Sunday, February 24, 2008

Bicycle Bonus

I'm doing a little victory dance right now. I've been looking for one of those old metal bike racks. You know, the kind you used to park your bike in when you rode to school? Well, I finally got myself one of those. Yippee!

Ever since we decided to live sans car, our bikes have lived in a heap in our former parking space. They always start out standing upright, all lined up in a neat, tidy row. But, inevitably, by the end of an afternoon of skateboarding and basketball and jump rope, or even just after a big gust of wind, they'd end up in a heap. When it was time to go somewhere, it could take us 15 minutes just to untangle pedals and spokes and chains. Locking them to each other worked most of the time, except when we forgot, and it didn't. Janey's bike got stolen for the second time in 4 months last week. But now we have a real, live bike rack to lock them to!!! Yippee!

Now all I've got to do is muster up the courage to design and build a shelter to keep them all warm and cozy. Well, dry actually. A tarp is all I've got at this point. And for now, it works just fine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How cool!! I didn't know that there were other car free unschoolers out there. We're still looking for a bike rack ourselves. For now, they are in heap in the garden shed.

piscesgrrl said...

Wow, car-free - good for you! We live in the frozen tundra that is the upper midwest - so we'd have to go car-free by learning how to ride dogsleds or something.

We have a hybrid car, one small attempt at lessening our impact. And on days like today? When we're buried under snow from our (seems like) 97th blizzard? We heed nature's suggestion and just stay home by the woodburner. :)