Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Oops there goes the baby

I have a new found respect for Danish parents.  Not the ones with cars.  The ones on bikes.  With a baby on the handle bars, and one in the back,  and sometimes hovering over an older one trying out there new bike legs.  It's pretty dangerous out there. The other day I was sitting on the patio reading a book when I heard a bang followed by a few short seconds of silence and then one piercing scream.  I looked up and some Danish Dad had stopped on his bike and his bike fell over, onto with side walk....with his toddler buckled into the back seat...Poor kid, I thought...  poor Dad too

Well, when Trevor was here he borrowed one of my co-worker's husband's bikes.  The bike  has a kid seat on the back of it where Trevor likes to buckle in his laptop and it's a men's bike which means the pole near your crotch goes straight across instead of bending down for your skirt (?).  Well since Trevor left I still have this extra bike outside and since I unfortunately popped the tire on my lady bike and had yet to get it fixed at this point, I decided to lower the seat and take the Daddy bike to work.  It's a nice bike.  Very smooth gears and a light frame. The frame is slightly too big for me.  I found myself stretching too far forward to try to reach the handle bars.   But yu can go pretty fast, pretty easily.  Especially downhill.  So on morning I'm cruising over the bridge into the city.  I have my backpack buckled in to the kid's seat.  I'm headed downhill. The lights green....yellow....break... red .... screech....stopping, I lean over to the right to put my foot on the curb only there is no curb and the bike frame is just tall enough that I can barely touch the floor on my tippy toes without leaning a little... I lean a little...whoops too much.. try to get my left leg up and over the bar  to save myself ..nope ...too high, not flexible enough right now...going down...fast...Crash!  Baby down!

Thank goodness, there were no babies involved and thank goodness I didn't take out the lady in front of me.  She just turned and gasped......Nothing to see here, folks!  But now I know how tricky it can be toting around extra heavy weight in the back.  I had a hard time handling an immobile bag let alone a heavy wobbling, squiggly screaming baby in the back seat.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to bike in Alaska with Bridget in the toddler seat and Nancy in a backpack on my back. Maybe I am part Danish!

Anonymous said...

speaking of toting extra heavy weight in the back, i think i'll go for a run...

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