TerraTrike and DoggieRide

So we finally saved enough money to get me a bike for the 3rd time in 4 years mind you. First it was a road bike, then it was a cruiser and now it's the recumbent. Seriously, all I want to do is bike! I have two issues (only two?) that prevent me from using an upright bike. One: I have one half of my hips (yes they flex... how do you think women make babies appear?) that is tilted, which means when I sit, I sit on one "sit" bone more than the other. Two: shoulder injury, any push up position or normal bike position makes for a burning shoulder. I know this is hard to imagine without much descriptions and hand gestures so we'll just say hips = off kilter, shoulders = on fire. What that means for biking is only one butt bone is on the seat, that blogger world is bad for any sort of long riding, even short ridding gets miserable. So with this new found hip knowledge I thought, Eureka!! I'll sell this road bike and get a cruiser with a giant foam butt pad! That's exactly what I did, I bought a grannie, vintage, cruiser, upright, sunday driving kinda bike. I made sure the one requirement of 4" thick foam was in place, the only problem you ask? No shocks. What I mean by no shocks is simply, every teeny tiny bump in the road came straight though the bike frame and into my sit bones. I began to pull my hair out with frustration at this point. Mean while Jacob is out riding, because he didn't have hip issues... jerk. :o) After I sold the second bike, serious research was needed. Maybe, I thought.... I can't ride in a standard position (this girl needed to ride side saddle if you feel me?)

Viola, recumbent! Too bad the price tag isn't Viola, it's Cha-Ching! Ok so we had to save up for one. After much research I wanted not only a recumbent but a trike. YES they make trikes for big kids too! Intro the TerraTrike. We decided to get Jacob's first, since he bikes to work daily. As funny as all of this trial and error was for me. I think Jacob started feeling left out, so his shoulders started to give him pain when riding his triathlon bike. Well why don't we both get butt bikes (my affectionate term for recumbents)!!

I finally got mine in August, Jacob's had his since October of 2009. We opted to get a doggie trailer, so we can go on long bike rides and when our mutt gets tired of running we can tow her. We'd like to do the Trail  of the Coeur d'Alenes bike path, since it rides along water and mountain but the dog can't run that far so we got the trailer. On a side note, that trailer has even proved useful in hauling stuff, I caned about 15 pints of beans for my mom and used it to bring them over to her.

Here's Kai (mutts) first ride in the DoggieRide. Sorry about the wind noise, it can't be helped when biking. She keeps yawning because she's nervous, dog's yawn a lot when they are nervous. Kai got used to it fairly quickly, we're going slow because of the motion factor we don't want her to get sick.