Stolen!

My nine year old had his Trek MT 60 (with new front and back light and helmet) stolen Sunday afternoon from Spalding Pool in Champaign. Anguish!

CUMTD Bus Pass - Must Buy!

Now there is no reason not to buy a bus pass. CU-MTD has lowered the annual pass to $60! I wish they had lowered it back when I bought TWO (one for me and one for my eldest son) in December, but better late than never. So get one today!

Tour de Champaign

Don't miss the Tour de Champaign this weekend! Lots of fun for the entire family. Check out the races and enjoy downtown Champaign. Don't forget to tell the local businesses how much you enjoy having events like this in our town. Hopefully, the rain will miss us and we can enjoy the beautiful 80's temps. I hope to see you all there!

CU Car Free Plus Two

Today we took care of two little friends; E (6 years old) and L (2 year old) so we were car free with five kids (ours are 9, 5, and 21 months). Fun! Even when we had a car, we could barely fit our three kids in the Subaru let alone any friends. I understand why people with cars go for the minivan. Luckily, we didn't have to worry about car seats and smooshing kids into a vehicle.

We were ready to hit the road for the farmer's market by 8:30am. Our eldest was on his bike, E was on his (he and his family just got back from the Netherlands where they biked everywhere so biking to the farmer's market would be a snap for him), L in the Chariot, and my youngest two on the Xtracycle. All set....except, wait...hubby has a flat. No biggie. We'll just ride around the park while he fixes it and be on our way. Bang!!! The new inner tube explodes. Annoying, a little frightening to the little ones and exciting for the middle ones, but not a deal breaker. Bang!!! The second and last inner tube explodes. What the heck? We look at hubby's wheel and it is split. Did the first inner tube explosion break his wheel frame? Wow! The wheel is pretty dented so who knows what came first, but the wheel is shot. Grumble.

I'm starting to think biking four miles (one way) with five kids is not in the cards. I'm so glad I didn't go with my first thought and head out with the kids and let hubby catch up to us. My husband's Xtracycle still needs some repairs so that isn't going to help. Hmmm. As we are trying to figure out what to do (send me to the bike shop? take a zero on the farmer's market?) our sweet and cycling neighbor comes by. Aviva to the rescue! She came by to ask for an Ergo baby carrier for a trip to Chicago and we told her our wheel woes. She offers us one of her wheels. Excellent! Problem solved. Thank you!!!

Off we go, a little later than we like, but still in plenty of time to buy some local produce at the farmer's market. We definitely had some comments (all good), looks, and one person even took a picture (okay, that was a little much) about our cycling train. When we cycle with kids, especially younger children, we put an adult in front and an adult in back. This seems to be the safest and most efficient way to ride. In Illinois, you can ride two abreast, but I find that children, especially younger children, have very little "line awareness" and the adult riding next to them spends a lot of the time just making sure the child doesn't run into them. Our eldest is nine and rides often and knows our style and also takes responsibility for his own riding. He keeps pace with us, knows the drill, and has a great line, but we still often ride with him between us. E was a trooper and did great, but he is also six and is slower and less aware on the road. He was so cute looking around at all the houses and buildings, but I had to remind him to stay to the right. Most of our journey is on very low traffic side roads so things were smooth. I just always worry a bit when I have a child with us who I'm not used to riding with. I would have felt better with him on my Xtracycle, but he wanted to ride his own bike and he did fine.

On the ride home we stopped at Zyggyz Grill (more about this on my other blog) on Green St. for some lunch. I took the lead this time which was much more relaxing. I took us onto the sidewalk bike path (we don't usually use it because it is on and off the street and starts and ends so it can be more hazardous than riding in the street) since we were a long line of bikes and harder for vehicles to pass and we were riding pretty slow.

When we arrived home with L asleep in the Chariot and my youngest asleep in the Peapod, Rob and I felt like taking a nap, but we didn't.

All in all, it went very well. The traveling was definitely the easy part of having five children. I think if I ever end up having five kids (not gonna happen), I will just stay in perpetual motion.

