Super Eco

Photo credit: sarah gilbert

Having lived car-free for almost three years, and having invested considerably in family biking for the past 12 months, there is one thing that continues to amaze me anew: parents on bikes can't wait to share the joy. I ride my "mamabikeorama," as I call it, around town even without my kids, and when I'm headed out to pick up four gallons of milk I'll be chatted up at stop signs and as I slowly pedal up a hill. "Nice bike," a dad in my neighborhood will say, looking me up and down in a chaste version of the same look I used to get at bars in my pre-kid years. "Don't you just love that bike?" another will say as he commutes home, bubbling over to tell me about his longtail.

I do love my bike. I love it with such passion, in fact, that I can't stop telling others about my adoration. I've added "family biking evangelist" to my Twitter bio, and picked up a lot of other fellow proselytizers. There are Marion Rice and Jonathan Maus at BikePortland.org, the acknowledged internet clearinghouse for family biking news. There is Julian Davies of Totcycle, whose often-rhyming, hilarious, photo-strewn posts are sure to convert the masses with a smile. Kidical Mass, with its tag line, "Kids are traffic too!" promotes group rides with kids; the Xtracycle kids gallery is an entirely unfunded effort to be the "most comprehensive gallery of Xtracycle photos on the planet." My friends at Clever Cycles (who have five children spread among two families) say the shop encourages biking as primary transportation "because it is immensely pleasurable."

Though we all may have been inspired to think about biking with our families because of the guilt of spewing fossil fuels into the atmosphere, fear of climate change, and a belief in paying the "true cost" of our transportation, when it comes down to it, we do it for the love. As I wrote once, life with kids and without a car is existing in an extended state of dreamtime. When doing something you love this much has the added benefit of being green: you'd preach too.