Going full Seattle; Or, the Bike Sitch

One of my fears with quitting my job was that, with two kids, I wouldn't really get to bike anymore. We do have a bike trailer but I don't feel particularly safe about taking it around here. It's low so it's harder for drivers to see it, it's very wide so it doesn't fit through all biking areas, and I can't see what the kids are up to, or hear anything much beyond wailing (if that's what's happening back there).

It's been on my mind to get a longtail cargo bike for quite a while. As in, since I was first introduced to the concept. But they're so expensive! I couldn't quite justify the price to myself. I thought and thought. I asked my brother his thoughts on longtail ebikes and he joked, "So you're ready to go full Seattle now?" I thought even more, weighing the pros and cons and, especially, the price. Finally, I realized that I was going to quit my job and that buying an ebike would save my sanity, for several reasons.

1) Getting out of the house is worth pretty much any price. I will go crazy if I have to be stuck at home with my kids all day every day. Maybe this makes me sound like a bad mom, but it's true. Ask other moms. No one wants to be stuck at home with their kids all the time.

2) I really hate driving, and the car. People in cars just suuuuck, whether I'm driving or biking. Of the two, I'd rather be dealing with crappy drivers while I'm biking.

3) My kids hate the car as much as I do. Getting them both into the car is crazy making. A typical morning just getting into the car for preschool dropoff usually started with me spending approximately 5 minutes pushing my older child out the door, then a steady stream of my increasingly frustrated self telling her--and then shouting at her--to sit down and buckle up! All the while I'm trying to gently shove a screaming, back-arching mini-toddler into her seat and get her strapped in. She would finally give in and suck resentfully on her fingers, giving me the stink-eye. Then I'd have to go around to the other side of the car, berate my older child for still not being strapped in, and do it myself. We were always late because this circus could take up to 15 minutes. I'd start every single morning irritated with my kids and resentful.

4) Between just preschool dropoff and pickup, and seeing my mom, we were doing this getting into the car routine 3 times for my older child, and five times for my younger one. It was exhausting and took up way, way too much of my mental energy. The thought of doing any of that yet again for a playground visit or to go to a playdate with friends was beyond me.

With the bike, though? OMG, so easy! No fighting, ever! Both kids are super happy to ride the bike. Little Miss is not thrilled about her helmet but she's getting used to it and doesn't fight it at all. The Munchkin hurries through the morning so that we can ride the bike. (I used it as an incentive to not play ridiculous games instead of getting ready for school.) After just a few rides the next time we had to get in the car I was told, "But it's SO BORING in the car!" I agree! It took only one morning of saying, "You need to get ready faster if you want to ride the bike, so we're driving today," for a complete turnaround of our morning routine. The Munchkin races through getting ready now, eager for those few minutes on the bike. I don't have to tell her to get dressed approximately 482,000,000 times. I don't have to shove her out the door and tell her that if she's forgotten anything it's her own darn fault and too late, we're late again! We actually make it out to the bike on time to get to school on time and there's not a single argument. I cannot even begin to describe how blissful that is.

Not only is it easier on all of us, but I've found that I hear more from the kids as well. In the car Little Miss is quiet, looking out her window. But on the bike she sings to me, she talks. She points at stuff that catches her interest. (The last of which I really only notice, I admit, when we're stopped.) The Munchkin talks to me far more about her school day while we're biking home than she ever did in the car.

There was only one time she asked to drive, and that was after a particularly chilly morning. "Um, Mommy? I think I might be too cold this morning to bike." A lesson was learned, by me, about dressing the kids as if it's 10 degrees colder than it is, because of the wind. We can always remove layers if it's too much.

I still haven't named this lady workhorse yet.

If it's an ebike, is it still really biking?

I went back and forth on whether or not to get an ebike. A big part of me really, really wants to be that badass who can just muscle through. I can't, though, and I won't. I live in a particularly hilly area of already hilly Seattle, and every route I take within my area involves a) a very steep hill or b) a long hill or c) both. I wanted nothing to stand in the way of us biking as much as possible. I know myself. As much as I love biking, the idea of biking two kids around up big hills purely by my own power is not actually appealing. Add in inclement weather or a slight head cold or heat and I'd be talking myself out of biking all the time.

