Schoolless

Bike polo (and other silliness)

We recently took our kids to a bike polo tournament, as our bike shop sponsors a local Chicago team. Peter naturally thought that he'd be terribly bored, but, as it turned out, the tournament provided ample fodder for his stop motion. The timing needs a little work, perhaps, but I think he's really honing his comedic skills...

For pictures of real bike polo, click here.

Our "Ma & Pa" wins mothers' vote!

I don't know how many mothers voted for our little bike shop in Lori's poll, but I'd like to personally thank each and every one of them.
And, if we haven't won you over yet, click here.

Hot NEW Recycling Idea!

Check out this totally new awesome outerwear for kids! It's FREE!

May the holidays fill your spirit...

Our family has decided that, in lieu of many pricey and unnecessary gifts this year, we were going to donate a couple of bikes to people on the other side of the world. People for whom the bicycle is not alternative transportation, it IS transportation.

Athough there are many other organizations that use bicycles to send aid to people around the world, we could only choose one, and we chose to send our donation through World Bicycle Relief.

Chris and I actually met some people who do the work on the ground for this organization, when we went to the annual Interbike trade show in September. It's hard enough for us to imagine how different some people's lives are from our own. Our kids had no concept of it. We spent a long time looking at their website, and learned about the humanitarian work they do in Zambia, and the countries affected by the tsunami of 2004. We found those places on a map, read folks' personal stories, and looked at lots of photos.  We talked about how despite glaring difference s in lifestyle and resources, the needs of all people are the same as ours: food, shelter, clean water, access to healthcare, education and jobs.

If you'd rather not succumb to the commercial frenzy that is Christmas in this country, consider giving a bicycle to someone who really needs it. May the holidays fill your spirit for many miles to come...

Art, nature and a bit of exercise

The artifacts beckon when you're driving on McCormick Boulevard, alongside the Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park.

Galloping horses, houses without walls, storm-blown ships, jumbled letters, tanks, blocks of concrete, coils of chain, frozen faces and human arms reaching for the sky.
What does it all mean, we wondered, as we pedaled along, this time by bike, making frequent stops, and turning to the little plaques posted along the way for guidance. Alas, the evasive titles made the meaning of the pieces only more mysterious and elusive. But not any less tempting to touch, photograph and interact with. Unlike pieces sheltered in a museum, these outdoor sculptures are out there, exposed to the elements, human curiosity, and sometimes abuse. You can run your fingers around them, feel the rusty metal, the cold stone, even get a splinter from the weathered wood. You can climb inside some, and peer out, like looking through the eyes of the sculpture itself. You can lean on them as you eat your picnic.
It's hard to know what exactly you learn from an outing like this, except that you feel more complete and alive. Art, creativity, abstraction, warm fall weather, physical exercise, hunger, laughter and silliness all together create an experience that cannot be measured, duplicated or explained. Like the meaning of the sculptures themselves, the exact value of this experience remains elusive...

Today is Blog Action Day.

Bloggers everywhere are writing about issues related to the environment. I've said before, that one of the best ways to do your share for the environment, and at the same time make your corner of the world a little more livable is to ride a bike. The bicycle provides basic, non-polluting, economical transportation, and can contribute to lowering traffic congestion and improving air quality. Plus, bikes are something I know a lot about.

So, I am going to suggest ways that biking can make your child a better human and better citizen.

