how many times can i say the word bike in this entry? (lots of times.)

So now that Cal can ride a two-wheeler (mostly) without falling over, and Joe passed his stress test with flying colors (see: the myocarditis scare of 2009), we decided that we should all get bikes! And we can be the family that bikes together! On bikes! Also...BIKES!

This is the bike that I ordered:

I was going to get an old bike off Craig's List but then I noticed that this bike was basically the same price and also I didn't have to go pick it up at someone's house, which seems like a good way to get shanked. It is a very basic bike--I think it's only one speed, and it has a foot break instead of a hand break which basically means that it's for oldsters riding along the boardwalk in olden days Coney Island--but I do not need a fancy bike, as my ability to ride a bike is marginal anyway.

SOMEWHAT RELATED STORY FROM THE PAST: Joe and I went to Hawaii, oh, about nine months before Cal was born (ahem), and one of the activities we signed up for on this trip was a downhill bike ride down Waimea Canyon. It was a ridiculously easy ride, since they actually drove us up to the top of the mountain--we only had to bike downhill, which means that you barely had to pedal at all. But still, there was a minimal bike skills competency screening, meaning the morning of the bike tour you had to show up at the tour place and prove to the guides that you could bike in a circle around the parking lot without falling over. I barely made it through this screening process. They made me take one more circuit around the lot than everyone else because I was wobbling so much all over the place and they made sure as hell that I signed that release stipulating that I wouldn't sue them if I died. But anyway, spoiler alert...I lived! No, that's not just my reanimated corpse administering anesthesia to your grandfather by day and searching for tasty human brains at night! And the bikes they provided us for this downhill canyon tour were almost identical to the one I just bought, which I guess doesn't really prove much of anything expect maybe that it's the cheapest non-child bike on the market.

Anyway, that's my bike. Joe got a somewhat nicer bike, partially because he actually cares about the bike that he's riding and also partially because he's going to be the one with the baby seat strapped to the back, so there's slightly more invested in his choice of carriage and the fact that it will not fall apart. But who knows, maybe by this weekend (depending on how fast they arrive and how fast Joe can assemble them--the latter of which will probably be the rate-limiting step) we may be biking through the park en famille like that "Do Re Mi" number in The Sound of Music. Only in this version Maria loses control and runs over Mother Superior, who is not amused.