family biking

Guest Post: Kidical Mass Rockville Kick-Off

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Biking, and particularly family biking, is a passion for me. I want to make our roads safe and fun for everyone to travel on, including children. So to help encourage families to bring their kids on bikes for both recreation and transportation, I lead Kidical Mass rides in our town. Kidical Mass is a national movement to support family biking and we’re one of five of them in the Washington D.C. area – one of the highest densities in the nation!

We had our first Kidical Mass ride of the season last week and it went really well. Thirteen people including six kids showed up to ride to ice cream. I’ve written it up on our Kidical Mass Rockville blog, so check it out!

The Season Starts off Right with Italian Ice!

Tour de Cookie is Good Enough for Me

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

I am a big fan of food-based bicycle rides. Maybe it’s because I have fond childhood memories of biking to Lakeside Farms for apple cider donuts or along the Lake George bike trail for ice cream. Or maybe it’s because they combine two of my favorite things. Either way, the Tour de Cookie, which features 7 to 11 different cookie stands, depending on the route, is close to my ideal ride. Plus, it benefits a local group that connects abused and neglected children with needed services. Yummy desserts, biking and benefiting a good cause? A few months ago, I said, “Count me in yet again for this year!” Plus, I wasn’t the ride alone – my parents traveled down from upstate New York and I would be dragging Sprout in the bike trailer.

While I had done the Tour de Cookie previously, I was slightly nervous about my readiness level. While I was seven months pregnant the last time I did it, I wasn’t dragging a trailer with a nearly 30 pound kid. Even though I ride every day now, it’s only a mile each way to the Metro without kid-towing duties. In contrast, the Tour de Cookie is 12 miles, plus another four miles from my house to the starting line and back, for a total of 20. In addition to my own capacity, I was also a little paranoid about whether or not Sprout would be okay being in the trailer for that long. Sure, he loved the ride a few weeks back, but that was only 3 miles with a break in the middle. At least I wasn’t signed up for the 40 mile long route!

One executive decision that helped both of us was the choice for Chris to drive Sprout to the start and then home again after the ride. I still needed to drag the trailer those 8 miles, but it was around 30 pounds lighter. In addition, the section we rode back and forth on is bumpy and a glorified sidewalk at best, so I was very glad he wasn’t present.

Being a bike advocate for the Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee, I couldn’t resist (or maybe get out of) volunteering in some way. Thankfully, I got the simplest job we had – the person pointing the way and cheering for people starting the ride.

Bicyclists at the start of the Tour de Cookie

From my viewpoint, I had a great perspective on the diversity of participating riders. The Washington Area Bicyclists’ Association’s Women and Bicycles group had a great turnout, with a bunch of women clad in their distinctive teal jerseys. I nearly yelped when I saw three people riding a triple tandem bicycle, something I didn’t even think existed. The family biking contingent was in full force, with tons of parents with trailers and kids on their own bikes for the short route. I wish I had Rockville Kidical Mass business cards to hand out.

Bicyclists on a triple bicycle in the Tour de Cookie

Shannon and John (Rootchopper) at the Tour de Cookie

My location also made a perfect meeting space. Earlier that morning, fellow blogger John (also known as Rootchopper) at a Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel tweeted that he was at the registration desk and – knowing I was going to be riding – was looking for me. A few tweets later, he walked up and introduced himself in person! Right off, he said, “I love your blog.” As I don’t have very many readers, it warmed my heart to know at least one fan (who isn’t my mom) truly enjoys it. (Plus, he said my kid is cute, so super bonus points there.) Because we’re bloggers, we obviously took a selfie. I was rocking the sweet neon ride marshall vest.

Once I made sure everyone knew where they were going and had been thoroughly cheered, it was time for our merry band to take off. Sprout tried to climb in the trailer without prompting and didn’t even fuss with his “bike hat.” My parents followed me like the world’s slowest peloton as we rode to the first stop at Thomas Farm Community Center. Even though it was first, it was probably my favorite cookie stop across the entire seven-stop ride. The Girl Scout troop running it made homemade versions of beloved Girl Scout cookies, including Tagalongs and Thin Mints. I tried to share a peanut butter one with Sprout, who wasn’t the most cooperative. At first, he only wanted the big piece. Then, once he accepted the smaller one, he just walked around holding it without even trying to eat it. The thought patterns of an almost two-year old continue to elude me.

