Guus Bosman

For our trip to Sprookjeswonderland I bicycled from Middenmeer to Enkhuizen and back, a gorgeous trip that took me through the heart of West-Friesland.

Tonight Nora bicycled for the first time without her training wheels and it went great! We are very proud.

On the photo you can still see the training wheels, but they are all the way up and not helping her at all.

We went to the screening of Why We Cycle today, a lovely Dutch movie about the hidden beneficial effects of bicycling. After the film I was part of a panel discussion.

The screening was in the Northeast library in Capitol Hill. We arrived just in time, and found good seats on the front row. There was coffee, stroopwafels and Christmas cookies to all five of us where happy (I think the kids had three cookies each).

It was a beautiful film, very well made. It was fun to hear the interviews in Dutch, the kids picked up on it too. At one point we saw twin boys in a bakfiets -- they looked very much like Leo and Adrian!

The panel was fun too. Other folks on the panel where Katherine W. who lived in The Hague for two years, Jeremiah Lowery, Advocacy Director at WABA and Alan Page, an attorney and artist from DC.

The screening was organized by Greg Matlesky and underwritten by The Daily Rider and Friends of the Northeast Library (thank you).

The kids were very well behaved. They patiently sat through the one hour movie, and even the beginning of the panel after which Sasha took them to roam around the library. Once we were in the car (!) to go home, Adrian fell asleep right away. Everyone's a little under the weather it seems.

The road I bicycle to work on, Quincy, was re-striped last week. The new striping pattern is an improvement over what it was before, in particular where parking was taken away. Slow but steady progress.

The new bike lane on Quincy was made even better today when planters were placed along it.

Pretty exciting, and since I took Fairfax Dr home today I didn't see them until a fellow bicyclist tweeted about them. After the kids were in bed I went to check it out.

Looks like a good improvement.

My afternoon appointment was in downtown Manhattan, about 50 minutes by bicycle from our mid-town office.

It was a little intimidating at first, but it was a lot of fun to see the new infrastructure along Broadway. Long stretches of that street have nice, bike-friendly intersections and clear bike lanes. Closer to downtown things become more chaotic -- there were a lot of cars parked where protected bike lanes could be built. But that's the Dutchman in my talking -- the American in me is quite impressed with what has been achieved so far.

Using the Citibike was interesting too. In the beginning the saddle was a little wobbly but I managed to tighten it up. New York is nice and flat so that helped.

My trip took 52 minutes, cost $6 and was 6.5 miles.

This week Quincy a part of is being repaved and it's getting a real protected bikelane, very cool.

I took this route to and from the office, just to try it out. It's probably a little longer than my normal route but it's just so cool to take a real bikelane.

Right after I got home I took the kids on a ride in the bakfiets. The weather has been great these few days, and we didn't really need jackets.

We went to Whole Foods, where the kids did not find cheese to taste but they were well behaved and it was just a fun trip.

We came back from our trip last night -- beautiful warm weather -- right into a snowy cold day. Nora's school is closed today.

During the winter break I had the gear cables from my bicycle replaced, since the old ones had water in them and froze up during cold days. That worked nicely today -- it was quite cold but the gears worked well (though I still need to tweak them slightly). The new standard worked well too, I haven't used my new coffee holder yet that Sasha gave me for my birthday.

I took the kids for a short bike ride after dinner. It was dark and drizzling but we're well equipped for that.