Sunday, June 6, 2010

Feits of Parenthood and Teddy Bears' Picnic

Pedalpalooza is coming.  Pedalpalooza is coming!  Pedalpalooza!  Is coming!  And family cycling will be making a showing.

There are LOTS of events (like, pushing 300) planned for this 2.5 week festival of bikey goodness, starting this Thursday.  But we're associated with two.

FIRST: Feits of Parenthood.  A week from yesterday, at Clever Cycles (SE 9th & Hawthorne).  Here, the fabulous Sarah Gilbert describes the event:

To ride a bike with your children is this: a continuous unfolding of joy and a workout like no other. Nowhere does creativity and ingenuity and the soaring free spirit of the bicycle combine with such (literal) blood, sweat and tears. Fiets of Parenthood is a celebration of that: part time trial, part demonstration of skill, part showoff, part hilarity.
There will be a family bike obstacle course inspired by Julian's genius thread over at Totcycle.  There will be kindercross and parent-child figure cycling.  I'll be talking with a couple of other mamas at a workshop on cycling while pregnant.  There will be SolPops and Trailhead Coffee and snacks from Madison's Grill.  Crafts.  Bike decorating.  An opportunity to fondle a whole array of family biking setups.  Should be fun!

SECOND: The very next day, Sunday the 13th, Dave and Jasper and I will be leading a low-key family ride starting at the Abernathy School playground at 12:30.  The theme is Teddy Bears' Picnic, and we'll have a crew of stuffed friends along for the ride.  We'll stop at a few parks and playgrounds, do some picnicing and playing, and generally have a silly good time.

If you're in Portland and ride with young kids, we hope to see you!  If you don't ride with your family yet but want to know how it's done, or if you don't have kids yet but plan to ride with them when you do, we hope you'll come out!  If you'd like a low-stress way to introduce your family to riding together, you should come join us!  And if you're child-free and love it, but want to hang out with a bunch of parents and kids on bikes (because we're awesome, and kids on bikes are adorable) we'll see you there!

For the whole Pedalpalooza calendar, see here: Pedalpalooza 2010 Calendar

5 comments:

jjfantastic said...

oh! this weekend is going to be so so so busy, but i'll try to make it to both the fiets and the teddy bear ride. my mom is going to be racing in the dragon boat festival so it will all depend on her race times. but hopefully we'll see you there! - jj+milo+calvin

PDX Loves Signing said...

We're stuck doing family and legal nonsense that weekend, but we shall have to do it next year. Because it'll be an annual event, right? Right?

Heather said...

I had coffee with the fabulous Sarah Gilbert and two of her boys today! She's a neighbor and new friend. You're going to have oh so much fun. :)

Anonymous said...

Oooh,
I wish we could be there! I love bikey silliness...but alas, Salinas is here and youse guys is there...
Jude

sara said...

I so wanted to be in Portland this w/e for this event! Did think of you all while pedaling along with our other family bikey friends... Did go to Flickr & see lots of photos, including some of you!