The rest of the ride was a pleasant ramble around Rockville’s Millennium Trail, a bicycle beltway around the city. We got stuck behind a very large group of adults and kids who were far less familiar with the best practices of group riding (like passing on the left or riding in a line) than we would have preferred. That’s rather inevitable with a short, family-friendly ride like this though. My mom – who is used to a much quicker pace – said it was the most relaxed ride she had ever been on. Of course, she’s never been on one of our Kidical Mass rides! Sprout only whined twice, both times because his helmet fell in front of his eyes. Understandable, and a quick fix. He seemed to enjoy the whole thing, especially our second major stop, where he gobbled down a chocolate-heavy granola bar he shared with my mom. Multi-generational family cycling at its best. I enjoyed that stop too, as it was at the top of the biggest hill on the ride. Eventually, the movement of the trailer lulled him to sleep and he was snoozing by the finish line.

From cheering others on to the delicious cookies throughout the route, the Tour de Cookie was a great celebration of and for our local cycling community.

Reintroducing the Bike to a Toddler

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Most of the time, when I do a bike ride, my training is the most important aspect. But when I’m bringing along a small passenger, I need his willing participation as well. For the upcoming Tour de Cookie, I was quite concerned that Sprout was not going to buy into my plan. Fortunately, after pulling my bike out of the shed for the first time this spring for a ride with him, I’m much more confident that we’ll all have a good time.

While I rode with Sprout a number of times last year, he was never fond of it. Although he was big enough to be in the trailer, he wasn’t tall enough to see well out of the windows. He was also much more adverse to risk than he is now, making the bumps rather disconcerting to him. To make it worse, he absolutely hated hats, especially his bike helmet. He would whine, yell, and try to pull it off to no avail. He smiled all of once when I put him in the trailer last year. He usually fell asleep, looking uncomfortable with his head on his chest. I probably would have skipped riding with him altogether if I hadn’t been leading the Rockville Kidical Mass rides. You can’t really lead a ride for families with young kids without your young child with you.

This year already seemed more promising even before we got on the bike. Sprout’s nearly twice as old as he was last spring. Since the ride in November, his demeanor and understanding of what’s going on has evolved considerably. He can now use words to tell me what’s wrong, follow social cues, understand simple explanations, and predict what will happen next. All of these characteristics made me think he might have a much more pleasant, less disorienting biking experience now than he did then.

Even better, he now knows what a bike is and can say the word. There are bikes in a number of his books, including Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. He loves pointing them out with a proud, “Bike!” On the way home from the playground, he always stops at the Capital Bikeshare stand to spin the pedals.

A few days before our first ride, I introduced the idea of my bike and trailer to him. I hooked up my pump to my tires and encouraged him to “help” me pump by pushing down on the handle. He wanted to poke at everything, so I let him spin my bike’s pedals and touch the tires. I tried to keep his little hands away from the gears, the many sharp or pointy components, and the greasy chain. Unfortunately, I was only partly successful in that last effort. When I took the tarp off of the trailer, his first instinct was to climb inside.

For our first ride of the season, I got home early on a pleasantly warm day. Unfortunately, the sky had turned from blue and calm to gray and windy during the day, so I limited our ride to less than 2 miles. Although it was going to be far less than the 15 mile Tour de Cookie (plus a few miles each way to get back and forth from the start), I figured it was better to get something in than nothing.

For starters, Sprout seemed much less upset about his helmet than he had been in the past. It fit him better (his head has grown), he’s taken a fondness to hats after reading Jan Brett’s The Hat, and he’s been interested in my helmet for a while. I explained, “You get to wear a bike hat like mommy!”, which seemed to help. While there was a little bit of whinage, it wasn’t a National Emergency the way so many things in toddlerdom are.

