A Failure, or a Reboot, you decide.

So my initial plan has come to an end. On Friday we returned the Ute to the Bike Gallery. While Kai enjoyed being my co-pilot she would rather pedal, and while in theory the Ute would have been an excellent commuter bike, in actuality it was too long to fit anywhere in my office, and being in Portland where weather is always a factor I didn't really want to leave it sitting outside.

That being said I have not given up completely on trying to not rely as heavily on our car. After returning the Ute we ordered a few things to make parts of my plan still be possible. The first being a Trail-a-Bike for Kai, which is basically a kids bike without a front wheel which attaches to an adult bike. Hopefully this will show up this week and then I can let everyone know how it went (I have 2 maybe 3 of you that read this blog, I mean c'mon I can't be expected to update that many people directly).

The other thing was to buy a rack and some panniers for my bike in order to make my commute to work easier. I hate riding with a backpack and planning ahead and leaving a duffel bag at work is just a pain in the ass. My bike does not have the correct mounts for a rack but I found a decently nice Avenir seat post mounted rack and a set of bags that is made to go with it. I haven't tested them out yet but got them mounted to the bike today and it seems like they will work well. With any luck I will give them a go this week. I'm dreading finding out how out of shape I truly am once I get back on my bike.

A sunny afternoon off work = Family bike time.

The weather today was beautiful out, and to capitalize on that I took a half day from work and came home to get Terra and Kai and head outside. We figured this would be another good time to put the Ute through it's paces a bit more and also to get Terra out on her bike for the first time in quite a while.

Our first order of business was to take Kai to the park, so we loaded up and off we went. Before stopping at the park that we normally would go to we decided to go explore the bike paths a bit and wound up finding a slightly smaller park that was perfect for Kai as it had equipment that was more sized to her. It was a bit more off the beaten path and as a result wasn't quite as crowded but there were still a handful of kids for her to play with.

After some park time it was off to the Library for some new books for Kai. We wound up with probably a dozen books, obviously there was more than enough room to haul those on the bike.

Our next stop was at Fred Meyer for some shopping, this would be the first time I have really loaded the bike with any sort of capacity so I was interested to see how it would go.

Here are some pictures of us loading up for the trip home:

So that is a load consisting of both a shopping trip and a library trip, I was also carrying Kai of course and really the bike performed amazingly. I may wind up figuring out a way to stabilize the kick stand even further to make loading a bit easier as things tend to want to tip a bit but once I was loaded up and on the bike it was no problem.

Having all of the weight in the rear does make the front end a bit light which changes the feel of things, but the ride itself didn't seem to be affected much it just felt different.

As we arrived home we stopped by the office and picked up our package of Keurig coffee as well, which Kai sort of hugged on the way home, it sat on the deck in front of her with her reaching around it's sides and grabbing her handlebars. Granted that was just for an 1/8th of a mile or so but it still counts right?

So after getting everything in the house I decided to snap a photo of our complete haul:

1lb Can of Similac (x8)

18oz Honey Bunches of Oats (x4)

64oz Juicy Juice Berry (x2)

Skippy Peanut Butter (x2)

Frozen OJ (x2)

Dozen Large Eggs (x2)

Whole Wheat Bread

Strawberries

Oranges (x4lbs)

Coconut (x1)

Peanut M&Ms

Gum

Nail Polish (x2)

Library Books (x13 I think)

Keurig Shipping Box

I like to think that is enough to make your standard person think I am nuts, but really it was no trouble at all. Most importantly it was one more time that we could have used the car and didn't. It was a great couple of hours with the family.

Until next time...

I love my brain.

Ordered a new helmet, because much like how spandex bike shorts look increasingly goofy the further you wander from a road bike, so too do race styled helmets.

It arrived today and I love it. Matches the bike perfectly, is comfy, and looks in place with regular clothes.

1st Trip with a Co-Pilot

So Kai and I just returned from our first outing together. She had a blast which is awesome cause I really didn't know how she would react once we actually got out onto the street for the first time.

Our trip today took us from the house to the Home Depot which is 3 miles up the road for Kai to build her monthly project. Today was a sailboat, which she promptly named the Jolly Roger.

On the way home Kai asked for a donut so we detoured about a mile out of the way and grabbed donuts and then made our trek home.

All in all we did about 8 miles and 2 errands in about an hour and 45 minutes. We could have done it in about half the time via our car but it wouldn't have been anywhere near as fun.

Ute

So by Wednesday I had decided I was officially having buyers remorse for not getting the Ute. The MinUte, while cool, was too close to a "regular" bike for me to justify. Sure I could haul one kid, or 2ish grocery bags, but not the 2 kids or a full shopping trip as I had envisioned.

Thanks to the fact that the Bike Gallery are awesome people and have a great return policy swapping the MinUte in for the Ute was no hassle at all.

