Educated On The Streets

One of the things you have to teach your kids when you are teaching them how to ride a bicycle is how to get where they are going. It is the part that frequently gets overlooked after the training wheels come off. There are many reasons for this, but I suspect that a lot of it has to do with fear of the unknown. What will your kids do when it comes time to ride somewhere other than to the end of the cul-de-sac and back?

Cameron is sixteen and old enough to get anywhere on his own. If he can't figure out how to get there, he is old enough to get lost and work it out for himself. Úna is used to following in the pack. Other than a few places she goes to at least once a week, she is used to just following whoever leads. She is skilled enough to ride almost any place in the City- her ability to glide through even the craziest situations with total ease is amazing! Her mental map is not very detailed, though.

We have started to let Úna lead when we ride places. If she tells me she does not know how to get somewhere we have been before, I now put her up front and have her figure it out as we go. She knows where we are going better than she thinks she does, really all she needs is a push to take the lead.

Úns surprises herself, sometimes. The routes she thinks she does not know are very well known to her. She knows their twists and where the hill is and if she should enter the bike box or not. This day there was a prize at the end of adventure-

a Sunday Streets with no cars and nothing but open views of the ocean. And no helmet which feels like total freedom to her.

It won't be much longer before she is really out in the world on her own. As more and more activities crowd her time, she will have more places to get to. Without me to take her.

They grow up quick! You gotta make sure they are ready for it! How do you get your kids ready for a street of their own?

Sunshine, Sushi and Road Lessons

Finally, just when we all thought we were going to become walking mushrooms from lack of light, San Francisco has sun!!! Oh glorious sun from which all life springs, you have finally seen fit to visit us with light and warmth!! For a few days there will be no thought of taking a sweater, or two, when leaving the house. I will not have to wipe fog from my eyes or contemplate wool. No boots, no socks, no sleeves!

When it gets this warm, I stop cooking. On Tuesday we decided to have a family sushi night so we could ride in the warmth to the restaurant. Declan was very clear that he wanted to ride his own bicycle, not on the sidewalk. It was quiet out, and with four of us to buffer him, why the heck not?

I am quite sure that people seeing us pass thought I was completely nuts for letting my kids, especially one so young, do something as radical as ride a bicycle on a street (godforbidbutatleastheiswearingahelmet...) but that's fine with me. I had the great joy of seeing my three monsters pedaling away, joking with one another, keeping tabs on each other and enjoying the amazing evening.

It is always a little difficult when he decides he would rather skid to a stop than slow down and come to a gradual one, but other than that, we just enjoyed a real summer evening on our bicycles. Something about sunset light, and summer heat, and bicycles and the prospect of sushi make a Tuesday night quite nice.

School's In

If you go to public school in San Francisco, then today is the first day of school! My kids are public school all the way, and this morning, they each decided to start the year with a bicycle commute.

Declan decided quite a while ago that he wanted to emulate his older brother and ride to school (he is in Kindergarten this year). It is only two blocks away, but the lure of a morning ride and his very own bike lock was too much to deny.

It was really nice to see a lot more people walking to school than in years prior. There were still a number of people in cars, but the morning traffic tangle was nothing like I have seen it in the past.

The school has a bicycle rack, but it has still not been bolted into the ground (almost a year after receiving it!) so we used one of the polls outside the school. It works out fine and as I had to pass this spot a few times today, it was nice to see Declan's bicycle parked out there waiting for him.

This year, Úna starts Middle School as she is the 6th grade. New school, new friends, new commute. Her school is only a mile and a half from home, but it is on the other side of the hill. She decided to take the long way around through a rather busy business district instead of climb the hill so I went with her, following behind to see how she handled the streets.

She had to pass between City College of San Francisco (the largest community college and the second largest learning institute of any type in the United States) and Riordan High School which was a tangled mess of traffic and random jay walking pedestrians. It was so busy I couldn't take pictures of her riding through it like it was nothing (just like how people in India don't seem to notice the traffic and crowds there). She was fantastic and did everything right.

Once we got past the college mess, it was a short trip through a business district she is very familiar with. There was construction all over it, but after a short stint on the sidewalk, she got around it with no problem and made it to school on time with no stress (unlike the 5 blocks of tangled car traffic around the school building!!!! What kind of madness is this?).

I was uncomfortable with the amount of traffic on her chosen route. It will calm down in a couple of weeks, like it does every year, but until then I am going to make sure she goes over the hill instead. She had no problem negotiating the craziness this morning, but I would not feel comfortable letting her go on her own and the whole point is for her to do this by herself. Next time, we'll try the hill route which is much less busy and crazy.

Over all, a good day. All three of the kids got to where they were going under their own power. They all took the next steps in the process of growing up. I love it!

Townsend Means Bicycles Begin

Making sure to capitalize on the momentum, today the City of San Francisco started striping the first of the, tragically, delayed bike plan lanes at Townsend and 4th St. I hear the Mayor was there, as were several other notable folk (I was not among them). It is only a symbolic start, just a few feet long, but it is the beginning of a lot of painting.

Cameron and Úna were the first kids to be observed on the lane, and just to make it an official San Francisco bicycle lane, they were stopped by the first person to double park in it.

I am really looking forward to the day that the kids will be able to get all the way across San Francisco in a bicycle lane. They may not be the safest form of infrastructure available to us, but they are the beginning of the change we all really want to see.

Bike Girl

This is my daughter, Úna.

She is eleven years old and she is already an experienced bicycle commuter.

Úna rides all over town with us, in all kinds of places. Unlike many of her peers, she has a "real" bike- A lugged steel Trek Singletrack with fenders, a front basket, a rear rack, dedicated lights... for her birthday we bought her a Timbuk2 pannier bag. It was way too expensive for someone her age, but if she uses it as her book bag for the whole of middle school (which she plans to ride to), it will be a good purchase. We have started her on hauling cargo.

She has conquered the Paradise Loop, about 25 miles with hills,

and we are not sure, but it is possible she rode almost 30 miles on her 40 year old Columbia last Halloween when we brought her along for Critical Mass.

Kids are capable of so much more than we give them credit for. Úna knows her way around town, she knows where the bike routes are, she knows how to signal her turns and how to hold her own. She has no fear of the road and just takes her time.

It also wears them out so they go to bed early.