This year we rode our 3rd annual bike ride to Brentwood, California to visit G&S Farms to go cherry picking in Brentwood. Our original ride to cherry picking was great, and we’ve wanted to continue the tradition every year. Getting there isn’t very easy by transit, but it can be a neat multimodal trip from Oakland and other parts of the East Bay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbpQBpZXD0U&feature=youtu.be Cherry Picking by Bike in Brentwood 2023 – Some stuff was different than years past. BART Bus Bridge This year, due to track work that was being done on the BART tracks between Rockridge BART and Orinda BART, there was what they call a “Bus Bridge” between stations. There was no direct train service, but there were free courtesy shuttle buses at both Rockridge and Orinda stations. This is normally a bit of a hassle, […]
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How to attach a bike flag (Bike Beam)
How to attach a bike flag, a guide Bicycle safety is probably a top priority for you, and one way to increase your visibility is to attach a bike safety flag. Where do I mount the bike safety flag? Attaching the bike safety flag is a relatively simple process. First, you need to choose a suitable location to mount the bicycle flag. The Bike Beam comes with either a rack mount or axle mount. But you can also attach it to a trailer. Other safety flags usually come with an axle mount or can also fit into the bike flag mounting hole of a trailer. You’ll usually want the flag at the rear of your bike. Different types of bike flag mounts There are 3 main types of bike flag mounts: Axle or quick release bike flag mount: This […]
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Cherry picking (and other U-Pick fruit picking) in Brentwood. A successful 20-mile adventure by bike!
April to May to June is U-Pick cherry picking season in the Bay Area When I was a child, I remember apple picking in New England with my dad. My memory is fuzzy now and I don’t remember if we just went once, or multiple times, but I still remember climbing a ladder to pick, and watching cider presses. I was confused when the cider came out brown when apple juice wasn’t. It seemed odd, but I still enjoyed drinking it. There’s so much locally grown produce in California, and I wanted to create a similar experience for our family. Especially after friends at a picnic shared some of their u-pick cherries with us. Last June, we went cherry picking at a u-pick farm in Brentwood for the first time. Brentwood is the place to go for cherry picking in […]
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Helpful tips for biking with children (via SFBC and The New Wheel)
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the New Wheel bike shop (Located in San Francisco, Marin, and here in Oakland.. soon!) put on a webinar a little while ago that covers an introduction to biking with children. It has a bunch of useful information, especially for those who may be new to biking or new to riding their with children. Karen from the New Wheel spoke about the benefits of family cycling (it’s joyful, flexible, fun, and empowering) and how improving city infrastructure has made this easier than before. Electric motors and improvements in battery technology have made it possible for e-bikes to serve as a lower-carbon and more fun minivan replacement. She talked about different ways to carry kids (trailers, trail-a-bikes, family bikes and cargo bikes, front and rear seats, having kids ride their own children’s bike) and common […]
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Nice bikes: A Rivendell Susie W. Longbolts with a childrens bike trailer
Riding in style in Berkeley’s Elmwood District I came across this beautiful Susie W. Longbolts bike made by Rivendell Bike Works in Berkeley the other day. The Susie W. Longbolts is a lighter duty “Hillibike”, which Rivendell describes as their steel-framed bikes, with longer chainstays and wheelbases made to absorb bumps better for trail riding and road touring. The bikes also feature room for big tires and higher handlebars. The name “Susie W. Longbolts” is an anagram of Gus Boots-Willsen, a similar but slightly heavier-duty bike of theirs. They look way more stable on bumpy surfaces than a road bike would be. The parents had set it up with chunky tires and a child bike trailer to tow their kid and scooter around in style. Or follow along for updates:
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A replacement Trail-a-bike hitch seatpost shim to help fix your trailer
Trail-a-bikes We use an Adams Trail-a-bike (aka Tag along, as some people call it) to tow our child occasionally. It is kind of like a tandem bike attachment for kids. The steel hitch slides onto a seatpost, and clamps on via 2 bolts and a hex-wrench. The other end of the hitch has a square-shaped key and a hole for adding a retaining pin to hold the trailer in place. There are spacers included that fit in there for different seatpost diameters. We have a Weehoo trailer as well, and this shim should fit that hitch as well. This may also work for other tag along bikes, like the Weeride Co-Pilot and the Kazam Co-pilot. Both of those clamp onto the seatpost of the adult’s bike. We sometimes swap the trailer between bikes. Unfortunately, the bikes have different […]
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Neighborhood Bike Parades That Help Kids Learn to Ride Together
The kids bike parade is a way to let kids play, ride bikes together and learn to ride safely. Children and adults make new friends and build community by bike. How did the bike parade start? Earlier on in the pandemic, we learned that COVID spread mostly through poorly-ventilated air. We tried to think of ways to still foster social interactions between children with a lower risk profile. Our family and a lot of others have gone with their kids biking to spend time outdoors. We started by turning a birthday party into a evening bike ride. Kids had fun biking together and being able to see each other not on a computer screen! Parents got a chance to ride with their kids and others. Neighbors were treated to a lively mini parade. A few parents loved the […]
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How do you carry a child on a bike? What we know about bike attachments for kids
We didn’t own a car when our child was born. That made the idea of running errands as a family much more complicated. There are well-meaning laws in California and other states that require you to use a car seat to take your child home after they are born (assuming they are not born at home!). Though apparently, the hospital is not allowed to deny discharge if you don’t take your child home in a car seat. A friend generously loaned us a car for a month. Since we don’t drive much, we only used it for the trip to and from the hospital, and to meet up for a friend’s birthday at a cafe. We live in a fairly urban area, so we were able to walk most other places we needed to go and transport our child via […]
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