Ground Transportation

When we moved to Salish Aire we kept two means of ground transportation, our Volkswagen TDI diesel Sportwagen (up to 45 mpg!) and my 400 cc scooter.  The scooter spent the winter in our storage locker and I knew it needed a going through which would likely require about $1500 in parts and a garage to work in.  It seemed like maybe it was time to let it go after 7 years and about 25000 miles.

That left us with one vehicle.  This system works well about 95% of the time as Clarice works from home most days.  On the days she is off work and wants to do errands or needs to make a run in to her real office it can be a bit of a hassle.

We have had nice full size bicycles on the boat but our marina doesn't let us store them on the dock next to the boat and I didn't feel comfortable leaving them in the bike racks near the very busy parking lot which meant that they had to be lifted with the crane up to/from the top deck every time we wanted to use them.  Seeing how I a) work up at the top of a very steep hill from the marina, and b) don't include much time in the morning for things like getting a bike off of the roof, I just wasn't riding.

We finally broke down and bought electric assist folding bicycles.  They are the first ones we have found that are sturdy enough that my large size is stable on them.  So far we are finding them a lot of fun and I can get to work in the same door to door time as with the car (I can park the bike in my office rather than a block away as I had to with the car).  The electric assist makes it fun to ride and I don't smell like I came from the gym when I get to work and yet requires enough effort from me that I am getting significant exercise.

The only problem so far occurred a couple of days ago when I had Jarvis in a basket on the front of the bike.  He does really well there IF he is tired.  In this case I hadn't run him enough and he decided to exit the basket while we were in motion going down a hill.  Long story short is that I had my first experience going directly over the handlebars and my chin ended up with road rash.  Outcome: Bike - bell handle broken and minor scratches, dog - "gee that was fun Dad, can we do it again!", me - very sore hand and bloody chin.