Crossing the Delaware

The Delaware River forms the entire border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. George Washington made his famous crossing of the Delaware River on Christmas Day in 1776. This Memorial Day weekend, we crossed it six times:

Saturday – We drove from our home in the suburbs of Philadelphia to Ocean City, New Jersey, in the morning (1st crossing), then back to Philadelphia in the afternoon (2nd crossing) for a wedding at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies.
I spotted some bike racks as we left the stadium to return to Ocean City (3rd crossing).

Sunday – Husband and I tiptoed out for an early morning bike ride.
We treated ourselves to breakfast after riding into the wind for 3 miles.
Afterward, a few more bikes (and dogs) began to appear.
This street mural is a traffic calming device on the bike route. (See its story on YouTube here.)
We headed home to Pennsylvania later in the day (4th crossing).

Monday (Memorial Day) – Daughter convinced us it was the perfect day to visit the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, New Jersey.
We decided to take the River Link ferry across the Delaware River (5th crossing) instead of getting stuck in the holiday traffic on the bridges.
I was happy to see two passengers bring their bikes aboard, and surprised when a crew member told me there is no extra charge to do so! (Adult fare is $6 roundtrip.)
Of course, you can always cross the Delaware for free by riding your bike across the walkway above the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. No thank you!
Inside the Adventure Aquarium:
This very large green sea turtle was Daughter’s favorite.
Piranhas! (Obviously not Daughter’s favorite.)
The Battleship New Jersey is docked next to the aquarium and would have been a fitting destination for Memorial Day, but Daughter ran out of energy due to the crutches, so we’ll have to return another day for a tour.
A father and child on bike watched our ferry return to Philadelphia (6th crossing). The warship Olympia from the Spanish-American War is behind them.
As we drove through downtown Philadelphia on our way home, we saw bikes in use and parked everywhere. Even as a passenger, it’s difficult to take photos from a moving car, but I managed to get this bit of a corner café scene:
And here’s a wonderful example of Philadelphia Cycle Chic – - that I just missed!

Growing Pains

It’s hard to take part in Bike to Work Week/Month when you’re a suburban stay-at-home-mom. (Yeah, I know, get a job!) Last year my daughter and I took part by riding our bikes to school, as we did most weeks. This year, however, we actually drove to and from school on each day of Bike to Work Week. How could I be so wasteful? Well, my daughter has been on crutches for the past three weeks. A heel injury caused by a growth spurt and running during track practice has put a stick in her spokes for an indefinite amount of time. She seems to be enjoying the crutches as her new mode of transport; meanwhile, I’ve transformed from Happy Bike Mom to Grumpy Car Mom. On these beautiful spring mornings and afternoons, it is torture for me to drive less than a mile to school, crossing the bike route twice each way. Of course, I am still able to ride my bike wherever I please while my daughter is in school all day, but it’s always more enjoyable to ride with a companion. Our rides to and from school each day gave me my bike fix even if I didn’t leave the house for the rest of the day.

Losing my bike buddy has made me quite jealous of my husband, who has been hitting the trails each weekend with two friends as they prepare for a 75-mile charity ride in October. One friend, B, is an experienced cyclist who is starting again after taking a few years off. The other friend, J, hadn’t ridden since his teenage years, but was inspired to join in after seeing my husband complete a 100-mile ride last spring with the same amount of experience and only three months of training. Despite the differences in their cycling abilities, the three men were enjoying their early morning rides together. This past weekend, however, their ride came to an abrupt halt when J’s pedal clipped a gatepost in passing, leaving him face down on the path with a broken nose and ribs. (Yes, he was wearing a helmet. Didn’t help much.) Doctor’s orders are no cycling for the next six weeks, but I hear J still plans to participate in the charity ride in October. Our friend J has always been a “Can Do” kinda guy. I’m not so sure I could be that brave after such a fall, and I’m hoping I never have to find out.

