Man Does Weekly Shopping Run

I promised amazing adventures of doing the shopping and i mean to deliver!

Mike and I usually do a mid week shopping run to local Market town Saffron Walden. Previously i could only pick up bits and pieces that could fit in a pannier and a basket. This always meant shopping had to be carefully packed into the panniers which was always a bit of a stacking puzzle. It also had to be done one handed while holding onto Michael.

I went on my first shop with the trailer this Tuesday. It was interesting. A quick note here. Mikes still on the seat. There's no way he's going in the trailer, he wants to sit on the bike with dad. Here's how it went:


Getting ready: Took about the same time. No mounting of panniers and basket, but had to get the trailer out of the shed On the plus side the weather looked iffy, so i just chucked jackets into the trailer. A lot less hassle than deciding on the optimum amount to carry.
Verdict: Nothing in it so far.


Getting there: Hmmm. Well the ride was fine. I was taking it easy, just to get used to the handling, (which is very good). The trouble began when i got to town. First i got to the usual traffic light queue. Instead of shooting down the right hand side until i got to the lights (no RLJing mind you!) i felt very stuck. After 5 minutes of queuing i got through the lights. Right time to park the bike..... I suddenly realised that the bit of railing outside Waitrose that i normally chain up to would be inaccessible with the trailer due to the chicane of pedestrian barriers that i'd need to negotiate. I decided to park in the Waitrose car park bike racks. Of course this is Essex, so the bike racks are out of the way, in a dark corner... Its an extra few minutes cycle round as well.. grumble grumble...
Verdict: Hmmm, mildly annoying


Locking Up: When i get there, I'm met with a kerb that might as well have been a cliff face. So i get off, push the bike through the car park, past the waitrose entrance, and back round to where i wanted to get to in the first place.....Phew! Got there now its time to lock up. Actually that went quite well. I stopped, whipped Mike off the seat , dumped him in the trailer (to restrain him), locked up bike, stuck trailer next to bike , locked up trailer, pulled out Mike and bag and off we went.....Locking up took about the same amount of time but was easier because i could leave Mike in the trailer. Verdict: Finding a bike rack: Angry letter to council! Locking up , lovely job!


Normally the journey takes 20 minutes it took 30 minutes this time. I could find a better place to lock up, but I'll still get stuck in traffic. Now it was time to sprint to the GPs (where i was now 5 minutes late for an appointment.....

Going: After a couple of hours and coffee and cake at CouCou, its time to complete the shopping and head home. This worked great, dump bits and pieces into trolley, do shopping, take trolley to bike dump into trailer. Its like a boot! Mount up off we go.
Verdict: I have a boot on wheels!

Mike dozes off on the bike and i unpack the shopping and put my feet up!

Conclusion: Mixed! I'll use it a lot , for big shops. For trips to the library and a loaf of bread i'll stick to the panniers. Real pros and cons. Parking and in-traffic handlling being the biggest. Not for rush hour! Still a good buy for £80.

Buggy Business

So i have my new buggy. I wanted to blast out some first impressions while they are fresh:

• Its easy to hitch up
• Michael doesnt want to sit in it but thinks Doggy should. Doggy is his soft toy.
• After a while you forget its there
• Its impossible to maneauvre bike and buggy once dismounted
• It has a biiiiig turning circle
• Cars cant overtake very easily (which is bad?)
• Its great just throwing stuff into it , no careful packing of the panniers
• Its a hassle to park
• It rattles which is unnerving, but not dangerous (its the buckle on the safety strap
• Its great for a sunday trip out i wouldnt fancy it in town in the rush hour

Its first trip out was a Sunny sunday out to Audley End on Apple day. I felt very 'Sunday driver', cruising around with a trailer full of picnic stuff. Mike spent all day carrying Doggy, which was sweet. We filled the trailer up with apple juice and headed home. Mike obvioulsy spent the whole day on his Bike seat. He thinks the trailer is great (it does look like a childs toy), but its clearly not for people.

Its all routine....what next?

Regular readers may have spotted a dearth of posts recently. There are two reasons for this.

1) The rotten weather. We've not done many summer family trips.
2) Its pretty routine now

Any journey that's just me or me and Mike I always use the bike (with the odd exception). Its a pretty polished routine now. I have all my local journeys worked out down to where I'll park the bike, how long it will take and how to pack the luggage. The only things that restrict my journeys are not having enough luggage space, Mike having nowhere to sleep and very bad weather. This huge success in car replacement is a bit of an anti-climax. Now i need a new challenge.

