Finally got my Xtracycle

Today I picked up my new Xtracycle from Aaron's Bicycle Repair in West Seattle. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning!

I first learned about the xtracycle a few months ago when a friend in Portland posted a link on facebook. I immediately knew I needed one...but thought it would fit in much better in our former urban lives in Portland, rather than our current lives in the suburbs of Seattle. I thought it would be hard to find safe, convenient routes here, especially for riding with the kids. Specifically, I didn't think it would be feasible to get to our son's new school, where he will start Kindergarten in September.

One day we took a little test-drive (in the car) through some low-traffic neighborhood streets that paralleled the main, busier road that we would take in the car to get to the school. We found a great route. We started riding our old bikes that way to church (same location as school) a number of times to test it out. It worked great. It started to seem feasible to use the bike for school pickups.

Then I thought about different options. At first I assumed I'd need a trailer on the xtracycle to put the kids in when it rained. I thought about various combinations of trail-a-bikes for the 5yo and trailer for the 2.5yo. Then I decided that I could keep them on the xtracycle, even in the rain, and rig up some sort of rain cover. With that in mind, I went to Aaron's and test-road the xtracyle about a month ago. Loved it!

Fast forward to today...after making space in the garage for storing the bike, I have it in hand! Can't wait to give it a try tomorrow.