Thanksgiving Donation Drive & Bike Ride 2015!

​🕒 Saturday, November 21, 2015, 9:00 am
🌎 Edible Pedal (328 3rd St, West Sacramento, CA 95605) –>

Edible Pedal (1712 Liestal Row, Sacramento, CA 95811) –>

​Broadway Coffee (3200 Broadway, Sacramento, CA 95817) –>

Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services (3333 3rd Ave, Sacramento, CA 95817)

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Sacramento Kidical Mass is proud to once again host our food and clothing drive leading up to our Pre-Thanksgiving ride through the city to deliver donations to Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services.

There are three ways to donate this year!

• You can give funds now, online, to support neighbors in need at the SFBFS Sac Kidical Mass Donation Page.
• From Nov 13-21, you can donate items in person at Edible Pedal Midtown (1712 Liestal Row), Edible Pedal West Sacramento (328 3rd St), and Broadway Coffee in Oak Park (3200 Broadway)
• Bring donations with you on our BIKE RIDE Sat, Nov. 21 at 9am.  We will meet at Edible Pedal in West Sacramento, ride to Edible Pedal Midtown, then continue to Broadway Coffee, ending at Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services to deliver all the accumulated food and clothing items!

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To contact Sacramento Kidical Mass, join the conversation, or find out more information, visit us at:

• sackidicalmass.org
• facebook.com/groups/sackidicalmass/

May is Bike Month Finale — 367 Total Miles

We thoroughly enjoyed Bike Month 2014, finally taking more advantage of it. My girls especially liked getting a t-shirt and buttons, as well as holding the big “I Love My Bike” signs above (which they, sadly, did not get to keep).

Well, MAY IS BIKE MONTH came to a close last week, and it was a good month for our biking crew. Our little ladies got “bigger girl” bikes, and The Little Mister took a few more jaunts on his Strider Bike.  Mommy signed up online and tracked her miles for the first time, took many opportunities to ride for both work and pleasure, and even surpassed her mileage pledge!  Meanwhile, I got more serious about biking at all hours and doing everything I could to replace car trips. My back had been bothering me at the end of April and I didn’t know how much cycling I’d be doing in May, so I set a small goal for May…that I blew past the first week! Some quick highlights:

• Riding with my children and Mommy to Fairytale Town for Kidical Mass
• Riding to the Inagural Sacramento Republic FC Soccer Match at Sacramento City College
• Riding with my lovely wife for a couple of dates to some favorite Downtown restaurants, enjoying the breeze and the carefree feeling we had when we were back in college (a couple of kids we were, practically, back in the day…)
• Riding to the evening Farmers Market a couple miles away with our girls riding their own bikes! (This was their longest-distance outing yet, and they did a GREAT job!)
• Riding to the wonderful Sacramento Zoo, passing through all the bike-friendly, tree-lined streets of Land Park
• Riding nearly every weekday morning with my little guy, all over the city, exploring and going to parks and getting treats.  He is such a joy, although his tendency to be super cute and say funny things has distracted me on a couple of occasions while I should be watching the road.  I just can’t help it…he’s hilarious.
• Meeting a whole lot of new people–fellow cycling enthusiasts and non-bikers, alike–and engaging in a lot of good conversations about being outdoors, slowing down, doing our small part to help the environment, and the like.  I was lucky to get to speak with more than one person who is now ready to make the leap to cargo-biking and committing to replace a large chunk of car trips with bike trips.  I hope I can be a small catalyst in these transformations…Seeing Elle and Anna on their Yuba Mundos opened my eyes two years ago, and it sparked in me more than just a lifestyle change.  I’m excited to see more and more people, especially in our little corner of the world, seeing that such things are feasible and making these choices.

Obviously, tracking daily mileage and no-car days and knowing I’d write about it later all made it easier to find extra motivation to leave the vehicle behind, but I hope that–going forward–I can stay motivated to make the choice, each day, to ride instead of drive.

