Biker Baby

A while back Jeremy and I bought a bike trailer at a mega yard sale with the thought that we would one day go on family bike rides. It's been sitting in our storage closet while we waited until Evelyn was old enough to ride in it and could get her a helmet. No matter how many people tell me that if an accident occurred that was bad enough to hurt the baby in a bike trailer a helmet wouldn't do any good anyway, I still insist on a helmet. Besides, one of these days she won't be riding in the bike trailer and it's good to have the habit already in place.

Last Thursday Jeremy and I finally got the chance to put the bike trailer to the test. Earlier in the week I had gone to the Cascade Bicycle Club office to get Evelyn a helmet. They sell them for only $10 and fit them. We got the smallest helmet they had, and even with the thickest pads in it was still a little loose. They assured me it was "stable" and that she would grow into it. Compared to most kids her age, Evelyn has a pretty small head. It's about in the 10th percentile which means 90% of children her age have larger heads. I suppose I should actually be grateful for her smaller head. But it does make it a bit challenging to get a proper fit in headgear.

Nonetheless, we got the helmet. Evelyn was a pretty good sport through the whole process of fitting. Once she got used to the idea of having the helmet on her head she wanted to continuously put it on and take it off herself. We finally convince her that it needed to stay on. Then we got her strapped into the bike trailer and off we went.

Deciding on a route was a bit of a challenge. We didn't want to do a lot of riding on streets with a lot of traffic, or a lot of hills which limited our options quite a bit. We ultimately chose to ride along the Burke Gilman Trail from Kenmore to Matthews Beach Park - about 4 miles. That worked out to be just about right for our out-of-shape bodies.

Evelyn seemed to enjoy the ride. She spent most of it sucking her thumb, but every once in a while we'd hear a little giggle from the back. Because the helmet was a little large, the seat would push it forward and it creeped down over her eyes forcing us to stop a few times to re-adjust it. On the ride back, Evelyn actually fell asleep which was quite surprising considering how bumpy the trail was and the fact that she had no real support or anything to lean against, so she was just kind of slumped over with the helmet covering her eyes. All that was visible from under the helmet was her thumb that was stuck in her mouth.

This picture I got at the beginning of the ride, so you can actually see more of her face beneath the helmet!