Broken cars and utility cycling...

The kids are off to school today! The kids are off to school today!

The bad news is that I have to drive them because there's no bus (we're too close to the school) and there's no sidewalk (not safe for grade schoolers to walk/bike). The good news is that their drop-off time is about the same as their bus pickup time was last year (same wakeup/rollout time), and it's early enough that I can drop them off, drive home, and still bike to work on schedule!!

So it seems we've been having some car trouble lately. A window that wouldn't stay up in one car, and then on the other, the trunk latch broke. Aside from the financial annoyance such odd repairs entail, they did provide a unique opportunity for my bike to be useful.

Fortunately for us, we live quite near a Saturn / Cadillac dealer. Since both of these odd breakages involve parts that are hard for our trusty non-dealer repair guy to acquire, I took both cars there for repairs on different dates. But I didn't want to drag the whole family out at the crack of dawn to drive two cars over there so I could get back, and then have them drive me to work and all that.

Simple solution: We (nearly) always keep the bike rack on the back of the wagon, just in case, so I just threw the bike on there, geared up, and drove myself to the Saturn dealer. Once there, I checked in the car, unracked the bike, helmeted up and rode on to work. Easy as pie!

The Buick delivery was a bit trickier. The bike won't fit in the trunk, and the leather is to nice to back-seat it. So I ended up leaving the front fork hanging out the back of the trunk - which wouldn't latch shut anyway. Some bungees kept the trunk lid mostly under control, but it still smacked down on my poor bike a few times as I rode. Fortunately it was a short drive, and there was no significant damage to the bike. Again, this morning, I simply pulled the bike out of the trunk, geared up and rode off. I'll swing by that way on my way home to pick the car up, and we'll be all done with that.... until the next repair.

I did get some odd looks from the mechanics. Oh well. I can do most of the maintenance on my bike, and the bike shop guys are cheaper than the car shop guys.

A pleasant side effect of this drop-off/pick-up is that I had an excuse to take the "downtown" route to work this morning. More traffic, but very nice scenery (lots of really big, old trees and nice, nice houses!) and fairly smooth, clean streets. I may use this as my new "short" route, as it is nearly as short as my "straight line" route but keeps me away from the scrap metal recycling plant.

In other utility news, the new shortcut to the neighborhood Meijer should be open today. I'm net-shopping for a good "grocery bag" (open top) pannier to augment my regular commute bag (an Arkel Bug - awesome!). I want something that folds, is sturdy, and that I can just toss things into semi-randomly. Like a milk jug or some fresh bread and meat. My current fave is the Banjo Brothers Grocery Pannier, or maybe their Market Pannier. We'll see. I'm trying to decide whether I like the lid or not.