Dads on Wheels: Dan Reynolds, Empowering His Kids on Bikes

Image by Meli of Bikes And The City

Oscar, ready to roll Photos: Dan Reynolds

Family biking, near the best bike racks in the neighborhood

Photos: Dan Reynolds

Dan Reynolds and his family live in the North Panhandle and bike to their neighborhood school, Pacific Primary. Freedom From Training Wheels bike educators will love his son's reaction to riding free. Say hello to Dan, Oscar, and Ruby.

How early did your kids begin biking?
I have a 4-year-old boy (Oscar) and a 2-year-old girl (Ruby). Oscar went from tricycle to bike with training wheels before two. We took off his training wheels a few months before his fourth birthday. Oscar always enjoyed riding a bike; I never had to push him to do it. Now Ruby loves her “blue bike” (with training wheels), too. (Probably partly because she sees the rest of the family riding.)

How often do you ride with them?

We ride four or more days a week. Oscar and I always either ride bikes – he rides his own or rides on my trail-a-bike—or ride scooters to his school. We also usually ride somewhere for fun on the weekends.

What's the best thing about biking with your kids?

Seeing how much they enjoy it. Oscar learned how to balance on a razor (two-wheel scooter) because he never liked the scuut bike. We raised his training wheels a little and then just took them off. When Oscar experienced the feeling of riding without them, he gave me his biggest smile and said, “that was better than a new toy!” (Seriously. I’m not making that up.) I also think riding a bike is empowering to kids: they can’t drive a car, but they can ride a bike. It’s something that grown-ups do that they can also do themselves.

What makes a route or street OK for your kids to bike on?
I think all streets with cars are dangerous for kids. Less urban areas with fewer cars just give the illusion of safety. But you can still find a way to ride with kids safely. Because our kids are still so young, I pick routes that have separate bike paths or closed streets (the Panhandle to Golden Gate Park). We like to ride in Golden Gate Park, especially on Sundays when they close some streets to auto traffic. Oscar’s favorite ride is from our house in Nopa to the Academy of Sciences.

Is it harder getting kids ready for trips if you're traveling by bike?
Once you have a routine with the kids and bikes, it is just as easy as loading the car.

How often do you bike on your own?

In my pre-kid life, I competed in road and mountain bike races, but these days I just talk about my comeback. Two good rides a week is about normal now. I also use my bike to run errands. The great thing about living in the City is that you can get almost anywhere you want to go on a bike.

BIKE NOPA and Bikes And The City: every Tuesday, more Dads on Wheels.

For previous posts in the Dads on Wheels series, check here.

Dads and kids: spin through the North Panhandle and the Western Addition during the next Sunday Streets on September 19th, 10am to 3pm.

2 Adults, 2 Kids, 10 Bikes: A San Francisco Bicycling Family

Another retrieval from BIKE NOPA's early months: this post from September 2009. Last week I had the chance to chat with Sarah Crockett outside Pacific Primary School. I remember how much I enjoyed meeting her family and organizing with her NOPA's BIKE THE BLOCK party a year ago. Her family had a great biking-in-the-city story then; they still do.

Most days Sarah Crockett bikes her two-year-old son, Eben, to and from school.

It’s two of her favorite times of the day. “I love Eben on the front, we can talk and he signals with me. It’s really neat having him there with me; it’s part of the bike ride.” Sarah says Eben has taken to the ride every bit as much. “He loves getting on the bike; he calls it ‘our bike,’ and he rides in a “wee ride” front seat.” In between school trips, Sarah teaches at the Urban School.

Sandy Crockett commutes by bike for his job as an attorney with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District office in the Civic Center. “My first instinct is to go everywhere by bike,” he says. When they need to use the car, Sarah is the one to drive. She adds, “He resists driving so much that he refers to the car as “your car.”

