rolling

Because her new school is quite a distance from our apartment and not very convenient for the commute to our studio, I spent a ridiculous amount of time this fall mulling over our commuting options and concluded that biking would be our best choice.

Much as Tsia might like to ride in a creative solution like this

or this

we don't exactly have storage space for these clever modes. A similar front-basket Dutch style is manufactured here in the States. We also tried and considered the Burley and Chariot trailers, but they weren't practical for our purposes.

A more typical solution (for our purposes) is a back-of-the-bike carrier like this one:

Unfortunately, Tsia is too big (tall, that is) for these seats, which are intended for smaller children. And I was a little nervous about whether I could control a bike with her on it--she's weighs more than a quarter of my own weight, after all:

Then I read and enjoyed this post about the Dutch and their bikes. I love biking in the Netherlands, but I must admit I never noticed all this about their bikes. I'm especially impressed at all the things they carry (another adult? two kids?) and do (talk on cell phones?) on their bikes. So we agreed that, as long as we're careful, I can handle riding her on a back seat.

A knowledgeable biking parent called these seats to our attention. The seats are appropriate for children aged five to ten. They aren't widely available in the U.S. but proved to be the perfect solution for our needs.

Then came the bike part of the equation. I was dreaming of a bike this this one. But they're a bit pricey. And VERY heavy. Especially for getting over the Williamsburg Bridge every day, which is how we get to Brooklyn every day after dropping S at school. I needed a lighter bike with plenty of gears, since the seat adds quite a bit of weight to the bike and the bridge has a decent incline over which to haul all that weight.

New York has also been working to make the city more bike-friendly, with the addition of special bike lanes and accomodations that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. I think we've still got a long way to go before biking will be as widely accepted and easy to maneuver as it is in the Netherlands, but we're making good progress in the right direction.

I still need to take a photo to show you just what we ended up getting. But our new commute has been working out really well, and we're all enjoying it.