I’m still nowhere near my friend and biking guru Elle from TinyHelmetsBigBikes (for whose team I rode in May) when it comes to true dedication to the bike and leaving the car behind for good, but I’m ready to use the ol’ 4-cylinder only when absolutely necessary.  I got in the car 5 times in May, and for two of those we were going out of the county for family obligations.  I even got to make another bike trip to Costco, which was easier this time around (now that I knew how to plan a little better). In town, I used the car 3 times (One of those involved our huge dogs, who I am not at all brave–or crazy–enough to try to ride with!) and found that I did not, even a little bit, miss driving.  Obviously, tracking daily mileage and no-car days and knowing I’d write about it later all made it easier to find extra motivation to leave the vehicle behind, but I hope that–going forward–I can stay motivated to make the choice, each day, to ride instead of drive. One of the biggest positives of the month was that the impact (albeit small) of us choosing to bicycle finally really hit home with my daughters.  I took them to school most days (which was new) and picked them up (as usual).  On many occasions they pointed out to me that they liked riding instead of “making the air dirty and wasting gas,” as they said.  This doesn’t mean that there weren’t a couple of occasions where the added travel time bothered them momentarily or that they didn’t sometimes bicker about who got to sit in front, but–by and large–the molding of our transportational “new normal” was quite smooth.  Most importantly, there was a lot more time to listen to my children, reach behind my back for a tickle, and get to know our streets and scenery better.  Also, you certainly seem to run into friends more while cycling than driving, I’ve found.

Here are the final stats for the month:

Miles I rode TOTAL: 367

Miles with kid(s) in tow: 309

Miles Little Mister rode behind me: 269

Miles the Little Ladies rode behind me (combined): 266

Miles the Little Ladies rode on their own!: 14

Overall Rank: 1513 of 9914 (top 15%–way better than last year!)

No-Car Days (in-county): 28 out of 31

I hope you all had a happy May Is Bike Month, as well, and here’s to the notion of 2014 is Bike Year!

May is Bike Month–Halfway Through!–202 miles

This is one of the publicity shots from our new (and awesome) professional futbol club, Sacramento Republic FC. I was lucky to join in the ride (although I’m apparently not very photogenic), and also had a blast riding to the inaugural match ! The Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates (SABA) had two large bike valet stations to service all the riders. It sure was nice to be able to ride to and from the stadium and avoid all the bummers and fees that go with driving and parking. So FC and the Rivercats BOTH have shown themselves to be bike-savvy and supportive of cyclist fans. Maybe the Kings will come around, too…maybe.

So MAY IS BIKE MONTH is halfway over, and it’s been a lot of fun.  We’ve been doing a lot of to-and-fro school riding, grocery shopping, sightseeing, riding with friends, and more.  In addition to getting shirts and buttons and the like, it’s been encouraging to see more and more people riding, as well as to see conversations about cycling-related infrastructure concerns gain a little more traction here in the Capitol City.

Also, it’s been especially good for me to have another reason to kick my own rear end back into gear and ride more.  The past couple months I’ve been giving in to excuses to stay home or even (gasp!) drive the old horseless carriage.  I’m glad to say that I’ve already eclipsed my May mileage total from last year, and we’ve got almost half a month left to go.  Here’s the breakdown:

Total miles I’ve ridden in May (as of 5/17): 202

Miles I’ve ridden with kid(s): 173

Miles baby boy has travelled: 153

Miles big sisters have travelled or biked on their own (combined): 139

Days I’ve ridden and haven’t driven (except to go out of town): 15

I have a handy-dandy graphic that I’m updating to track our daily progress, by the way (it’s at the top of the right sidebar).  I hope you all are having a great bike month!

May is Bike Month–Week #1…85 miles

Week 1 of MayIsBikeMonth is in the books, and it’s been fun, refreshing, encouraging, beneficial, and probably a whole host of other adjectives, too.  I’ve been logging miles (as part of team TINY HELMETS) and keeping a tracker of days I haven’t had to use a car, as well (it’s on the right sidebar of this here blog).  The kids have logged a good amount of miles thus far, too, albeit mostly on the back of my Mundo (which, I guess, involves some work on their parts).  Here are some highlights from the first week:

Loading up on water, granola bars and buttons at the Energizer Station by the bike trail entrance downtown with Elle, Laurie and the kids!