Keep Your Bike Safe

On the Champaign County Bikes email list, there has been chatter about bike parking as of late and it reminded me of a couple things. There are some great new bike racks around town(s).

Downtown Champaign has enhanced bike parking on N. Neil St. near Aroma and Pekara (or if you are a townie like me, near the old Lox, Stock, and Bagel building). There is also covered bike parking in the new car parking garage downtown (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to get out more since it is huge...well, huge for Champaign). The car parking garage is also very well lit, if that is what you are looking for. I have yet to use this facility since I prefer to park my bike right outside the businesses I'm visiting. That is one of the many benefits of riding your bike after all, but if it was raining or something or if I worked downtown, I could see using this new rack in the parking garage.

The Market at the Square has added more bike racks in the Lincoln Square Village parking lot. A few of them are in the shape of produce and the market's mascot, the rooster. Over the last several years that we've been biking to the farmer's market, we have seen an increase in bike traffic. It is wonderful! New racks seem to be added every year to help with the bike parking issue, but these new racks are pretty cute and added just recently so check them out.

Of course, the best bike racks will not help if you don't lock your bike properly to them. We were biking to campus for a bite to eat after the farmer's market Saturday and saw a wheel locked securely to a bike rack on Green St. Too bad it was just the wheel. The rest of the bike was long gone. Most bikes built in the last decade have quick release front wheels so you need to lock the frame and the front wheel to the rack. I know this seems simple, but apparently there are still people not locking their frames.

Here are some tips on how to keep your bike secure.

What's a Mile Among Friends?

This evening we had a graduation party to go to (Congratulations Kurt!!!) in Savoy. The party was next door to our old house in Savoy. We were debating about our eldest riding his own bike or not and how far the ride was going to be. When we first moved into our current house, we would ride our bikes back and forth between the Savoy house and the Champaign house quite a bit. Our ownership of the two houses overlapped by nine months so we would bring stuff from the house on our bikes a little bit at a time before we rented a moving truck for the big furniture. Now we rarely have a reason to head out to Savoy so it sounded like a long ride compared to what we do daily around town and my husband wasn't sure if our eldest would be up for it. He's nine and very comfortable on his bike and street savvy. He rides at least once or twice a week to the co-op/farmer's market which is close to 4 miles one way and I figured the house in Savoy was around the same mileage. In the end, we decided he would ride on my Xtracycle because we were in a hurry. I came home and checked the mileage and it is over 5 miles one way. What is an extra mile? Nothing! I'm sure he would have been fine, but I love having him on the bike with me so we can chat easier.

We had a great time at the party, but it reminded me how much farther I had bike when we lived in Savoy. I didn't think much about it at the time, but it is nice to be closer to the places we go on a regular basis. My husband's commute to work is about the same, but my daily errands are much easier living in Champaign. We also had to walk almost a mile to the bus stop when we lived there....not at all convenient. I will NEVER understand why Savoy is against the MTD. Craziness...I could call it more things, but I'll stop there today. I hope they come to their senses at some point.

We miss our neighbors and some things about our old house, but our place in Champaign is definitely home sweet home.

Keep the Light On

I went to a meeting this week maybe a mile away. I was late getting out of the house so I was in a little hurry. I grabbed my LeMond road bike since I was cycling sans kids. I love the feeling of being fast and light once in a while. I wish I had a chance to ride more by myself because it really is a great bike. However, I completely forgot that my LeMond has no light (front nor back) right now. I remembered about the time I arrived at my meeting. Too late to go back. I hoped the meeting would end quicker than normal and I could ride home while it was still light out, but no luck. It is dangerous to ride at night without a light. It is a pet peeve of mine to see cyclists without lights at night. I basically walked my bike home (I did cross the busiest street in the saddle because it was safer to get across quicker) which is no fun. When I did ride, I kept in mind that I was invisible and rode on the sidewalks which is not my favorite place to ride and has its own dangers, but it was night and slow traffic time on the side streets.

Note to self: Always, always, always be prepared and have a light on your bike.