When Chris helped me put Sprout in the trailer, he looked around and actually smiled! He seemed eager to find out what was going to happen. (He’s young enough that he has no memory of last year’s experiences.) He was a little startled when we started to move, but he quickly caught on, leaning forward and giving me a running commentary of our surroundings. I heard a little chorus of “Car! Car! Car!” every time we passed a parked car. I explained how this was like the horse and cart (or zebra and carriage or elephant and bandstand) in To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry St., except I was the beast of burden and he was the passenger. After reading all of these transportation books and walking around himself, I suspect he has a much deeper appreciation as to what is involved in pulling him around. He actually liked it so much that he cried when I put the tarp over the trailer when we were done.

Besides enjoying the ride, Sprout had a much different reaction than when he’s in the car. I’m not sure if it’s that he can’t see much or it’s the vibration, but for short car trips, he goes into a really quiet, meditative-like state. He genuinely doesn’t seem interested in interacting, even if you try. In contrast, he was very engaged in the trailer, talking to me even though I had a hard time hearing him. I love that even though the trailer is more isolated than a kid’s bike seat, he was still getting some of the benefits of the biking experience.

To top it all off, I was reassured that pulling the trailer didn’t feel that bad. While it weighs a lot more than my normal bike, it didn’t feel that much worse than riding a Bikeshare, which I use almost daily.

Overall, I’m very positive about our chances for having a good time doing the Tour de Cookie. I can always ply him with cookies, and if all else fails, Chris will have the car.

Envisioning the Future of Family Bicycling

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Being in the middle of a burgeoning movement is exciting; being in the start can be pretty lonely. Fortunately, the bicycling for transportation movement in the U.S. is starting to embrace its more youthful sibling, the family biking movement. Last weekend, I attended the Washington Area Bicyclists’ Association (WABA) first D.C. area Family Biking Town Hall.

The event began with participants rotating through a series of stations, each inviting our input on a different subject. The topics ranged from ideas for the perfect family biking event (my favorite is the ABCs of Family Cycling) to best blogs for family cycling. They even asked to how to make the 50 States and 13 Colonies Ride more family-friendly. I think my best input was the important advice to try equipment with your kids before you buy it, so you don’t end up with a trailer your kid doesn’t like, as we did.

Besides the stations, I was glad for the opportunty to connect with some biking folks I haven’t seen in a while. While I expected to see the leaders of the DC and Gaithersburg Kidical Mass rides, I was pleasantly surprised to run into a prior member of the Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee who as far as I knew had disappeared off the face of the earth. As it turned out, he had been a little closer – in Colorado, on a contract. Previously, he had helped us run bike rodeos for kids, so I was glad to see that he was still engaged in youth education. Sometimes, this city is so small and so full of talented, passionate people.

The WABA education director than gave a brief presentation that led into the main discussion. WABA acknowledged that they had been remiss in the past when they had frequently ignored the needs of families. One of the main problems is a simple lack of experience – only 1 of their 13 staff members has children. Considering the average salary of a staff member of a small non-profit and our local living costs, this fact didn’t exactly surprise me. Nonetheless, he said that WABA has realized that family cycling is “bleeding edge” and wants to ensure DC is one of the leaders in this next big step forward. While they can’t dedicate any specific staff members to the issue, they hope to integrate families into their current efforts and start some new family-oriented programming in the future. They finished with a pitch for their holiday party, which unfortunately reinforced their focus on young 20 and 30-somethings, as it was at a bar on a weekday night. At least they’re honest about their room to improve.

The discussion began with a broad visioning effort to describe an ideal family-biking location, then quickly broadened to include infrastructure needs, advocacy efforts and resources.

One thing everyone could agree on is that we want family bicycling to be normal, the way it is in Amsterdam and Japan, land of the “mommy bike.” Whether it’s pediatricians, drivers, or even other cyclists, we’re sick of people second-guessing our parenting and transportation decisions. As Megan from Kidical Mass DC said, we’ll have reached our goal “when people bike with their kids who didn’t bike before” simply because it’s the easiest, cheapest, most sustainable way to get around.