Enjoying the new bike racks installed at McClatchy Park for the kickoff of the Oak Park Farmers Market!

One of the cool things about Bike Month is seeing local businesses actually support cycling. Yellowbill/Magpie, in addition to using a cargo delivery bike, also hooks up riders with discounts on tasty treats. Plus, they catered the big kickoff event at Fremont Park. Thanks!

Kidical Mass (1 of 4 this month!) was a blast as we rode from Belle Coolidge to Fairytale Town. Our little guy is a big fan of Humpty Dumpty, so it was quite fortuitous he was there!

Here’s our commuter group from Oak Park. We had about 20 cyclists meet up to ride to the gathering at Fremont Park, and it was really cool to ride with that many locals, even if it was pretty early.

We had a lot of big morning rides this week, and Little Guy got a wee bit sleepy on Monday…I love how comfortable he is on the bike, and he’s the perfect cycling companion, asleep or no.

If you haven’t logged miles or joined a team, yet, I assure you that it is really easy. And you just may win some sweet prizes and make some new friends and find your next favorite cycling destinations, to boot.

Kidical Mass Special Bike Events for Bike Month!

Front Frame Bucket Panniers–D.I.Y.

Our new cargo bucket panniers, though large, don’t extend the overall width of the bike (since they jut out as far as the handlebars).

Like most cargo bike riders, I gather, I’m on a perpetual quest for more carrying capacity.  The questions, alas, that always arise when a new basket or contraption is considered are:

– How bulky will this make my bike? 

– How much more weight will it add to our already considerable load?

– How will it affect the balance, steering and weight distribution of the bike? 

– How much will the new item(s) cost?

After trying a number of different homemade baskets, racks, and panniers (as cataloged on this blog), I decided to try something new.

My friend Seth, who has an awesome dutch bike he uses to expertly ferry his kiddos and cargo around town, offered to get me a pair of plastic buckets similar to his vertical rear-mounted ones (these are commonly known as Kitty Litter Bucket Panniers).  I said yes, enthusiastically, but didn’t quite know how I would mount them on our Yuba Mundo, or how I would deal with having even more weight on the back end of our already back-heavy ride.

Well, when Seth gave me the buckets, it just clicked–I can try angling them forward a bit and putting them up front!  The top tube and down tube of the Mundo already come with pre-drilled braze-on screw holes (to attach a BreadBasket front cargo rack) so much of the work was already done for me (which I always appreciate).

I just drilled 2 holes on the inside of each bucket after angling them optimally (for me, it’s about 45 degrees, but each bike, handlebar setup, and rider’s leg length will present a different choice), added a washer on the end of each screw for support, and voila!  Here’s a view of the inside wall of one of the buckets with screws in place:

I like the 45-ish degree angling of the buckets for a couple of reasons. One, it’s a bit more aerodynamic than having them completely vertical. Two, it keeps items safer from shifting and slamming up against the lid than if they were horizontal. Three, I feel it just looks a little cooler (granted, “cool” is a very relative term on a big industrial bike sporting large white plastic buckets).

Coolness aside, though, I must say that having a waterproof way to transport things is nice!

So far, I’ve ridden a fair amount with the boxes full, and I’ve been quite pleased!  Each one can hold 4 gallons. I’ve had large milk jugs and full coffee carafes in them, which are quite heavy.  A recent grocery haul of a bunch of bananas, a bag of green beans, 5 apples, some carrots, and a large container of yogurt took up about a quarter of the capacity.

I also drilled small holes on the top edge of each bucket and on the bottom edge of each lid and secured them with zip ties.  This way, the lids can be looser by sitting on top of the buckets (instead of being tightly wedged close) to make for easy opening and closing, while gravity still keeps them in place and the angling keeps them from blowing open.

The last things I added were these cardboard wine box bottle dividers, flattened, and tabbed together to form a kind of self-ratcheting tubular lining for the buckets.  These keep the contents from moving around too much (a necessity considering the sheer amount of easily-bruisable bananas I buy on a weekly basis).  It’s like a really, really low-budget compression sock for your groceries and miscellaneous items.  Also, like the buckets themselves, they’re recyclable!

