Barely biking, car accidents, Kidical Mass

This is the life!

It's biking season! The Mundo sure stands out in a crowd.

It has been difficult to get out on my bike these days. With my job, I have random hours of running around and although I'd love to be doing everything thing by bike, my energy is so drained that I can barely manage getting everything done. Therefore, I've been driving way more than I'd like. However, this is the price that I pay for a job that I love and only does this to me 1-2 months of the year. The other 10 months are mine to ride as much as I can and I certainly take advantage of that opportunity. Considering I ride about 300-500 miles in an average month, it's shocking to see how much my busy-time-of-the-year has affected my riding. At halfway through the month, I've only ridden ~100 miles. I have still gotten on a bike every day this month but more often as the exchange student deadlines approach, it means running outside at 10pm to ride a loop around the backyard. My body is craving riding and we're still getting out as often as possible. Today, we rode about 7 miles to pick up ink cartridges for the 1000s of pages I now sit printing for student orientation. We even got a chance to play at ArtBeast for an hour. 

Quick errands.

I try not to beat myself up about the driving that I have been choosing to do (I say choosing because if I really tried hard enough, I could have biked most places). However, with my sanity at stake, I'm letting this month go. 

INSANITY!

The destruction that has been our backyard for the last few weeks. Oh, and me riding Big Brother's bicycle.

Some of the highlights of this last week: 

Hang up and drive, please.

Our Little Loop ride was interrupted by this car accident. A man popped out of his car on his cell phone (still) cursing his mistake of trying to turn left without yielding. The woman was calm but they both just stood in the street not knowing what to do. A woman from the sidewalk yelled for them to get out of the road and luckily, an ambulance had been stopped at the light next to us. Fortunately, no one seemed very hurt, just shaken up. The cars were a mess but everyone made their way around as if nothing had happened. It's pretty difficult to explain to my three-year-old why people would crash their cars. "Why weren't they paying attention?" he asked over and over. 

Another reminder as to how we treat driving so frivolously and forget that they are the number one killers for people aged 1-30 (or so). I also drove past a van engulfed in flames the other day. I could feel the heat radiating off the fire from 3 lanes away, inside my car. Again, we just kept moving along. Nothing to see, hurry past. Once the traffic was clear, other cars picked up speed and zipped along, weaving in and out of the lanes to catch up the time they had lost from the accident. I'm trying to stay as present and aware in the car as I am riding but it's easy to bore myself into complacency. With biking, my whole body is working and my senses are alive with smells, sounds, sensations. In a car, it's a tiny box with a controlled environment. No wonder everyone is trying to check their Facebook at the same time, we're not using enough of our brain! 

Poor thing, I bored him to sleep.

July's Kidical Mass made up for all my lack of riding this week. The boys and I rode out to Discovery Park, a great ride in itself. This month's Kidical Mass was a picnic and ride. The boys were pooped even before we left. Big Brother fell asleep on the way over but woke up joyously when we reached the train tracks. Not missing a beat, he picked up his usual running commentary. For this section of the trail, he loves to tell me how the tracks are broken and asks why they are broken and who is going to fix them and look over there, boats! I love it! He seems to have set scripts for different areas "What happened to the road?" "I think someone spilled paint on the road and someone else drove their car through it." We sometimes even get to pick who is the asker and who is the answerer. 

Tired boys. The bike on the back didn't last long as the pedals kept getting into my spokes and the training wheels make it hard to tow.

Back to their cheerful selves.

Another fantastic Kidical Mass group. Some familiar faces and some new friends (and one new host family!). We ate and ran around, checked out each other's bikes, then rode about 2 miles down the trail. We had a couple of spills but they were quickly remedied with some trail-side blackberries. Little brother fell asleep for the ride home and Big Brother sat thinking quietly as I got a chance to talk bikes with Warren on the way home. 

Kidical Masses!

And more Mass!

Happy riders!

Another Mundo. Check out the Bionx on that baby!

Finally, check out this great article about biking with babes by Anna Fahey of Sightline Daily. Great photos and inspiration. Another wonderful piece that has gained incredible (and deserved) notoriety is Bike Portland's piece on Emily Finch, mother of six, who bikes everywhere with her brood. It has certainly gone viral. I've had it sent to me at least a dozen times, probably more. At first I think, I must not be doing enough but that quickly turns to: if she can do it, so can I. My favorite part of the entire piece has got to be the comments at the bottom. Emily's sense of humor in spite of all the naysayers is fantastic. They feel the need to comment on everything from where she lives, her income, to her family planning choices. When you get on a bike, you sure put your life in the open for everyone to judge. It's a good thing she rides a bike a lot because Emily seems to be one of the happiest people I've seen (not that I've seen her in person, but I'm enjoying her company on Twitter).