We also universally agreed that there’s a lack of centralized resources on family biking for current and expecting parents. While there are some home-grown blogs and a smattering of articles, there’s nothing that can walk people through all of the possible equipment, its advantages and disadvantages, and the process of actually choosing which one would work for them. One of the participants imagined a future where expecting parents learned about family biking options before they arrived at the hospital, just as they do now with car seats.

A desire for more protected bicycle infrastructure that is segregated from traffic was another common theme. What works for an experienced cyclist won’t necessarily work for a mom on a bakfiets maxing out at 10 mph or an eight year old on her own bike.

We also discussed the need to include parental voices in the policy conversation. One woman from Fairfax bemoaned the lack of female representation on bicycle advisory committees, as women are more likely to bring up issues relating to families. Fortunately, DC actually has strong representation in this category – the heads of both the Rockville and Arlington groups are women and at least half of Rockville’s committee is – but we can always do better. Another major problem is that a lot of the city meetings where people give testimony are very difficult for parents of young children to attend. WABA seemed interested in helping people know when and how to submit written comments as well as gathering testimonies to present at city hearings.

While none of this will happen overnight, it was encouraging to connect with other folks concerned about the same day-to-day issues and see a (bike) path forward. I’m excited to see what WABA will do with our input.

Unfortunately, almost every time I attend a family biking event, the commute reminds me of how far we have to go. The original plan was for Chris to drop me off after church and then drive home for Sprout’s nap. I would then get a Bikeshare bike and pedal two miles to the most convenient Metro station. The first hurdle was that the two closest Bikeshare stations were completely empty, forcing me to walk more than 1/3 of a mile to pick one up. Once I finally checked out my bike, I pedaled toward the National Zoo, only to find out that the road looping up and around the zoo was closed for construction. As the only other option was miles out of the way, I ended up walking my bike all the way up the zoo’s main path, which is a mile-long hill. It was only until I reached the parking lot that I was able to pick up a road. I ended up only biking a half-mile of the 2 mile trip, making it take more than twice as long as it should have.

Even though I don’t haul Sprout everywhere by bike (yet), I look forward to the day our vision is fulfilled and owning a cargo bike will be just a normal as owning a minivan is now.

Fighting the Good Fight for Family Biking

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

Early November is a challenging time to bike. In my region, it tends to be cold, windy and wet. So I really wasn’t looking forward to our last Kidical Mass ride of the season, a joint ride with our sister group in nearby Gaithersburg.I was tempted to cancel our half, considering the low temperatures. However, the city had promoted it in both their monthly newsletter and their Facebook page, so I felt obliged to show up in case anyone from Rockville trekked over. Despite a few literal wrong turns, I’m glad I went. My ride to the meeting place and lunch with fellow family biking advocates highlighted a number of our shared challenges.

Our meeting place was about eight miles from my house, so it was too far to bring Sprout in the trailer. As the car trunk doesn’t fit both the bike and trailer, I rode there towing the trailer while Chris drove himself and Sprout. Unfortunately, I got rather lost on the way. While my intended route wasn’t ideal, my detour truly illustrated the infrastructure barriers families face in using cycling for transportation. I cycled over paths and curb cuts that were so bumpy and narrow they’d be uncomfortable or even unsafe for a kid in a trailer. Multi-use trails paralleling major, high-speed roads ended abruptly, forcing me onto the sidewalk. Even those were piecemeal. One sidewalk was split by a single piece of property with a fence, rendering the entire sidewalk on that side of the road useless. Crossing signals at intersections were too short, infrequent or non-existant. Intersections at major roads lacked islands to stand on as you crossed multiple lanes of traffic. I was very glad I didn’t bring Sprout – I would have been quite nervous about his safety.

In contrast, my destination – one of the first planned “smart growth” communities in the country – it was lovely. The residential roads had street parking, but were relatively quiet. A whole network of trails connected different parts of the development.

Moving from one area to the other, it was obvious that while there are islands of high bikability, they’re separated from each other and riding between them is problematic. I’m fortunate to live in one of those islands, especially one that’s well-connected. But the further you go out in the suburbs and away from the semi-urban core, it becomes increasingly more difficult. While it’s nice that people can ride around their neighborhoods, achieving even a “car-light” society where people can rely on biking, walking, and transit for their transportation needs requires a much more comprehensive, connected system than we have now.