Here’s the view from the saddle. My knees have just enough clearance, and–with two large white cubes at the front of the bike–our ride is now even more visable to oncoming traffic. Really, though, I just want to give you a sense of scale, here.

So, overall, I’m quite happy with these odd little contraptions.  To answer the questions I posed at the beginning of this post, they:

–Add little bulk, and no width, to the bike!

– Weigh very little (when empty, at least!)

– Help the balance and weight distrubution by shifting more weight from the overloaded rear to the front, all while not hampering steering (since they’re attached to the frame, not the handlebars or wheel), and…

– They cost almost nothing!

A Sweet, Wistful Milestone

My three lovely ladies…

I feel like our family crossed a nearly invisible line this weekend…my daughters, specifically.

While most of their bicycling takes place on the back of our Yuba Mundo, our girls still take little trips in our neighborhood aboard their own bikes (which, committed blog readers will recall, have been sans-training-wheels for under a year).  These small rides have been on familiar roads in our little corner of the world, and haven’t involved crossing major thoroughfares or traveling further than half a mile.

Those thresholds have been rolled over, now.  As is the case with many revolutions, this one started with something small: a pair of unplanned, spur-of-the-moment trips that would have been previously undertaken by Mundo or by car.  This weekend, though, the girls asked if they could ride their bikes, instead, and my wife and I (probably looking like puppies that are confused by something new and shiny) looked at each other and found ourselves saying, “Sure, why not?”

The first trip was to our friends’ house for dinner, before dusk (the bikes were driven home later by our kind hosts in their spacious minivan–I’m not yet bold enough to have them attempt night riding).  It was just me and my daughters, and–much like when they first had their training wheels removed and I was running behind them–they held up better than I did.  I reminded them of a few instructions, which they followed (and had already retained), and we made a little three-bike train of sorts into the neighboring community.

I kept twisting around, and talking to them, and they were just smiling and pedaling and smiling some more.  They stopped when they were supposed to, listened to my voice, and provided some sweet commentary as we rolled along (“Daddy, look! That tree is pretty!”).  The contented and proud looks on their faces made my eyes well up.  I was happy, wistful, a bit scared, and trying to not run into anything,  It seems so obvious and melodramatic, but–truly–parenting is filled with rides on emotional roller coasters that you had no advanced warning you were taking.

This trek was both momentous and liberating for them, and–at the same time–just the normal next step in their journeys.  In a year filled with large and small milestones in their growth, this one was particularly profound for me.  Their beaming faces in the fading light made them age a good couple years, in my mind.

The next day, my wife and the girls were excited to take our new-to-us breadmaker for a spin (a metaphorical spin in the kitchen, not an actual spin on a bike–that would be weird, unless you’re a baker who is really averse to driving).  Realizing she needed supplies from the Co-Op, my wife was going to ride there alone before baking began.  But she asked our daughters if they wanted to come along, and they jumped up and down at the prospect.  This ride was daunting, in my mind, because it involved a busier area in which they’d never remotely ridden (although they had taken it many times aboard the Mundo).  But Mommy is more cautious than Daddy when it comes to biking, so I deferred to her judgement (and rightly so).

About 45 minutes later, they bounded up the stairs and told me all about the flour they bought and how they “rode like big girls” to the Co-Op and (you can’t leave this part out) “We got a blueberry bagel!”  Just an aside–I wish I could get that excited over a bagel.  (To be fair, they do have good bagels at the Co-Op).

My wife said that the girls did a great job, and I found myself not being surprised in the least.  They are wonderful girls, smart and capable.  I am often guilty of not trusting them enough, and I hope that I’m not slowing their progression through childhood.  Hopefully I will remember this weekend’s two little seismic shifts and do a better job, going forward, in letting them go forward, too.

A week of Thanks, yet a bad week for biking (ending on a good note, though!)

One of the many things I found myself thankful for this past week (yes, far behind family, friends, community, health, grace, and the other building blocks of life) is cycling, especially since I was without it for seven days.  The old saw about absence making the heart grow fonder, in this instance, held true.  I missed my bike, riding with my children, and hitting the road on just two wheels.  I certainly saw enough of it on four…

This is a view I was very thankful for tonight (swirling winds, sharp cold and all), after a week downstate, away from our bikes, followed by a couple days of injury-related bed rest. 

