Tour de Cookie is Good Enough for Me

May 13, 2015 / 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.

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.

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

April 7, 2015 / 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.

Cookie, Cookie, Cookie Starts With C!

May 7, 2014 / 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.

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.

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.