This weekend we will be making a quick trip to Ocean City, New Jersey, for the official opening (cleaning) of our family’s summer house. My husband and I will bring our bikes along to try to squeeze in a long overdue ride together to blow the dust out of our hair. Hopefully, I will be able to get a few photos of other people enjoying a leisurely bike ride, something that is nearly impossible here. Our daughter will be quite content watching everyone clean and giving her cousins lessons on the proper use of crutches.

Enjoy the weekend, and be sure to stop and smell the roses!

My fragrant trellis roses - no thorns, no pain!

My Folder Folly

Last spring I thought it might be a good idea to buy a secondhand bike for our daughter to leave at the shore house that my family shares in New Jersey. This would eliminate the heaviest bike from my car’s bike rack and reduce the time spent loading the bikes for each trip.

Memorial Day weekend is always the biggest weekend for yard sales at the Jersey Shore, so we decided to try to find a bike while we were there. There were a few signs posted around town that said simply, “Bikes for Sale” with an address below, so we headed in that direction. The small yard was full of “vintage” bikes in many sizes, most covered in rust, but none that were the right size for our daughter (24-inch wheels). Then I spotted a shiny, red folding bike that looked brand new.

The seller told us the bike had been bought new many years ago, but it had hardly been used at all. I remembered the rows of brightly colored Bromptons and Dahons in the bike shop where we had bought our bikes a few months earlier and thought maybe we had found a bargain after all. While the asking price was more than we had planned to spend on a used kid’s bike, this one could adjust to fit anyone in the house. My husband was skeptical, but I was convinced it was the perfect solution. Finally, he agreed to let me buy it, but only if I could get it for less than asking price (after seeing the overpriced rusty bikes). A ten dollar deduction sealed the deal, and the folded bike in its carry bag went into our trunk.

Back at the house, the man who wanted no part of that ridiculous looking bike (my husband) couldn’t wait to try it out. After adjusting the seat and handlebar, he disappeared down the street, and I have to admit that I was worried that the bike would fail its first test ride in some major way. But he returned in a few minutes, trying not to smile. “It’s fun. Goofy, but fun.” He reported that everything had worked fine, but the brakes were extremely stiff. Our daughter and her two cousins were anxious to try out the “new” bike, but we only allowed them to go a short distance and very slowly due to the brakes.

When we returned home after the weekend, I did some research on the mysterious “HON California” folding bike we had bought and discovered that it was an early Dahon. The company was forced to change its name because of a conflict with the Hon Company that made office furniture, so they added the “Da” from David, the founder’s first name, to Hon, his last name.

According to the serial number scratched into the frame at the fold and the number on the Sturmey-Archer hub, the bike was made in 1985.

I decided to take the bike to our bike shop for advice on the stiff brakes. The owner was helping another customer, but excused himself for a moment to quickly let me know that he believed I had a near mint condition “D-1” (if I remember correctly). When I told him how much I had paid for it, he said a collector would pay at least twice that amount just for its parts. He regretted to inform me that they will not do work of any kind on the bike, since they cannot get parts for it and would not risk breaking anything that they couldn’t replace. He also did not recommend folding bikes for children. Then he returned to his customer, leaving me with the nice young employee who seemed to hope I wouldn’t ask him any more questions about the bike. I left the shop a bit overwhelmed with the all the information, and also a bit disappointed that the bike wouldn’t be as useful as I had hoped. The obvious thing to do was to sell it, hopefully for a profit.

For the rest of the summer, we brought all of our bikes back and forth to the shore, while the folding bike stayed in its carry bag at home. I’ve finally decided to try to sell it on eBay, and maybe the profit will be enough to buy a secondhand bike for our daughter and a vintage mixte frame bike for me at one of this year’s yard sales. Who knows what folly I will find next time? (My husband is groaning right about now.)