We drove down to Southern California to visit my mom and had a wonderful time.  This entailed, though, driving roughly 600 miles there and 600 miles back.  My surgically repaired spine, residual nerve damage and overall back & neck stiffness made themselves heard loud and clear upon our return to Sacramento Saturday, as I woke up in the middle of the night with some severely pinched nerves, unable to lift my head or contort my back or turn my neck or shoulders without shrieking pain and/or spasms.  Since falling for cycling, few have been the occasions when any of these issues have been present in my life, let alone all of them at once.  So, with the consummate love, aid, and support of my ever-lovely and tireless wife, I was able to take a pair of days to recuperate so that, come today, I could resume the stay-at-home-parent duties (and–not insignificantly–get out of bed and have the bodily stability and flexibility to pick up my children).

[The last two times I felt similarly incapacitated, I was recovering from surgery.  Each one necessitated a month of bed rest with doctor’s orders to not leave the house…at all.  In light of this, these last two days went by quickly.  However, I did not have three children under age 7 when I was last laid up, so I felt quite antsy and powerless as my wife–with typical aplomb and grace–did everything for everyone, all the while dealing with her own fatigue from our whirlwind trip and all that comes with traveling across the state with little ones].

Back to our trip…so, there was no biking during our four days down south, which felt strange.  My Mom lives in an area that’s not terribly conducive for cycling, except maybe for hardcore distance road racers.  I had notions of trying to haul the girls’ bikes (and my own), but our car would not have borne them well.  (Our bike carrier is pretty rinky-dink, and the car is maxed out with the five of us and the baby stuff and the girls belongings.  Even though we travel light and, subsequently, make frequent use of my mom’s washing machine when we visit, our car’s interior still resembles a Tetris game on road trips).  I have dreams of someday stumbling upon a pot of gold to enable us to get some Brompton folding bikes for our travels, but that day has not yet come!

Someday…someday…we’ll all have Bromptons upon which we can cruise…after which we will collapse them in seconds and carry them like briefcases wherever needed.  I’ll grant you, this isn’t exactly utopia on grand scale, but it seems like a pretty good way to travel.  Ahh, someday…

We spent some nice time with my mom, and with my uncle, aunt and cousins, as well as with some dear old friends who make our twice-yearly visits extra sweet.  We indulged in Mom’s ridiculously delicious cooking, watched the sun set over the coast, and had some beautiful and refreshing trips to the beach, which always makes us come alive.

Everything beautiful and poetic and lyrical about the ocean has been written and said a million times over…so instead I will just say that my daughters’ joy and giddiness at the water’s edge takes my breath away. Their gleeful shouts and arm-waving and splashing and running makes even the longest of car rides worth it, every time.

So, back to tonight…(sorry for the disjointed narrative here, folks)…After a day of feeling largely better, a bit of the stiffness and nerve pain returned in the evening, so I took a ride to get my body moving and my muscles loose.  It felt sooooooo good.  Being without a bike for a week is not a hardship or a travesty, but I didn’t realize how much I missed riding, nor how much I need it as a physical and mental release.  It’s one of the main things that have kept me healthy and out of the hospital these last few years, and it has given me innumerable new experiences  and perspectives, especially with my family.  I am thankful for cycling, and for the opportunity to ride and live closer to the ground.

It’s hard not to like a good night ride, especially when the skies are clear and there’s a nip in the air. And, yes, I do realize that I look like a strange plaid dystopian shock-troop soldier behind a black screen. I swear, though, that it’s me just riding in the dark.

Big Turnout for Nov. Kidical Mass ride

Our Sacramento Kidical Mass ride this last Saturday was quite an enjoyable success.  About 70 folks, representing all age groups and almost every kind of pedaled conveyance, converged outside of Practical Cycle in Old Sac with donations for Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services in tow.

It’s a good thing that Old Sacramento doesn’t begin to fill up with revelers and tourists until around lunchtime, because we turned most of J St. into two- (and three-) wheeled parking lot!

