Join #30DaysOfBiking & Jumpstart your Bike Commuting

Have you put away your bike for the winter & are dragging your feet about getting started riding again? Or maybe you haven't ever ridden that much but you'd like to start? Joining a month long challenge like 30 Days of Biking can be a great incentive to set a habit & launch yourself into active travel for the rest of the year.

One caveat, it's not a contest--nobody is keeping track of kilometres travelled, personal best speeds, or hours spent in the saddle. & your rides don't have to be long or even go anywhere--if, at 10pm on a Thursday in April, you discover that you haven't biked anywhere yet, you could just hop on your bike & ride around the block.

If you really want to ride every single day in a place like Vancouver, that means that you're likely to end up riding in the rain at least a few days in April. This could be a great opportunity to try out wet weather biking if you've previously been a "fairweather" cyclist in the past. If you're looking for rainy day gear advice, check out my review of the People's Poncho.

Even if you, like me, ride most days already, & the challenge won't make a huge difference to your biking habit, it's also a nice little reminder to share our rides with other people. I've gotten so used to just heading out the door on my bike & I feel like I could probably take a few more photos & share a little more, just to show people how we live car-free with kids. I come across people all the time who just can't envision what bringing two kids to school in the morning looks like on a bike, or how in the world you'd carry groceries for a family of four, or what winter or rainy day biking looks like. Let's get the word out, shall we?

Head over to the 30 Days of Biking website, join me & the 1400+ other riders who've pledged to ride every day in the month of April, & start Instagramming/Tweeting/Facebooking your rides with #30daysofbiking!

Kermit and Miss Piggy are in for #30daysofbiking! pic.twitter.com/gx78hdxL6G

— 30 Days of Biking (@30daysofbiking) March 1, 2019

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5 Types of People Who Should Do #30DaysOfBiking

It's April, spring has sprung & it's time to get on your bike! In case you needed some inspiration, here's a challenge for you: ride your bike EVERY DAY in April. That's right, every single day, rain or shine, in sickness & in health... or at least try your best to do so!

What the heck am I talking about? Well, 30 Days of Biking is a thing. I didn't just make it up. It's a pledge to ride your bike every day in April, any distance, to any destination, & then share your adventures online. Sharing is caring, right? Hashtag #30daysofbiking, natch.

Also very cool: for every 2 pledges, 30 Days Of Biking will donate $1 to World Bicycle Relief. Help them reach 10,000 pledges in 2016! 

So, on to the list of the five kinds of people who really should do 30 Days of Biking:

1. Regular Monday to Friday bike commuters who maybe drive, walk or bus on weekends. C'mon guys, you have NO EXCUSE!
2. Recreational riders who need an excuse to ride more. Here it is. I DARE YOU! ;)
3. Stay/work-at-home-parents with young kids who are bored of the parks in their immediate vicinity. Rather than rolling out of bed, grabbing the yoga pants & heading to the park two blocks away, strap your toddler into your trailer/child seat/cargo bike & ride somewhere interesting! Bonus points if there's a nice cafe next to the new park! (By the way, we're having a Vancouver Family Biking #30DaysOfBiking Kickoff Coffee Ride Friday, 10am April 1st!)
4. Non-cyclists who want to jump in with both feet. Maybe starting to ride your bike more often was on your list of New Year's resolutions, or you recently got a bike but haven't used it much. This is your chance! Jump on & pedal! Remember, there's no minimum distance, so you can totally start off slow & work your way up to longer rides during the month. 
5. Runners training for the SunRun/Fill-the-Charity-in-the-Blank Run/Marathon/whatever. Cycling is great cross training. It's also a great way to get your butt to the seawall or somewhere interesting rather than just running out your front door, around the same loop in your neighbourhood, & back again.

There you have it. Are you one of these 'types' of people? Can you think of another 'type' who should join us in 30 Days of Biking? 

Follow 30 Days of Biking on Twitter and Facebook, too!

& just so you have no excuses about pledging to ride each day, here's the link for you. 

Make the Pledge right here.
If you happen to have time on the morning of Friday, April 1st, join Vancouver Family Biking for a short #30DaysOfBiking Kickoff Coffee Ride. We meet at 10am at Science World & will ride to a park along the seawall for coffee/tea & snacks. We supply the hot drinks, you bring some snacks to share! More details & RSVP here.

See you in the bike lanes!

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#30DaysOfBiking: Final Week

Yet anothpreschooundo on the streets of Vancouver!