In picking up the bike for the first time it is definitely a beast, but riding it around the apartment complex a few times it really doesn't ride any different than a normal bike. It is a bit more sluggish to get going but that is to be expected from something of it's size. The biggest oddity for me is just in how relaxed the cockpit is.

I am used to being hunched over drop bars not perched upright like the Wicked Witch of the West. This new position also uses much different muscle groups than I am used to. It will be interesting to see how quickly I adapt.

Tonight I stopped and got the parts needed to give Kai a place to hold on.

In the two laps she did around the complex tonight she did really well. Tomorrow we will take our first real trip for Home Depot's kids building day.

Hopefully I will have good things to report afterwards!

Until Then...

Second Guessing...

So after having the Minute for a few days and looking at it more I am torn on whether to keep it, or go with the full Ute.

While I like the idea of the shorter wheelbase in theory, I am beginning to worry that I may be setting myself up for heartache in the future by not having the full capacity. The full Ute will hold two children, the Minute will only hold one. The full Ute has two large bags, the Minute has two small bags (almost exactly 50% of the size).

With the Minute I will almost certainly need to use a trailer when we go as a full family, with the Ute I would be able to be totally self contained. Another point of contention is that xtracycle makes Ute compatible decks/bags/accesories. Thus far they do not do anything for the Minute (to be fair it is a new model, but they are really more of a long bike company so I don't know if they ever will).

So the question is do I stay with the Ford Ranger and hope for the best or do I go with the F250 and know that I will never find something I can't haul.

I have 30 days to decide, provided I don't actually ride the Minute much, so I will ponder for a few days.

Your input is welcome.

Let's start at the begining...

So I have decided to make a bit of a lifestyle change, and this blog will be my journal of both the successes and failures that are associated with that change.

The change I am making is an attempt to go Car-Lite. This will be a new experiment for me as I have never in my adult life tried to get by without using a car for pretty much everything. Being that we are a single car family with a 4 year old, and now an infant as well, the ability for me to seldom need the car is going to make life much easier on my wife when stuff like doctors appointments or play-dates arise.

My current bike, which I love, is an Orbea road bike. 

For several reasons trying to go car-lite on this bike was not really an option, at least not a good one. It is designed to go fast, and really not do a whole lot else. Aside from a small seat bag which holds an extra tube and a small multi-tool there is zero capacity to carry anything, it also has special pedals which require special shoes...shoes which work great on the bike, off the bike however they make you look like a duck with special needs. The riding position is hunched over, which is nice for riding for the sake of riding, but tooling around town with the wife and kids I look a bit out of place.Commuting to work required either the use of a backpack (while a backpack sounds like an easy solution, riding with one is torture), or planning ahead and leaving a duffel bag of clothes at work as well as lunches for the week, not very convenient.

A couple of weeks ago while browsing around the web however I was reintroduced to a section of bikes that I had seen once or twice before. Some people call them Longbikes, xtracycles, cargo bikes, but regardless of what you call them they are very utilitarian. While I had seen them before I had never really given one much though because of the enormity, the cost, and the fact that then I might actually have to commit to this crazy idea.

The most popular bikes in this category are the Xtracycle brand, the Kona Ute, and the Surly Big Dummy. The Xtracycle brand is more for converting an existing bike to a longtail which I wasn't really in the market for (although they have no started doing a full bike it is pricey), the Big Dummy is almost $2k which was out of my price range, and that is before adding any sort of bag, which aren't cheap. The Kona Ute was the most promising of the lot coming in at about $1400, but it still shared one issue with all of the other bikes in the category, they were MORE than what I needed. These bikes are designed to be able to haul just about anything and are very long. I wanted a bike which would not only haul things when needed but could also be used for family rides, and the Ute was going to be overkill for that.

As luck would have it, Kona decided to solve my problem for me and in 2012 released the MinUte. This bike is pretty much everything I wanted in a bike. It is the same design as the Ute but the rear deck is about 2/3rds the size, and the cost is also about 2/3rds as much. So last night, after a week of mulling it over, I went down to Bike Gallery and picked one up.

The Minute gives me the ability to carry my daughter with me as she can sit on the rear deck (hence the stem coming off the seat post, handlebars will be added as soon as they are delivered), the bags will hold everything from my work clothes and lunch, to two full reusable grocery bags, library books, picnics in the park, no problem. Add a trailer to the back (which we already own) and our infant son can come too, once he gets a little bit older. The gearing is super low, which is great for trying to pull anything up Portland's rather hilly terrain. Brakes are disc on both the front and rear which is nice because they work predictably in both wet and dry conditions. The ride is more upright and more suited to just getting from point A to point B. 

This bike will not get a speedometer or odometer, but if I can stick to my plan it will get plenty of miles. While some of those miles will come as 17 mile trips to the office, just as many will come from 2 mile trips to the grocery store, or leisurely rides to the park to play. All the things that normally I use the car for.

Here goes nothin'.