One evening after I returned home from work I hitched the bike trailer up to take the kids around the block. We had Katie wear her helmet, which she held with both hands the whole time. Let me tell you, pulling another 90 pounds of cargo sure made me notice the hills in our neighbourhood... especially after riding 26 km home from downtown.
We cruised around the neighbourhood a bit, and the kids' favourite part was a steep section of pathway that drops down through some trees near a pond. Scott claimed that the trailer went up on one wheel on our second pass through that section, but I have my doubts. Katie hardly made a peep the whole time, just clinging to the side of her helmet's visor. I worried she might be scared but she said she was having fun.
I picked up this trailer at a yard sale for $5 or $10 a few years back, but we had never used it as anything but a stroller because it was missing a piece of the hitch mechanism and I had borrowed a better one from a friend instead. I used a zip tie to keep it hooked onto my bike frame, but I probably should have used more than one, as the zip tie eventually snapped off when we went over a curb on the ride home. Fortunately, I had connected the safety strap, so nothing serious happened.
When we got home Katie gave R a full account of the trip -- although it was tough to pick out the words that came between "wagon", "bike", "hill" and "fast".
2 comments:
Another good post. I did this with the youngest in our family in 2006. Thought it extraordinarily difficult and thought I was very out of shape. When I got home i realized the tires were 80% out of air. It was like pulling a plow around the neighborhood. In Katie speak...'grueling', 'pass-out' and 'nap'.
You still know how to find a bargain, so it is good you finally used it. And it looked like the kids loved it!
Post a Comment