Thursday 26 June 2008

Another Trip to Cambridge

Mike and i had another trip to Cambridge last weekend. My wife was away for shopping and clubbing , so we had a free Saturday.

We went to Cambridge for a few reasons: I needed some bits and pieces; a bit of casual tourism; just for the ride ; but mostly to go and see a carpark. "A Carpark?" i hear you cry! Yup, but not just any carpark, we went to Park Street Cycle Park

We rode in, parked the bike, picked up our pushchair, walked into town and had a lovely day.

Lets just say the middle bit of that sentence again, as the simplicity and perfection of it need repeating.......

'picked up our pushchair'

I can't possibly overstate how great this was. The one thing that makes it hard to shop and travel by bike with a little one is not being able to take a pram. Yet in Cambridge they have the perfect solution. Loan pushchairs. They were nothing special, yet did the job and Mike could have his little sleep while i could enjoy a restful lunch with a good book and a nice glass of wine.
It had the added benefit of making me appreciate all the money we spent on his luxury top branded pushchair.

Town planners please take note of this small piece of genius. The people who spend Bristol's recent windfall should really consider this.

6 comments:

WestfieldWanderer said...

Bristols recent "windfall".

Not universally popular, it seems!

See Bristol Evening Post

Cycledad said...

haha! made me laugh! Theres a great reply where someone has copied the text from the article and replaced 'bike' with car and 'cyclists' with drivers :-)

David Hembrow said...

You may be interested to know that many Dutch parents ride along with a gizmo to attach a pushchair to a bike. These are very common over here, even fitted at the factory to family bikes (along with the double child seat, panniers etc.).

Just one of the many products that never makes it to the UK...

Anonymous said...

I'm just reading through your posts and loving it! My daughter is 16 months and we bike all over Vancouver together!

My solution to the stroller problem has been a baby carrier. We have an Ergo and it's really compact. I put it in the bike basket and when I get where I'm going I put her on my back in the Ergo. It was also great when she couldn't walk and I needed to carry my bike up the stairs to my house.

Cycledad said...

Hi Pippi! Glad you like the blog!

My wife has a light sling, which fits well for a woman (ie someone with cushions on their chest) and we have a hiking backpack which is good for walking, i'd been looking for something in between that i could take on the bike and then Mike grew out of them.

We have another one on the way though so i could be in the market for one. Would you reccomend it?

PS I have one of those Gizmos that David Hembrow mentioned. They are ok for flat riding around town, but they do decrease stability and i wasnt happy with it on the bike on the hills. And just to counter Davids the "UK is awful" message. I bought it in the UK and you can buy bikes in the UK with them pre-attached (and yes they are dutch imports!)

Elliot Keller said...

Hi nice reading your poost