When I finally arrived after my misadventure, the ride ended up being me, Sprout, and the Kidical Mass Gaithersburg organizers. We went ahead anyway, believing seeing families out and about on their bikes in such brisk weather sent an important message to the community. Afterwards, we went to the Farmer’s Market and a cafe, where we discussed the particular issues we face with family biking.

One problem we kept coming back to was a lack of understanding of family biking from pretty much everyone, non-cyclists and cyclists alike.

On the non-cyclists’ side, there’s the eternal cry of “But it’s not safe!” The Gaithersburg folks told me that their elementary school won’t allow students to bike there, even though the school is inside a neighborhood designed to be walkable and bikable. If that’s a rule in a “smart growth” community, the rest of us are doomed. Perhaps most frustratingly, the school appears completely uninterested in changing that status quote. The cry of “unsafe!” shuts down the conversation instead of opening it up to the question, “What can we do to make it safer?” Besides just benefitting students, answering that question could help everyone – the school is next to a large park that’s a prime biking location.

Within the cycling community, one fundamental disagreement we have is with “vehicular cyclists.” This group believes bicyclists are the safest and best off when they act and are treated like cars by always taking the lane. While there are plenty of quiet, residential streets where that’s a fine approach, holding it as a philosophy on which to base infrastructure policy decisions is fundamentally incompatible with family biking. Parents who bike with their kids are already nervous enough, when both the American Pediatric Association and Consumer Reports emphatically state use a bike seat or trailer anywhere there might possibly be cars. So to expect parents to take the lane in streets with speed limits above 25 mph or that have stop-and-go traffic is unrealistic. Sticking to the slowest of streets may work for recreational rides, but there’s no way to ride for transportation without a busy road blocking your way, especially in the suburbs. Then of course, there’s the issue of what to do once kids get older. For kids to be able to ride to school or stores on their own bikes, we have to have places they can ride safely as well. If we want parents and children to ride for transportation, we have to provide infrastructure they are comfortable with, such as protected bike lanes and good, well-maintained multi-use paths. Neither on-road cycling or protected infrastructure are the be all end all of biking – rather, having both as viable options is important if we want to make family biking a reality.

Lastly, there’s a bit of a culture gap between the majority of biking advocates in D.C. proper and the suburban family biking crowd (all two of us). People who lead large group rides that attract young professionals don’t have a lot of advice for marketing to families or reaching out to schools. Folks who are used to dealing with biking infrastructure in the city aren’t as familiar with the suburbs’ opportunities (lots of space for protected bike lanes and multi-use paths!) and challenges (everything else). While these aren’t anyone’s fault, they’re another set of communication issues to work on.

Lately, I’ve been telling people that family biking is the “next big thing” for biking in America. But it can be lonely working on something just starting to get off of the ground. It was good to connect with my fellow Kidical Mass leaders to share frustrations and compare notes.

Rolling Somewhat Merrily Along

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

When I started our town’s series of Kidical Mass bike rides for families, I was afraid no one would show up. Now that the summer has wound down and I’ve led four different rides, those fears have mostly been alleviated. But while I’ve had some success, the last two rides have shown that like many activist projects, it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get a big impact. Fortunately, I’ve also had some little wins that give me hope.

Going into this project, I knew that my town’s bicycle culture lagged behind that of D.C. and Arlington. While we struggled to get 10 people for our community rides, they would get hundreds. Rockville has substantially improved its bike infrastructure and policies, but we just haven’t attracted the sheer numbers of cyclists yet. On top of that, getting families to cycle is the toughest nut to crack and suburban parents are notoriously paranoid about safety. This was illustrated quite clearly when the East Falls Church Kidical Mass launch ride (a specific neighborhood in Arlington) had 32 people, while ours had 17, including me, my husband, and the organizers of an existing ride.