#30DaysOfBiking didn't seem like too much of a challenge when I signed on back in late March, since I have been biking as my main form of transportation for most of the last 16 years. However, it was still a nice little push to get me out the door & onto two wheels on soggy days where I might have taken the bus or just stayed in usually. A good reminder that while rain makes riding less enjoyable, it's still not that big a deal. We don't melt!

I kicked off the last week of #30DaysOfBiking with a seriously bikey weekend. Friday I went to Tandem Bike Cafe as well as the usual preschool runs. If you want to read more about that funky little cafe, here's my review of Tandem (8km). The weather was a bit iffy, but we didn't get too wet. We arrived home from preschool just as it was starting to rain, & mere seconds before a hailstorm.

My favourite pic of my kids so far: in a bobcat

Saturday we biked the kids to the Ocean Concrete Open House on Granville Island, & then home again for lunch & Bronte's nap. Then I zipped off on my own to the Athlete's Village, to head out on one of two big rides organized by my friend Tonya for fellow family biking blogger Madi Carlson's visit to Vancouver. We biked to the Museum of Vancouver, then Locarno & back to the Village, ending up for dinner & drinks at the Flying Pig, popping over to Crackle Creme on Union Street for a creme brulee dessert. I put in quite a few kilometres that day: 38 total.

Sunday was again sunny & gorgeous. I got up a bit early & met Tonya & Madi on Union Street again for a leisurely Stanley Park Seawall loop ride, with a stop at Musette Caffe downtown. Then we met up with a few other members of Vancouver Family Biking to ride to the last day of the Hastings Park Farmers Market. Some of our friends invited us to La Casa Gelato on the way home, where Bronte had her first ice cream cone: chocolate bacon flavour. By the time I was home, I'd biked 42km. I admit, I'm feeling it a bit. 80km in one weekend is a bit more than I'm used to & my butt was wishing I'd worn padded shorts or got a better saddle.

Monday Oliver took Linnaeus to preschool in the morning, so I only rode there & back once (2km). The next day I didn't get on my bike until 9:30pm when I ran out to grab something from London Drugs before they closed. I realized when halfway there that I'd forgotten my bike lock, so I turned around to go home. I realized that by the time I picked up my lock & went back, the store would likely be closed (under 2km).

Meeting up with friends for a morning ride.

I managed to get to London Drugs the next evening, despite again forgetting my lock & having to go back for it. (5km) Thursday was day 30. I'd intended to take the kids out to a park, but by the time we were allawake & close to ready, it was lunch time, then nap time. I squeezed in a quick trip to the library to pick up a book on hold & hit Dairy Queen on the way home (4km).

My total this week was 101km, 80% of that on the weekend. The entire month's total came out to 293km--so about 10km (35-40 minutes) per day if you average it out.

During the month, I learned that my kids are still very tolerant of rain, as long as they're dressed warmly enough. They'll put up with getting a bit soggy on a quick trip knowing that a warm house & dry clothes await us in just a few minutes. I was reminded that unless I'm riding more than ten minutes in a torrential downpour, my longish jacket & gumboots are enough rain gear. Another thing that I was reminded of during #30DaysOfBiking is that riding my bike with friends on a sunny day is pretty much the best thing ever. (& so is the hot chocolate at Musette Caffe!)

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#30DaysOfBiking Week 3

We're getting close to the end of #30DaysOfBiking. Our week three was again pretty low mileage (68km total), & the weather was all over the place.

Thursday, April 16th we biked to Tea Swamp Park (under 2km) to run the kids.

The next day we did a couple of rides, but really short again: preschool dropoff & pickup with a detour to the library (5km). The morning was a bit rushed, so B made the first ride in her pyjamas. Here she is opening the garage door for me.

The 18th was great weather. We had two extra kids for the afternoon, which meant some logistical issues. I got B down for her nap while Oli walked up to a plant swap at our local high school with the other three. As soon as B woke up, we zipped up to meet him with the Yuba Mundo & a couple extra helmets so I could bike the older two kids back home again (under 2km).

The 19th the weather was really warm again. We met another Yuba family (theirs is the green bike in the foreground. It's an electric BodaBoda) & rode to Hastings Park Farmers Market.We weren't the only ones who biked there...

After lunch, I biked (all by myself!!) to my friend Emily's cookbook launch just past Granville Island. The SunRun had happened that morning, so drivers were being idiots at some places. (28km for the day)

Monday after the usual preschool toing & froing, we rode up to Oakridge for an appointment (13km).


The run of sunny weather ended on Tuesday & I braved a bit of rain to make a quick run to the dollar store to look for some mini traffic cones I'd seen there a couple weeks before. Should have bought them when I saw them first--gone! (4km)

Wednesday I biked the kids to & from preschool, then rode alone to another Active Transportation Policy Council meeting at City Hall. Below is Bronte, jumping the queue at preschool pickup (8km).