Everybody's Gone Smurfin'

“Bigger is better” has never been my motto. I’ve always been drawn to the smaller things in life, from toys to animals to cars to houses. So I guess it was only natural that the Smurfs captured my imagination when I first saw the figurines in a novelty shop in a beach resort town. A bunch of tiny blue people living in toadstool houses was right up my alley. I was a young teenager then, but couldn’t resist buying a few to keep on my dresser or bookshelf.

During one of our last trips to our favorite beach resort town this past summer, my daughter and I discovered a small (of course) boutique-style toy shop. It appeared to be a lovely little shop, but I never made it past the Smurf display just inside the door. There was a huge selection of Smurfs, and no one was surprised at the one I chose:

My daughter chose Smurfette and Baby Smurf.

As we left the shop, I commented on their lovely blue color and realized it was the same shade as our bikes. So I decided to name my bike Smurfy, and my daughter named hers Smurfette. My husband’s bike is black, so we christened it Gargamel, although he refuses to call it anything but “my bike”. Sadly, it was too late to go back and buy a little Gargamel for him.

I hope I never get too old to enjoy the little things. And I certainly hope I never get bigger.

Just a little more:
Here's a West Coast Smurfette (who inspired me to blog about mine).
Here's a Smurf saddle cover on Etsy to protect your saddle from the sun.

Stretching the Summer

Another gorgeous weekend, another quick escape to our favorite beach town to cycle in the sun while it lasts. One reason we enjoy Ocean City so much is the newly created bike route that runs down the center of the long, narrow island in place of old railroad tracks. The bike route is a mix of shared road, segregated space between the road and sidewalk, and a separated bike/pedestrian path that runs alongside a bird sanctuary. The route begins at 9th Street and is marked by a sculpture of a racing cyclist, also the symbol of the bike route. (Strange choice, considering the route is mostly populated by families on beach cruisers and old beaters.) It ends at 34th Street, but you can continue your ride in the bike lane painted on the next street over and go all the way to 55th Street with very little interaction with cars. Ocean City was recently awarded an Honorable Mention in the Bicycle Friendly Communities competition by the League of American Bicyclists. Well deserved, I think.

Cruising the OC-1 from BIKE Lite on Vimeo.

It's a shore thing

My family has owned a vacation home at the New Jersey shore for more than 30 years, so I've been fortunate to have spent every summer in a beach resort town since I was a child. Soon after my father bought the house, he bought each of his three daughters a new three-speed bike. In this small town, it was as good as handing us the keys to a brand new car – what freedom we suddenly had! We could ride our bikes to the beach, the boardwalk, the shops “downtown”, or just go for a ride to cool off by creating a breeze when there wasn’t any. A few years later, we used our bikes to go to our summer jobs at the amusement pier and movie theaters on the boardwalk. Fast forward through drivers license, real jobs, marriage, child – the bike was sold somewhere along the way in “the great garage cleanout”. It wasn’t until this summer that I once again enjoyed the freedom that a bike gives you at a crowded beach resort – no need to drive around looking for a parking space; no returning to a ticket on your windshield because your meter ran out of time; no sweltering car interior after sitting in the sun. I traded all that for quiet rides on the bike path beside the bird sanctuary, morning rides on the boardwalk with views of the sparkling ocean, and family rides to breakfast at the tiny airport diner.
Riding to the airport (click to see planes upper left)

Wheel Watching from BIKE Lite on Vimeo.

Last weekend we decided to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather and drive to the New Jersey shore one last time (until next spring). Since it was only a day trip, we didn’t bring our bikes, but we made the most of our time by taking the scenic route along the coast from Atlantic City down to Cape May Point. Most of the resort towns were rather sleepy now that the tourists have left, but Cape May was full of bird-watchers since it is prime migration season, and Cape May is the biggest migration rest-stop for birds on the East Coast. The beautiful weather brought many people out on their bikes, and the racks along the beach were full.

I wonder if the owner of this pink bike stood out on the beach as much as her bike did in the rack.

I miss the shore already. Especially my flip flops.