Last school year Sandy and Sarah, with Eben in the front bike seat, accompanied their other son, five and a half year old Andrew, on his ride to Pacific Primary school in NOPA. He’s been riding his own bike since he was four. This year Andrew attends Friends School on Valencia Street, and the Crocketts have yet to settle on an easy way to bike there. “It’s significantly further away from home,” Sarah explains, “and the ride involves the Wiggle and dealing with Fell Street as well as more intersections and an uphill ride on the way back. Andrew is still riding his little one-speed so it’s a challenge.” For now, they take Andrew on Muni to get to school. But their oldest son loves biking and he’s now racing and doing bike tricks.

Bicycling defines the Crockett family, as much as any one pursuit reflects engaged, complicated lives in San Francisco. When Sandy and Sarah moved to San Francisco nine years ago, they looked for a home on a level street in a central neighborhood. And they searched by bike. “I drove across the country from Washington, D.C. for the move,” Sarah recalls. “Sandy was already here. I arrived on a Friday night, and Saturday morning we rode all over the city to find a place to live. Being on a bike and looking for a home that way made us think about what we needed.” They found their home in Cole Valley.

Sarah and Sandy mention that other parents sometimes question them about biking or riding with their young children. “We sometimes get off-hand comments like they wouldn’t want to do it because of safety or their kids are too lazy, but mostly we get lots of positive comments,” Sarah says. “Some people have a mindset that biking is a dangerous activity,” Sandy adds, “but I don’t worry about biking with the kids any more than I worry when we’re in a car on the freeway.”

The one place where Sarah worries about biking is the Panhandle Path, the relatively narrow, paved lane that becomes more risky when roadie cyclists use it for racing. “Riding with Andrew along the Panhandle has been the scariest thing,” Sarah says.

Although Sarah claims that Sandy is the more avid cyclist, he refers to her 1800 mile bike ride across West Africa in 1998 with three Peace Corp friends. She had mentioned that epic trip through Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Ghana earlier as a ride not much more remarkable than a vigorous spin to Ocean Beach. “It got me biking,” she explained.

And the ten bikes for the Crockett household? Sarah’s new Jamis Aurora touring bike, her old Bianchi mountain bike, and a “sleek little Miata road bike”; Sandy’s Univega road bike, an old mountain bike, and his unicycle; Andrew’s two tricycles,his one-speed and a trail-a-bike. Add Eben’s front bike seat and there’s eleven.

Look for Sarah and Sandy, Andrew and Eben this Sunday at NOPA’s BIKE THE BLOCK party. They’ll be sharing tips about travelling with kids and showing their trailers and front kid seat. Maybe Andrew will do a few bike tricks.

New Bike Racks Sprout in NOPA

All of a sudden new bike racks are appearing on NOPA streets. After three years of the injunction-induced bike parking drought, the ever-humble and practical inverted U's are blossoming like the plum tree outside Mojo Bicycle Cafe. From Fulton near Masonic and along Divisadero, we spotted seven new bike racks. NOPA received two of the first racks installed in the days after a partial lifting of the bike injunction, one at Pacific Primary School and another on Divisadero near Oak. Now with at least nine new racks, there's greater chance to stow your bike outside stores and cafes and homes without blocking sidewalks and without risking losing your wheels altogether.

Know of other new bike racks in NOPA? (The new ones have a city SFMTA message stenciled on the sidewalk to help position the installations). List others here in comments.

SF Chronicle Notes NOPA Bright Spot

John King wrote about the new school building across the street;

I like the old building too as a complement.

These beat the city's new inverted U bike locks any day.

The neighborhood's color spot, Pacific Primary School, has gained another admirer: John King, the San Francisco Chronicle's architecture critic. In his column "Cityscape" -- "a weekly look at a distinct slice of San Francisco" -- King hailed the school at Grove and Baker Streets as "Bright and Bold, Fun to Behold." He noted the color cubes "overlap with a depth that plays off the rhythm of the nearby Victorians."