After a nice time of kibitzing, perusing, and trying out each other’s bikes, our motley crew got into formation and slowly trickled out of Old Sac to make our way through Downtown to our final destination in Midtown.

Old Sacramento’s Wild West-themed buildings and characters (heavy on old-timey gunslingers and “ladies of the evening”) were an odd backdrop for our pedal-powered wagon train. We passed a group of Harley riders on our way toward Midtown and–while they may be far more intimidating–we had them beat in the numbers department.

Past the beautiful Sacramento River, over the freeway and into Downtown we cruised, thankful that the week’s intense winds had taken a siesta.  (Earlier in the week, it was quite possible that gale-force winds, as well as rain, would be our cycling companions).  Not only was the weather not to be contended with, but traffic was non-existent, too, which is always nice.

Longtail bikes, bucket bikes, and road bikes, OH MY!

Either the denizens of Midtown were all asleep, or our dinging bells, penchant for fluorescent orange, and intimidating average speed of 9 MPH sent them scurrying indoors.

Me and my best gal, with donation bags in tow and an industrial carafe of coffee sitting in Little Brother’s seat.

We arrived–safe and sound with our peloton intact–at Edible Pedal in Midtown.  We transferred our clothing and food donations from the bikes to the big blue barrels from SFBFS, then enjoyed some more time to swap stories, ideas and advice (I picked up a few helpful tips for winter riding and more than a few ideas for future customizing projects).

Thankfully, Edible Pedal is located in an alley with a bare minimum of car traffic, as we claimed almost every square foot of asphalt for bike parking.

These, and other barrels, fit just right on one of Edible Pedal’s Cycletrucks.

Special thanks to Elle and everyone at Sac Kidical Mass, Practical Cycle, Edible Pedal, Old Soul Co., and Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services, and all the riders and helpers for a wonderful time benefiting a wonderful cause.

Car-Free, Carefree Culinary Futbol Field-Trip to San Jose!

Riding the Rails, Canadian Cuisine, Earthquakes, Mexican Ice Cream Robots, Hopping the Bus, Getting Close to a Shark Tank, Tacos and Goals and Riding my Bike to Jail…oh, and 6-foot Muppets with Hometown Pride…

At the crack of way before dawn, I put my couple-decades-old Worksman Cycles folding bike to work. (I just picked this up off Craigslist a few months back on the cheap–it was covered in tree sap and grime and the previous owner was looking to clear space). It’s a single-hinge folder that I outfitted with a homemade tin cup coffee-holder/phone-speaker amplifier. It feels strange riding a small-wheeled bike with raised seats and handlebars after years of rolling on my hybrid Trek and–especially–our beast of a Yuba Mundo, but I like the change of pace!

I couldn’t find reliable information about bike racks at the Amtrak Station, so I looked nearby to see what was available. The best close option? The county jail. It was a block away, well-lit, and maybe–ironically enough–the safest outdoor parking spot downtown. (I can’t imagine too many people leaving jail feeling brazen enough to steal a bike five feet from the guarded front door.)

Our train trip from Sacramento to San Jose on the Capitol Corridor was easy as pie. During the week this is a pretty packed commuter train, but at 7:40am on a Saturday it was a ghost town on rails. As Russell and I lamented numerous times, we wished that it was more cost- and time-effective to take the train more often, because it SURE IS more pleasant than driving (understatement of the day).

Again, the train provides a scenic view and smooth ride that is just…so…pleasant. (if I was stuffed in a 3-piece suit with a briefcase, checking emails in a packed compartment on the way to a business meeting in another county on a Wednesday, I suppose, I’d take a less wistful view of things.) That being said, leisurely cruising with my buddy to partake in a day of fun, food, and fútbol in a new city we were eager to explore afforded me a rose-colored view. Yay, train travel!

Upon entering downtown San Jose, one of the first things that caught my eye was a bike rental terminal for Bay Area Bike Share.  I am so excited for Sacramento to finally get a similar program (which is currently in the works).  New York, Chicago and other cities with far less-hospitable climates, topographies and cycling cultures than Sacramento already have these ingenious systems in place.  Someday, they will be the norm, and I hope that day comes soon.