On top of not having as much of a cycling culture, my town poses other logistical issues for Kidical Mass rides. Being in the suburbs, businesses are more spread out, making it difficult to find destinations within a few miles of a starting point that are also on quiet streets. From my experience so far, parents expect to drive rather than bike or take transit to the ride, so you need to start and end in the same place, preferably somewhere with good parking. As Rockville has a number of rolling hills that challenge adult cyclists, I usually abandoned the “flat” part of the “short, un-trafficked, flat” routes recommended for Kidical Mass rides.

Knowing all of this, it wasn’t too surprising that we only had one family each for our last two rides. We had some adult helpers on both, so neither group was ridiculously small, but we aren’t attracting the numbers that a ride that has “mass” in its name implies.

Despite the low turnout, certain aspects of each ride were encouraging. On the August ride, I had planned to ride from a local nature center to Rock Creek Park, a lush gem that runs from the heart of D.C. into Montgomery County. But the ride has some serious hills, so my heart sunk when I saw a little girl show up with training wheels. I especially felt bad when I realized she and her mom had showed up for the July ride but she was too scared to even leave the sidewalk. Trying to hide my nervousness, I encouraged her to try the ride and let her know that it was okay to walk the hills. Much to my relief, she defied everyone’s expectations. She made it up many of the hills and wasn’t ashamed of walking up others. The route offered exactly the right blend of achievable and just-out-of-reach challenge. We turned around before we reached the park, but I was so proud that she made it as far as she did. It was such a huge leap up from just a month before. Even though her mom kept saying, “If I had known the route, I would have never brought her!” it was clear that she was glad she did. Even though she was the only kid there, her accomplishment alone made the ride worthwhile.

On the ride this past weekend, I was quite surprised that anyone showed up, considering it was a 50% chance of rain. In fact, I actually left Chris and Sprout at home. But one family with two kids in a trailer and an older lady interested in volunteering both made an appearance. While the dad of the family was an avid cyclist, his wife was much less experienced. She had just gotten a new bike and self-identified as a rather slow cyclist. They had been doing rides around their neighborhood, but this was the first community ride they had done. And despite the rain, she loved it! Afterwards, she promised to sign up for another community ride this weekend as well as future Kidical Mass rides. On top of making it good experience for her, they’re also interested in purchasing a Yuba cargo bike to replace their trailer, which would be an awesome addition to our Kidical Mass rides.

Our next two rides are going to be with our sister ride in nearby Gaithersburg, which has been around for at least a year. I hope that some of their experience rubs off on us!

Join Me for the Launch of Kidical Mass Rockville!

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Are you a Metro DC local? Do you like biking? Do you have or know kids who like riding their own bikes or mooching effort off of adults on bikes? If so, I invite you to participate in the very first Rockville Kidical Mass ride this Saturday at 10 am at Thomas Farm Community Center in Rockville. I will be the Pied Piper leading kiddos and their families not to doom, but rather to the much more pleasant prospect of ice cream.

Unlike the community rides I’ve lead in the past, this one is designed very specifically to target families with little kids. The route is only 3 miles long with a stop in the middle. Kids of all ages and abilities are invited to participate and we will ride at the pace of the slowest rider. (Even if that’s very, very slow.)

Kidical Mass – yes, bike geeks, it’s a play off of the Critical Mass rides – is a nationwide movement to get families on bicycles for transportation and recreation. While most Kidical Mass rides are in cities, there’s an increasing number in suburban areas, including the D.C. Metro area. With D.C., Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and Gaithersburg all hosting ones already, Rockville will bring the local total to six different regular rides.

I’ll be leading Kidical Mass rides in Rockville every second Saturday at 10 AM. To get more details on the other Rockville Kidical Mass rides throughout the summer, check out our blog. To find out about all of the other great community rides the Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee is leading, check out our website, Facebook page, or Meetup Group.

Help make biking in Rockville cuter – join the Kidical Mass movement!

Cookie, Cookie, Cookie Starts With C!

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

I kicked off Bike Month 2014 on Saturday with a lovely day, cookies, volunteering and a baby who was less than enthusiastic about biking.