As it turns out, my fear that getting an ebike would take away the exercise portion of biking was entirely unfounded. The electric assist on my bike is just that: assist. It only gives me a boost dependent upon how hard and how fast I pedal. I find myself getting winded on the big hill up to preschool, even with the assist, because I'm working so hard.

Terrible picture, but here is the switch on the right handlebar
where I switch power up and down. It also shows The
Red Button. I should never take pictures at dusk.

There is one caveat to the rule that I must be pedaling, in the form of what the Munchkin has dubbed The Red Button. She shouts, "Mommy, push The Red Button!" at me in the same way Yzma tells Kronk to pull the lever. It is a button (red, unsurprisingly) that I can push which does not require me to be pedaling to make the bike go. It's noticeably faster, about the same as the highest boost with me pedaling at a decent clip, hence why my child gleefully requests it. Pedaling still helps and, unfortunately, the button won't work well at all times. If I go to a particular grocery store, the trip home often involves The Red Button and a lot of hard pedaling from me, both because the bike is so heavy with two kids and groceries, and because the hill we have to go up is so steep. If I didn't pedal I'm not certain the bike would move. I've done that twice now and both times it has had a noticeable impact on the battery's charge. More than 2 trips to and from preschool, which is far longer and involves quite a long hill.

So what is The Red Button good for? Mostly I use it for getting started through busy intersections, particularly if they are pointed uphill. I also use it for very short rises in terrain, when I wouldn't really notice the boost from the regular assist until I was basically at the top of the rise anyway. And I am always still pedaling when I use that button. If I wasn't going to pedal, why bother riding a bike at all?

If you still don't believe me that it's exercise, you can come and give yourself jellylegs riding my routes.

The Details

I bought, off Craigslist, an Xtracycle Edgerunner with a BionX ebike conversion. It cost me--again, off Craigslist, so nothing new--$3100. Not exactly cheap, more like the cost of an older used car. In fact, I have bought cars for that much. Or less. The payoff in gas saved will be about the time neither of my kids wants to sit on the back of my bike anymore. The payoff in not having fights with my kids 2-6 times a day is priceless. And when the kids are no longer riding on it, there are plenty of good reasons to keep a cargo bike. Or I can sell it and pass it to some other grateful family, and recoup some of the costs.

There were cheaper bikes on CL that I could have bought. Many of them didn't have any of the extras, such as the panniers or the bike seat, which is a Yepp Maxi and good up to 55 lbs. The Munchkin can still fit in the seat, and at her growth rate probably will fit in it for another four years. :) However, we have the straps set up for Little Miss and the Munchkin prefers to ride on the back of the cargo area anyway, even when it's just the two of us. She generally faces backwards, and shouts at me about traffic behind us. I swear, I didn't ask her to do that. I am trying to train her how to be my signaller, though.

Little Miss happily rides in the seat. It not only has a nice tight, sturdy harness up top but it also has places for her feet and straps to hold them in place. The woman I bought the bike from said that she only used those when her kids grew tall enough to kick her. I use them every time so that Little Miss doesn't kick off her shoes en route. She's never complained about it, although I'm sure some kids would.

Kids on the bike!

The bar around the back is a small roll cage and both kids can hold onto it. I have tipped the bike over exactly once, making too tight of a turn into our driveway. These bikes, the minivan of bikes, do not have the turning radius one would generally expect from a bike. It's closer to that of a car. And they're so heavy that if it tips past a certain point I just can't save it. (That day, it was also full of groceries.) Thankfully, as I said, it was just into our driveway. It just went beyond the point I could haul it back upright so I actually held it in limbo for about 30 seconds, halfway down, before realizing that yes, I would have to lay it and the kids down because I couldn't lift it back up as I was. Neither of the kids was fazed at all--Little Miss smiled and reached for the ground after I set it down on its side--and nothing was damaged except the back of my thigh, which has a large bruise from the saddle hitting me as it tipped. It was easy enough to haul the bike upright after the Munchkin scrambled out and I was facing it from the side, rather than straddling it.

My brother asked me how it does in the rain and I had to tell him I don't know. It hasn't rained since we got it! But the tires are super wide, with a good tread, so I can't imagine we'll have trouble with it no matter how rainy it gets.

