Yesterday, I managed to ride to work and back, including a stop to pick up Anna on the way home. On Tuesday, I brought the bicycle trailer, my clothes, and Anna’s helmet to work and left them all in my cube. Wednesday morning, I rode to work. Although I felt like I was riding sort of slow, I ended up five minutes faster than normal. The way home was more challenging. I rode over to M.’s and picked up Anna. At first she was excited, and she didn’t even complain when I stood up to climb the first hill–a 10% grade. We then rode less than a mile before complaints of “I’m not comfortable!” and “I can’t see!” erupted from the rear. After a short stop her helmet was adjusted. The middle part of the ride is, thankfully, downhill, and few complaints were heard. When I came to the dreaded hill on Carmel Mountain road, we had to stop for:

• helmet adjustment
• an ambulance passing by
• helmet adjustment
• general reassurance
• helmet adjustment

This does not make for an easy climb. Finally, on the home stretch we only needed to stop a couple times, but the poor condition of the bike lane made for a somewhat worrisome ride.

In the end, it took nearly an hour to ride home, but I proved it can be done. Next time I believe I’ll have to trade out the snacks and books for the DVD player. We’ll see how many complaints I get then.