Our Wheels

I did my first shopping via Craig's List today. I bought a tag-along bike. For those of you with out children of about age five I will fill you in this...

is a tag-along bike. It is designed to attach to the parent bike and let the child, who is too big for the baby seat and too small to keep up reasonably well biking alone, ride. I would show you a picture of us riding on this bike but I am not that talented, so trust me, Alexa loves it. I looked at them in the bike shop the other day knowing that it was exactly what we needed to get out and about this summer and nearly passed out from sticker shock. The cost upwards of $179. Which for someone such as myself who bikes but not more than a leisurely ride here and there I figured I could have a whole new bike for that much. So I took a look at Craig's List and sure enough found one for sale in Burlington. The picture looked good and the ad said, "excellent condition, rarely used and even more rarely pedaled." I can appreciate parenting humor when I see it and more importantly I can relate. So it all worked out and for a mere fraction of the cost Alexa and I are zooming around. She was a bit nervous at first the first ten feet she spent yelling, "I'm too scared" over and over. Then she was quiet so I asked if she was OK. "It's kinda fun." Twenty more feet, "It's really fun." And there you have it. It does take some getting use to as she is still riding her bike with training wheels. It lurches every now and then and you have to be prepared to counter her moves, although she was getting better as we practiced more. Of course our riding meant Chloe has to dust off her bike and get rinding too.

A task she did quite well last week, but for some reason today claimed she was far too terrified to do. We accomplished it though after about an hour of tears, threats, isolation, and a lot of entertainment for the neighbors, she got on the bike and was riding up and down a (quiet, flat, straight) street near our house. After about an hour of riding (very willingly) she said, "Mommy this is really fun." I tell you people it is exhausting, however lest we loose our momentum we are heading back out tomorrow. Maybe we will even make it to the bike path.