The BionX setup is important because the company has gone out of business. This makes new batteries tricky. One of the other families at preschool has a nearly identical bike, including the BionX, and the dad said that he's found a company that will rebuild the batteries. He's about to send theirs off and has promised to tell me about the experience. Our battery still seems to be doing pretty well, however. I've had the bike for just under 3 weeks and am currently charging the battery for the third time. (And I didn't fully charge it last time. Almost, but not quite.) I've been riding it at least 12 miles most days, between preschool and visiting my mom. If we add in a trip to the playground or to the store, it's several miles more than that. Today it was, all told, around 17 miles. I'm biking more now than I did when I was working!

Yep, that's the motor.

I have, naturally, been building up more and more riding. My goal has been to replace all of our greater neighborhood trips with the bike, and I'm just about there. The final hurdle was to get to my mom's, because it's over 3 miles away (one way) and in a very busy area. I had to think about both the safest and the least hilly (or at least, gentlest hilly) way to get to and from. I've now found a couple of routes that are comfortable, so I'm no longer as concerned as I was.

I also wanted to get comfortable with the e-assist before going so far. The learning curve wasn't particularly steep, but it was there. I'm now to the point where I feel like I seamlessly move between e-assist and just regular biking. I don't have to think about it as much and that makes me more confident, as well as making the entire thing more comfortable.

I've been asked what my average speed is and I can't really answer that. It depends on whether or not I'm actually using the assist, or what the terrain is. On flat ground, with both kids and no boost, my average speed is about 13 MPH. Going uphill with all the boost and no kids I've gotten it up to a steady 17 MPH! (I was so winded at the top--and made it on time for pickup!) Going down the hill by our house, on the way to preschool, we're generally going 26 MPH and on the longer hill coming home from preschool we're just under 30 MPH. Since that's roughly the speed limit of those hills I feel good about being in traffic. (I don't really have a choice, anyway. They are marked as bike routes, with sharrows, and one of them has about 30 feet of bike lane. #waytogo) The preschool dad with a similar bike said that he's gotten it up to 40 MPH before, but I doubt I'll ever even attempt that--with or without kids on it.

One last note about the battery. I'm still getting used to when I should charge it up and how fast the battery will die. I have, twice now, biked home from preschool with Little Miss and a dead battery. One of those times, the battery died on the way to preschool, thankfully having just gotten us to the top of the big hill. But it is entirely possible to use the bike as just a bike, even with the battery and everything. It's heavy (and the battery alone adds about an extra ten pounds, I'm guessing) but doable. I wouldn't want to try it up my hills with both kids, but if we lived in a flat area I'd likely have just gone for a straight cargo bike instead of an ebike and been perfectly happy.

Battery: all charged up. Note that, on the left side,
there's a lock so that no one can easily steal it.

The day I brought the bike home, it was hanging out of the back of our (small, hatchback) car. Despite the fact that I never went over 45 MPH, something happened and when I got it home, it wasn't working. Uuuuuuugh. It turned out that there were two problems. One was that the back wheel, where the motor is, became unseated. The second was that cables (zip tied and hidden under a shield) had come undone. I, uh, made my spouse and brother put it back together because I was too scared that I'd ruin something. Electronics and cables are not my strong suit. Thankfully it all turned out to be relatively easy to get back in order and it's been working perfectly since. The only other problem has been that one of the straps for a pannier got stuck in the chain. It has an incredibly long chain, and the bags are, by necessity, very close to the chain. My child left one undone and it got caught. Thankfully I figured out what was going on early and was able to pull the strap out of the chain with no damage. It was an important lesson about checking all of the straps before we head out, and tucking things into the panniers that might possibly dangle.


What about HusbandX?

I admit, my spouse hasn't even tried the bike yet. I'm pretty sure he could ride it with just an easy adjustment of the seat, even though he's quite a bit taller than I am, but the bike was bought by me, with my needs and comfort in mind. We'll try him on it at some point but the biggest thing was to have me comfortable. I'm the one at home, doing most of the children's trips. But after almost a month of me doing all the preschool dropoffs and pickups, the Munchkin has now been demanding that Daddy take her to school sometimes too. We're all fine with this, but I want him to be able to enjoy the great conversations that the bike has enabled. So we'll see how he likes it, and what we might need to do to allow him to bike her to preschool instead of driving.

