Bakfietsy Balks

This morning, day 2 of my car-light challenge, and the first morning I was to attempt the school drop-off without a car since November, started out with Lena waking me up at 8:00.

"It's 8:00."

I opened my eyes and took in the scene: Lena and I both cozied under many layers of blankets (our house is generally at about 58°F in the morning), nursing our two smallest children. Our bigger children were nowhere to be seen. Why had they not waken us as they do every morning? [They were downstairs with the dvd player, being oh-so-sneaky].

The later-than-usual wake-up did not stop me from laying in bed for an extra 10 minutes, nor did it cause me to reconsider my plan to bike the kids to school. I quickly made the lunches while Lena cajoled Luke and Jaz into clothing, and we managed to get out the door sometime around 8:35 or so. Luke was being positively cooperative about the whole thing, but Jaz was not as understanding about my new plan.

"Why can't we just go in the car like everyone else?" he whined. "It's freezing out, and I don't want to be late, and I don't want to wear this hat!" [One key to success in cold-weather biking with the kids is that I make them wear these fabulous under-helmet balaclavas. Jaz, aka Mr. Image Conscious, recognizes that while they're entirely practical, the hats are not the most flattering].

I informed Jaz that I wasn't planning to drive them to school anymore, told him I was sorry that this upset him, assured him that he wouldn't be too late or too cold, and pointed out that he could take the hat off before he entered the school building. Still sulking, he did climb into the bak, where I wrapped him and Lukas in fleece blankets until they were both completely hidden (and giggling).

Our tardy departure meant that there wasn't time to feed the chickens before we left. So, just as I was trying to maneuver the loaded bakfiets through our fence, over slippery ground (the bakfiets does not agree with what icy-snow build-up remains in our driveway), we were swarmed by our flock of hungry hens. I had to very carefully get the bike through the gate without letting any chickens escape or dumping the kids. Our across-the-street neighbor was watching me struggle while scraping the ice off of her SUV. From her facial expression I guessed that she was thinking, "who are these people?!" I would definitely have been laughing at me if I had been watching from across the street. She called out, "you're brave!" as I rode off with my bundled cargo.

We got as far as the end of the street. Just when I was thinking that it actually felt perfectly fine to be biking at 20-something degrees, Bakfietsy Rose told me that she disagreed. I braked at the end of our street before merging with traffic, and when I released the rear brake, it didn't fully disengage. I rode a couple of blocks further, though it felt like the brake was still partially squeezing on the rear tire. I pulled over onto the sidewalk and tried to see what the issue was, but couldn't figure it out. My fiddling seemed to be making things worse. So I turned the bike around and slowly, slowly managed to get it back home (kind of like driving with the parking brake on . . . the bike would go, but it wasn't happy about it, and nor were my quads).

Hoping that perhaps the issue was that the brake was simply frozen in place, I left Bakfietsy in the sun, and--big sigh--drove the kids to school. They got there at 9:00. Shoot. And sure enough, by mid-day, the brake was working just fine again. Can any bakfietsing blog-readers chime in as to what I might do to prevent this from happening on cold mornings? Does it not ever get especially cold in the Netherlands? Would wrapping my bike in a blanket at night help? Any thoughts at all would be quite appreciated.

I did walk into town with Zeb and Leo for some social time at Cradle (I normally would have driven), and it was lovely (Zeb rode his like-a-bike the whole way, both ways), and I took the bike to pick Luke and Jaz up from school (leaving the littles at home with My Love). So the day wasn't a total loss. Still, I am really hoping that I will be able to bike even when it's below freezing outside. Otherwise, I will have to rethink my plan, since walking definitely takes a lot longer than biking.

Upon returning from school: a giddy Lukas, and a hiding Jaz
I have the kids sitting down in the bak, off of the bench
to help block the wind. It's quite cozy.