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| > The Devils Gear Bike Shop " 433 Chapel St. New Haven, CT " 203.773.9288 > Commuter of the Month > Febuary Commuters of the Month |
Febuary Commuters of the Month
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The Armstrong/Crumlish Family
1. The Armstrong & Crumlish Family: Finn, Sam, Caleb, Peter, & Sara
2. Our friends like to call us "The Crumstrongs" or "The Armlishes."
3. We have a stable of bikes. We invested in bikes so we could remain a one-car family of five. We own two incredible cargo bikes: A Dutch Bakfiets (box bike) and an Xtracycle Radish. Peter also rides a 1968 Rudge Roadster that his father used to cycle around on in Greenwich Village back in the day. Each of the boys has his own bike: Caleb & Sam have Trek Mountain Cubs that our brother-in-law garbage-picked from his NJ suburb and refit for them and Finn has a great balance bike (or push bike-- no pedals) by Smart Gear.
4. Sam named his bike "Rex." Caleb's is "Cubby." We jokingly called the Bakfiets "Johann Sebastian Bachfiets" but mostly just refer to it as the "Baks." We simply call the Xtracycle "The Xtra" or "The Radish."
5. We try and use bikes whenever we possibly can. We discovered cargo bikes when trying to find a car-free commuting solution to get from East Rock to The Cold Spring School in Fair Haven, just about two miles away. Sara started working at Cold Spring a year and a half ago and the older boys entered kindergarten there at the start of the 2008-2009 school year. It was too far to walk but it just seemed too short of a distance to justify driving. In October of 2008, a friend suggested that we look into Bakfiets/Bakfietsen. We had never heard of these Dutch-built cargo bikes and suddenly became obsessed, learning everything we could about family bike commuting and cargo bikes. In February 2009, our Bakfiets arrived and it opened a whole new world up for us. We now bike commute the four-mile roundtrip to school/work whenever we possibly can and also cycle to shop for groceries, to bring the guys to music lessons, to church, and out for 'date night' (whenever that happens).
6. We are quite a spectacle when we are out on our cargo bikes and often have wonderful interactions with people that we would never have if we were traveling by car. Sometimes we hear honking behind us and it can get our ire up, thinking that we have an impatient or vexed driver coming up the rear. However, we've discovered that often it is someone we know just wanting to wave at us or an interested person wanting to learn more about our bikes. We also have become intrigued with seeing just how much cargo we can load on our bikes and constantly try and out-do our last trip. Certainly a bike highlight this year was when we managed to pull off getting our Christmas tree by bike.
7. Neither Peter nor Sara was a big cyclist before we discovered family biking so the best bike tip we can share is simply that it is possible to be a family and be bike commuters. We are very conscientious about the fact that we travel with 'precious cargo,' our children, when out on our cargo bikes so we always obey the rules of the road. We stop at red lights, we signal turns, we hug the right except when it is appropriate and safer to take the lane, we use blinking lights at night, etc. We also try to remember that traveling by bike is always faster than walking so not to be tempted to break traffic laws to get where we are going a little sooner.
8. It has been really fun to become a part of New Haven's ever-growing bike riding population. We appreciate the city that much more now that we are constantly interacting more intensely with the community around us, talking more with neighbors, and having great times with our boys. We like the exercise and our significantly-lessened amount we spend on gas. It has also been wonderful to watch the explosion of family bike commuters as they tell their stories across the web and to see the growing choices families interested in bike commuting have. Check out converting your bike to an Xtra. Check out US-built Madsen cargo bikes. The more families cycling, the safer it is for all of us.
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Turning people into riders...
and riders into cyclists.
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