I volunteered for the now-annual Tour de Cookie, a fundraiser for the children’s charity the Treehouse and my town’s biggest bike ride. It’s purposely oriented towards being family-friendly, which is pretty unique for large organized rides. It has both a short route and long route that feature 10 different cookie stands, making it a bit of a “rolling bake sale.” There was a number of families with kids on trailers, kids’ seats and tag alongs. They even had a kids’ ride around the parking lot for little ones on tricycles and training wheels. Considering the number of people with small children, I was excited to promote the Kidical Mass rides I’m leading this summer.
20140506-230909.jpg

While I rode it last year, I chose to volunteer instead for a couple of reasons. I rode it last year to prove to myself that I could and show the world that a 7+ months pregnant woman could. While I wasn’t able to finish the route due to a broken spoke, I still considered it a success. This year, I lacked the pregnancy restrictions, but would still be carrying the baby weight in the form of my actual baby in the trailer behind me. Between the start interfering with his nap schedule and the fact that I didn’t think he was ready for a 12 mile ride, I decided not to participate in the ride itself. Instead, I signed up to staff the Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee’s outreach booth at the ride’s family fair at the start / finish line.

Even though I wasn’t officially partipating, I still planned to bike over to the ride. As it was a beautiful day and the start wasn’t that far away, I even convinced Chris to come with us against his general preference of “not biking.” After Sprout finished his morning nap, we stuck him in the trailer and headed out.

The ride there was very pleasant and Chris did quite well for himself on the hills. We pedaled past a couple of cookie stands and even though we weren’t riding, mooched cookies off of them as volunteers. They were equal-opportunity cookie distributors. The cookie stands weren’t the only ones mistaking us for riders. As I rolled into the after-ride “fair” area, I happened to cross the finish line and the DJ called me out as a finisher! He said, “That has to count for two people!” in reference to the trailer. Obviously, I wasn’t going to correct him, but I felt a little weird about it.

The ride had a rather substantial set-up for the fair compared to the year before. Besides our booth, they had a huge variety of sponsors, including a local nursery school, Starbucks, a doggy-day care, the Bike to the Beach ride, a children’s book company, and the ever-ubiquitous Gutter Helmet. (Seriously, those folks were at the wedding show I was at years ago.) They had the Cookie Monster costume that RBAC used last year at our stand, along with a woman also dressed as a giant cookie. They also had a magician, a balloon artist and a really amazing lady on stilts.

Unfortunately, Sprout didn’t appreciate the festivities that much. He got upset when the magician made a loud noise during the reveal of his trick and then again when I yelled in his ear by mistake at the start of the kids’ ride. He was fascinated by the lady on stilts though.

20140506-230816.jpg

Compared to them, our bike maps and community ride flyers weren’t that exciting. Unfortunately, this meant that we didn’t have as much traffic to the booth as I had hoped. We gave out some information, but I’m not sure how much of our target audience we reached.

Fortunately, RBAC’s other efforts seemed more effective. The SAG van got plenty of usage between broken-down bikes and people realizing that they weren’t ready for the 40 mile ride that early in the season. Our group also helped with the ride marshalling and signage, which was substantially better than the year before.

After a couple hours there, we packed everything up and headed home as the clouds started to loom. After only a mile in, as I was heading up a steep hill, Sprout started to cry. I stopped to see what was wrong and the only things that seemed to be issues were that his helmet was over his eyes and he was overtired. I tried to comfort him, but as soon as I began pedaling again, he started wailing. As I couldn’t do much about the tiredness, I made the difficult executive decision to take off his helmet. I was more concerned about him choking himself with the strap from thrashing around than it not protecting him in some very unlikely theoretical accident. I felt horribly guilty – I could hear my mom’s voice ringing in my ears – but I didn’t know what else to do. Even though he was still displeased – he was giving me a grumpy baby glare – he stopped crying. About halfway home, he fell asleep in the trailer, able to lean his head back in a way that he couldn’t with the helmet on. When we got home, I lifted him out of the trailer and put him in his crib, managing not to wake him.

In some ways, this year’s Tour de Cookie was a logical follow-up to last year’s. Whereas I was pregnant last year, I had a baby with me this year. I shifted from being a rider to being a volunteer. I hope that as years go on, my role can continue to evolve and that one day Sprout will enjoy it as much as I do.