The 23rd dawned grey & just got worse at the day went on. We made a quick run to the grocery store for 50% off diapers. As you can see, by the end of the ride, the kids were not terribly happy about the weather, but their rain suits kept evverything but their hands & faces dry (6km).

How'd your third week of #30DaysOfBiking go? Even if you're not participating, where was the last place you rode?

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What to do about rude drivers

As I was biking home from preschool Friday, I was approaching a traffic circle to turn right, & a young guy in an SUV came barrelling through the wrong way. His window was open so I said, "The wrong way around a traffic circle? Really?" His response was to yell, "Fuck you!" at me & my two small children.

Then two blocks later, as I was riding in the centre of the narrow curb lane (there isn't room for me & a vehicle to ride side by side so I take the lane for a couple hundred metres) I heard the single occupant of a massive truck say that I was "endangering my children" as he drove past me, wheels on the centre line between our lanes. I wish I could remember the company name that was plastered on the truck.

Within seconds of that encounter, another old guy in a small car was rubbernecking (seriously dude, have you never seen a cargo bike before?) & after he passed me, literally driving in the centre of the two lanes of traffic. Thankfully he corrected & returned to his own lane before the parked cars in the next block.

This is why cyclists hate drivers. Because this kind of stupidity happens all in the space of a 1km, five minute ride home from preschool. Because entitled jerks who are breaking laws & endangering people feel that they have a right to do so & tell me that I'm in the wrong.

Image adapted from: Pranav Bhatt via Compfight cc

I wasn't in danger in any of these situations, I ride defensively & keep my distance from vehicles, especially those driven by selfish idiots like these three guys. But it really gets me down that the only things I ever hear from drivers on the road are insults & baseless criticism.

If you're reading this, you're probably not one of those drivers. I know I'm just preaching to the choir here. But I don't know how to reach these drivers. I don't know how to make them understand that their sense of entitlement & dangerous antisocial behaviour makes them relics of the past. Dinosaurs.

What I think these guys want, is for all the cyclists & pedestrians to get off the road, out of their way. Which would mean into cars. But besides the fact that we don't all want to drive, we can't all drive everywhere. It's expensive, it's unhealthy to sit in a car all the time for distances you could bike or walk, it's polluting, it's dangerous. We literally don't have the space to keep building more lanes to move vehicle traffic through Metro Vancouver as the population continues to increase. The logical conclusion of this car-centric attitude is gridlock.

We can't keep driving our cities, our environment, our children, into the ground. We have to rethink how we get around & change to walking, cycling & mass transit a whole lot more. These dinosaur drivers aren't just going to give it to us, however. We need to carve out more space for active transportation & that means building infrastructure like light rail, bike lanes & better pedestrian crossings.

So here's what you can do. We've got a great opportunity for Metro Vancouver with the Mayors' Transportation plan. Voting yes & passing this plan in the referendum would make some serious headway in improving the options for active transportation. Then one day, with more bike infrastructure, maybe some of these dinosaurs will actually get out of their huge vehicles, try biking, & realize how awesome it is.

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#30DaysOfBiking Week 2

For our next week of #30DaysOfBiking, we again didn't ride that many kilometres, despite participating in a big group ride.

April 9 I biked the kids to the park (under 2km) just to get on the bike that day. The next day's riding was just preschool dropoff & pickup (4km). Saturday the 11th was Bike the Blossoms, where I think we rode about 15km underneath the pink trees of East Van. I wrote a recap of the Bike the Blossoms ride here, if you want to read more.

Sunday I decided Linnaeus & I would check out an aquarium store in Kitsilano that I'd heard about & run some other errands (13km). Monday was a bit rainy, but not too bad during our quick rides to & from preschool (4km).

Tuesday the 14th, the weather was glorious. I loaned our trailabike to a friend & her niece & we all rode down to the seawall on False Creek & visited Charleson Park (7km). Since we have so much gear for biking with little kids, I love loaning it out & giving other people a taste of how much fun it can be to ride.

Wednesday we skipped our usual quick preschool rides because Linnaeus stayed home sick. He wasn't that sick though, so we rode to the park in the afternoon (3km). Now we're at the halfway point of the month & I've added under 50km to my total this month. The point isn't how far, however, it's just that I ride daily, which I've done. About half the time it's just a given that we'll bike somewhere, like preschool or running errands, but there have been a few days that I've had to come up with a reason or ride somewhere that I might ordinarily walk.

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