Sooooo... I've just bought myself a new shiny trailer buggy from Halfords. That's broken my new credit crunch economising routine. Hopefully I'll be posting stories about our buggy based adventures. Look forwards to such tales as:

• How i took my garden waste to the dump.
• How i got the whole weekly shop home , not just the top up one.
• How i sat and had coffee while Michael slept.
• How i saved Michael from sudden freezing rain.
  
  

Nursery Trips

I finally got the hang of picking Mike up from Nursery on the bike. The real hurdle had been manoeuvring bike and Mike up and down the stairs at my station. In the end i decided to use a parents oldest trick....looking helpless. Someone always offers to help, someone always grabs the handlebars of the bike to help me onto the train with it, someone always smiles and waves at him on the train or the bike. People are basically nice. Children give them the opportunity to express that. Isn't the world great?

Now I've been waxing lyrical about how wonderful people are , I'll move on to gloat at my proud father one-upmanship moment while picking Mike up from Nursery. The first time i picked him up, he was ever so pleased to see me and the bike (Ah bless him!). We were just getting his stuff together and his helmet on, when a second dad squeezes by in his car and picks up his toddler. CarDad looks at us and the bike with a look that says 'Oh dear is that the best you can do?'
CarDads Toddler looks at the bike all eyes wide and excited, then turns to his dad and gives him a look that clearly says 'Dad that looks fun. Why cant we do that?'.
CarDad looks at me crossly with a look that clearly says 'Damn it! That's not fair, now look what you've done!'. CarDad grabs Toddler and and shoves him in his car. We smuggly mount up and head off.......Weeeeeeeeee!

We're all Coaching Future Gold Medalists!

We spent Sunday Morning rooting for Nicola Cooke in the Olympics road race. Well done Nicola! Lets hope you start to get the recognition you deserve in this country.

Anyway i was reading her write up on BikeRadar and saw this snippet:

"Nicole comes from a cycling family, and says she started when she was four. "My dad would ride to work every day. He got one of his tandems he had left over from his racing days set up so we could go riding on that. I had kiddie cranks on the back. He got another one so my brother could have a tandem so we would go on tandem holidays. It was a real family activity. It was fun, it was a hobby at that stage."

If your a Cyclemum or Cycledad, I bet you had a little rush of emotion on reading that. It gives you some insight on how what we do now affects what our kids can be in the future. Give yourself a pat on the back :-)

PS Congrats to Emma Pooley on her silver as well.

Trains and Roundabouts

My normal commute is ride to station (4.5 miles all hills), take train to Harlow Station , ride from station to work (1 short hill and 1 busy roundabout).

Since i got the Agattu, I've left it at the station and picked up a second bike at the other end. The Agattu just looked too big to fit on the train and was going to be very heavy to lift up the stairs. I'd been thinking that I'd try it when the school holidays started on a day when Mike wasn't going to nursery. As it happened when i got to the station this morning i found that I'd left my bike lock by the backdoor. Time to take the bike on the train....

Damn its heavy to lift! Eventually i found a spot to hold that worked. There's no way i could lift it with one hand while carrying Mike in the other. But i have a secret plan on how to handle that......

I got it onto the train and yep the damn thing is far too long to sit in the corner like my Dawes tourer can. However, i put the stand down, put the front brake on (with my magic hair tie, that i keep on the handlebars) and left it stretched across the carriage between the doors. In this position it was very stable, didn't move and people could get around it easily. Hurray!

So i got to Harlow and get to my busy roundabout. As i approached i saw a car turning left into the exit before mine and a blue van moving fast behind it. I slipped the gear into 5th, shot out (like a rocket!) , quickly slipped to 7th and Bam! I've cleared the danger zone of entering the roundabout. The blue van was left standing. That's the quickest start I've ever done! That'll cut minutes of my commute (it wont be any safer I'll just adjust when i can pull out at junctions :-)

The capability of these machines continue to amaze me. Why doesnt everyone have one?

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

So todays post is about watching TV. a bit odd on a blog about family cycling but....its Le Tour time. Julia and i have always watched the tour and this year is no different. Actually that's a lie. This year is the best Tour ever. Well done Mark! Come on the Olympics!

Mike gets to watch the Tour as its the only way i get to watch it ( i should be putting him to bed) Now Mike is just starting to notice the 'Telly', but on the whole he ignores it. He loves Le Tour! He even has a little dance for the music (I'll try and get it on Video!)

We were sat watching one of very first downhill stages. The camera was following a lone cyclist who was descending very fast. Mike suddenly makes a screaming noise. We quickly ask what wrong and realise he's not in pain he's grinning. Then he refines the noise and tries again. He hadn't actually screamed he'd said "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee".

He kept saying 'Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee' all the way down! I reckon this qualifies as a first word but Julia reckons 'Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee' isn't a word.