King also touted the playfulness of the building including the new bicycle racks, previously reported here. But another comment in the brief piece caught my eye. King remarked that the light-hearted touch of color and form was especially welcome "in a neighborhood that can be grim." Too many Victorian and Edwardian buildings in NOPA? Not enough diversity in architecture? In response to our inquiry, King explained in a follow-up email that he was referring to the "occasional problems with crime" in the neighborhood. Fair enough and accurate too. NOPNA implements a vigorous neighborhood watch program to deter problems and to increase livability.

At the same time, we enjoy the attention to our bright spot.

Seen While Biking: Panhandle Mornings

Early morning rides on the Panhandle Path -- whether commuting or energizing -- find good company and bike fashion too! A family on their way from Cole Valley to Pacific Primary School and beyond. A dad with kids in a counter-commute stroll-and-ride. And who says you can't dress well while biking? NICE.

Doug Diboll: Tipping Toward the Positive in NOPA

Only once has Doug Diboll caught a tagger in the act. Nothing violent ensued, but he doubts the offender will return with spray can in hand. (Forget the tagger's technique, what was Doug's?)

You might say Doug works both sides of the "tipping point" theory to keep NOPA more livable. He paints over graffiti tags to ensure that the neighborhood doesn't decline into more serious disrepair and he keeps our streets free of grafitti to propel NOPA into a greater vitality.

NOPA streets look great without the tags; well, generally good at least. But a bit more breaking out of the streets-are-for-cars-only mode would make this area more cool than it's current rep has it. We've got the annual block party, the kids Halloween prowl, the farmer's market.

But when do we get to the next level? The re-designed blocks with bulb outs and play areas, mini parklands, block long garage sales every month, kids bike blocks once a week, tai chi corner, theatre-in-the-middle?

Doug helps keep the streets tagger-clean, ready for their reincarnations (that's my take, not necessarily his). He watches over his specific beat, the Fulton Street corridor between Masonic and Divisidero. (But he monitors nearby blocks as well). He's part of the city-wide Grafitti Watch program, and he stocks paint and graifitti remover at home. He's got the tag patrol specs down. He can point out the telephone company's switching boxes from the postal service relay boxes, he knows the specific color of paint for each public structure, and he knows what taggers like: big canvasses.

Private property with large blank exteriors get tagged frequently. Until 2005 the Dept. of Public Works abated grafitti on private property --providing matching paint -- but those days of city largesse have passed. Doug's advice to home or business owners whose buildings get tagged: be sure to use an exact, or very close, color match to paint over the tag and the sooner the better. "Tags tend to accumulate," he cautioned, "the faster you get them off the less chance more will follow."

Keep the tipping toward the positive: report grafitti to 311, either by calling or online. Volunteer for Grafitti Watch: one three-hour training is required to learn the best practices for removing tags. Tell the 311 operator that you're interested volunteering for the program. And say hello to Doug and thank him for his diligence and neighborly good will. He's often directing traffic outside Pacific Primary School in the mornings and afternoons.

A Bike Rack Here, Please

On the same day that the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition sponsored a "Bike to School Day," I spotted this little red bike slumped alongside a street sign at Baker and Grove, outside Pacific Primary. There's no bike rack to be found anywhere nearby for students or staff or neighbors.

There's a reason for the dearth of bike parking. For nearly three years, no bicycle improvements have been allowed in the city as an extraordinarily time-consuming environmental impact assessment was conducted by court order. Within weeks the court injunction is expected to be lifted, and then simple things with no environmental hazards like bike racks can be installed.

Neighborhood schools and all the rest of us can request bike parking at all the places frequented by cyclists. If you're not a cyclist (yet), consider how racks will minimize clutter of our sidewalks with bikes upright in a few places instead of slung around light poles and parking meters.

To get bike parking at your favorite stop in NOPA or anywhere in the city, call 415 585-BIKE or zip a request here. Provide the address, cross streets, and, if applicable, name of business.