I am a small person, so my biggest concern with getting a cargo bike was that the entire thing would be far, far too large for me. My regular bike has a smaller frame than most, but obviously I can't really ask for that from a cargo bike. They make what they make, and searching the used market meant limiting my field even more. However, since they know the audience they're making bikes for is wider than usual, the manufacturers also seem to make them more adjustable and more generally comfortable. I know it looks comically large while I'm on it, especially when I stop and my lack of stature is easily apparent, but it's quite comfortable to ride. The woman I bought it from was quite a bit taller than me and she obviously found it comfortable as well, since she'd had it for over four years. (She was selling it because her kids aged out of it and now prefer to ride their own bikes.)

Any questions?

In September the Munchkin will be starting kindergarten at our neighborhood school, which is just 3/4 of a mile away by road. I want the Munchkin to be able to bike herself, but I'm also realistic and know that there will be plenty of days that she just won't want to. It will be cold, or rainy, or she'll be tired. This gives us far more options, without resorting to the car.

One of the panniers. I can fit two
grocery bags in each, if I must.

We are, none of us, morning people. School will start very early in the morning for us and it's important to be there on time. We're close enough that they won't send a bus, and I don't want to drive because, as I stated above, that just leads to arguments. It's actually far faster for us to bike than it is to drive! Plus, getting outdoors before and after school will be helpful for my highly energetic and active kiddo. Even sitting on the back of my bike seems to help her more than being inside of a car.

I don't feel unsafe at all. We've encountered a couple of "Nice Guy" drivers who get far too close to us for no reason at all, but only a couple of times. (That was something that happened to me several times a week when biking home from work, on my own.) We've also come across a few of the overly polite drivers who try to insist on giving us the right of way, no matter what. But I'm an experienced cyclist at this point so I know how to handle these situations. I've never felt like I'm putting my kids at risk. I like my friend Madi's idea that moms are "indicator species" for biking. We won't take our kids out if we think they'll be in danger. The more moms you see biking, the safer it is. I think the reverse is also true: more moms out there make it safer for others. Someone has to lead the way and while I'm not leading the charge here I am doing my part to help pave the way for others, to make biking safer for individuals and families who might not otherwise feel comfortable biking. This is already spreading through preschool, with several parents asking me about the bike and another mom proudly saying that her baby's head is finally big enough for a helmet, so they're going to figure out a bike situation. (Much trickier with 3 kids, and the baby has Downs.) Maybe these people would have been just as enthusiastic about biking without me and the other family biking every day, but maybe not. Ideas spread, and someone has to show what's possible.

We will not be getting rid of our car, at least not anytime soon. But we've now gone from a 1-car family to what I think of as a half-car family. I drive only once during the week now, way out into the 'burbs for the Munchkin's gymnastics class.** Other than that, there might be some unusual driving during the weekends but it is entirely possible that our car will sit idle for all but that one day per week many weeks. Hiring a car, like Car To Go, or getting a ride from one of the rideshare apps might be cheaper in the long run. But we'd also have less flexibility, and our family situation is always evolving. We don't know what the future is going to bring so for now, the car stays.

Getting this bike was not about money. It was not about "going green". It wasn't, despite the above paragraph, about making a statement. The fact that it does all of those things is just icing on the cake. We bought this bike because it was a move for family happiness and harmony. As my spouse said, I'm just so much happier when I get on a bike regularly. This seems to be true for my kids as well. It's incredible what a simple change in our main mode of transportation has wrought, to cause so much less argument and stress. For that, it's worth every penny and more. I highly recommend it.

The kickstand. It holds one of the tires off the ground
and keeps the bike incredibly stable for the kids
to mount.

*All of it was originally from G&O Family Cyclery, a local bike shop I've heard nothing but good things about. If you're local and at all interested in biking as a family, check them out. For the record I have no affiliation with them, I just like to promote great local businesses when I can.

**We tried a gymnastics place nearby but...it sucked. We went back to the place she'd been going before, and to the coach we all loved.