday's Beat the Rain Ride

The forecast for Saturday was for a decent morning, with hotter weather and thunderstorms in the afternoon. So by 8:15 am, we were ready to be on the road:

We had to pass three known parks (#3 Avery, #28 Indian Run Meadows and #13 Coffman Park) to get to the new park that I had promised the kids, #31 Killilea Park:

It turned out to be a very nice neighborhood park, with some new features for us.With three kids, a three way bouncy thing was just right:

We first found the blue angled merry go round thing at #23 Hawk's Nest Park, but this was Kate's first time on it:

 

Henry found a hidden swing:

 

While Sam kept an eye out for Monsters:

They're known to inhabit these parts.

Back on the trail. Sometimes, I'm amazed at the natural places we can find in the middle of our little 'burb:

 

Of course, I kept the houses on the right out of the picture frame.

We made the short hop to #14 Coventry Woods Park:

Which had kind of a tree theme going on for the play structure, but otherwise wasn't that special. With the shady trees and gazebo, it might be a nice place to be on a hot day.

#55 Woods of Indian Run is -- boring! -- "just" a green space with no playground. It looks like even the creek had run off:

We made our way home through #20, the Dublinshire Greenway. I thought I had hit this on our second day out, but I was on the wrong side of Muirfield. It started out looking boring:

But we turned the corner and found the playground:

So far, every playground has something unique about it. Here, it was the three floating steps. Three again!

  

Sam was clearly a bit nervous about being up on the rain slicked step. But later he asked to be helped across them again.

Four down, 42 to go.

The Secret Dublin Playground

Friday when I got home from work, I promised Sam that we could go to a playground after dinner. Unfortunately, this being Memorial tournament time, we were then hit with a quick but heavy rain storm. With the playgrounds soaked, I built playground #0 Our Basement for the kids:

Yes, the blanket fort. A few years back, Jodi got each kid a personalized (with their name) blanket from LL Bean. Best... Present... Ever! What else do they still play with that they got then? I have no idea, but they all love their blankets. Forts. Islands. Pretend picnics. Wrapped up kids like they're giant burritos. So much versatility.

Somewhat amazingly, this blanket fort is still standing today, 24 hours later. The key to a fort that lasts more than five minutes is to use binder clips to tie the blankets together and to furniture or whatever else is handy to support the fort.

I guess the other key is to have a basement where no one minds if a blanket fort is still up a day later.

Still 46 to go.