1. Biking teaches independence. It is the first vehicle many children ever ride on their own. Don't treat it like a toy. Let your child learn about the freedom and responsibility associated with controlling a vehicle.
2. Biking teaches autonomy. It offers a way to get from point A to point B without relying on the automobile. Children from a very early age can appreciate the difference, and older children can actually use the bike to chauffeur themselves around.
3. You can help your child learn the rules of the road using your bikes on quiet streets around the neighborhood
4. You can sign up for a bike repair class with an older child to learn practical skills, and further boost the sense of responsibility and autonomy in your kid.
5. You can use the bike to illustrate some principles of physics (you could start here).
6. A bicycle is a vehicle for social change. You can discuss how bikes are used around the world to alleviate poverty and and offer mobility solutions in developing countries (for ideas, click here)
7. The bicycle builds awareness. Unlike a car, which isolates us from our surroundings and fellow humans, the bicycle puts us in touch with the environment & people around us. It's hard to space out on a bike. You have to pay attention. And when you are not looking out at the world through a smoked glass window, you notice things like prowling cats, sparring squirrels, dragonflies, homeless people under a bridge, the weather, nasty smells exuded by cars, and other interesting things you might otherwise miss.
8. A bicycle teaches about health and fitness. You are using your own body, the food you've ingested to fuel it, to produce the energy to propel yourself from one place to another. We would all enjoy better health if we committed some of our daily travel to a bicycle.
9. The bicycle teaches economy. The cost of a bicycle and its maintenance, spread over the number of years the owner will enjoy it, adds up to a very affordable annual expense. If we use a bicycle in place of a car or bus, the savings increase dramatically.
10. The bicycle can boost your psychological well-being (I regret that I don't have any studies to substantiate this claim. Argue with me if you'd like.). It liberates you from reliance on motor vehicles, and, because it is human-powered, offers a sense of freedom to travel efficiently from one place to another. It can help you get away from the daily stresses, and free you from the constraints of traffic, crowds and noise.

For more inspiration, check out 50 ways to leave your car.

Our bike garage

Some people have a foyer. Some people have a mudroom. We have mudroom in the foyer, or more precisely, we have a bike garage.

The bike garage on a less crammed day.

Our bike garage is brimming. We are going out of town, and bikes have to be more securely stored. The bike garage (actually an enclosed front porch) has become a staging area. Good opportunity to finally really confront the number of bikes we have. We are a family of four.
There is my bike, which I have proudly owned since 1989, your basic mountain bike, now highly personalized city commuter (that's 1).
Peter has a bike, which, at age 10, he is in the process of outgrowing (that's 2, but may soon become 3, as we have not made arrangements to pass down the outgrown bike).
Nadia has a bike, which she firmly believes she is ourgrowing, and will certainly outgrow it immediately when Peter gets the new bike (that's 3, possibly 4, or maybe even 5 depending on how rapidly the outgrowing progresses).
There is the bike that both Peter and Nadia have now outgrown (that's 4)
Then there are Chris' bikes: the new recumbent, the old recumbent, the Slingshot mountain bike, the folding bike, and the bike for errands (that's 9, I think).
And finally, the bikes that count as more or less than one: the family tandem and the trailabike (that's 1.5 plus 0.5, added to the existing 9 for a total of 11)
Eleven real, and as many as 13 hypothetical bikes crammed into a space the size of a small bathroom.
For those of you who don't know me personally, this might be a good time to point out that our family owns an urban bicycle store. But it is exactly because our professional life is ruled by the bicycle, I keep hoping that my home life doesn't have to be.  Specifically, I would like to enter my house via the front door, and have a convenient place to park my grocery bags, footwear, coat, umbrella, mail, whatever,  instead of worrying about getting those bags snagged by protruding handlebars, and possibly causing a bicycle avalanche.
In response to my bourgeois whims, my husband has started renovating the bike garage. When he is done, we hope to have and easy to clean tile floor, shoe storage, a wardrobe for outerwear and bike helmets, and perhaps a thing to hold the mail until we can get to it. But because my husband is not a full-time home remodeller, this process has been rather lengthy. In the meantime, we had planned to train ourselves and our children to store bicycles, scooters, bike panniers, helmets and related paraphernalia in the real garage, located several feet behind the house.
This yielded mixed results. As of this writing, there is only one bike in the bike garage. However, there are two scooters and a bike in the walkway on the side of the house, a recumbent bike on the deck, a jogging stroller (haven't used it, must've been in someone's way) under the willow tree, three helmets on the kitchen counter, a pair of cycling shoes on (I kid you not) the coffee table, and a bike pump blocking access to the front door.
And the question I have is: will I be thrilled to have my foyer, or will I miss the bike garage?!