biking

over the past couple of months, ava and daddy have finally gotten their biking act in order. first, we had to surmount a series of technical obstacles - beginning with the choice of the a baby bike seat. john begin with a canadian contraption called the bike tutor. the bike tutor seat turned out to be an absolute headache to install, and demonically difficult to uninstall. ava never even got old enough to give this seat a try - when a friend needed to borrow the bike, john got so fed up trying to get the seat off, that he tossed it in the trash.

next up was the ibert. this little seat is indeed easy to install - the issue here is that it's relatively wide and tends to get in the way of the adult rider's knees. thus began the quest for the perfect bike to host the ibert. first john tried the ibert on all four (just don't ask) of his existing bikes. no dice. next, based on everything he had learned, he set out to purchase a suitable bike. even this took him two tries.

once all that was sorted out, we were left with the one final challenge : ava. who liked the whole idea of biking, but hated her helmet - even though john had wisely chosen one covered with ducks. we're actually not quite sure what happened, but one day she just woke up thinking her "duck hat" was great. so, at long last, ava and john are able to enjoy their sunday afternoon tours of the park.

okay, okay, maybe she's a little young . . . but doesn't she look cute? strangely, the only store that seems to carry the classic kettler trike in san francisco, is an extremely pretentious high-end bike store, in an extremely pretentious high-end neighbourhood (the marina). while we waited for Ava's trike to be assembled we listened to the owner discuss his professional racing days of yore, and the merits of paying $8000 for a 17.5 lbs mountain bike. fortunately, we were attended to by the other bike sales person, who happened to have 4 month old twins and was very excited for the day when they too could have kettler trikes.

for those not familiar, the kettler trike is sort of a combo trike / stroller. it comes with a detachable push handle, and the ability to lock the steering, and stop the pedals from spinning. it also has a little harness to keep little bums firmly in the little seat. the first time we put Ava on her trike (as we were leaving the store) she was obsessed with sticking her hands in the tires. upon return from thunder bay though, she seems to have gotten the idea, and mostly looks up and holds on to the handles.