Guus Bosman

While we were making breakfast, Leo asked: "buiten?" and then Sasha: "вънка? кара колело?" and I asked him: "wat wil je buiten doen?" "Fiets!".

We gave Leo his balance bike yesterday and he's very enthusiastic about it. After breakfast he want outside again, going on the bike. That's quite different from how I remember my childhood, haha.

Adrian has more my sense of adventure:

"Adrian, wil je ook fietsen?"
"Nee fietsen, au! Vallen! Leo wel. Nora wel."

Right after the bicycle arrived I left on a trip to California but now I finally fully assembled the bike. It's a Workcycles Kruisframe, a sturdier version of the classic Omafiets.

It's great to have a coaster break again (terugtraprem). Coaster breaks are not popular in the USA, but that's the type of break I've had on my bike for 24 years. My previous bike had hand breaks -- which makes it much harder to bicycle with only 1 hand.

This morning Nora and I went to Whole Foods on the bike and we both enjoyed it a lot. I don't have a crate on the front carrier yet so I temporarily used an Ikea plastic footstool to hold our shopping bag. I made it up on our big hill on 13th street, even with Nora and the groceries, so that's great.

I'm very happy with the bike.

My new bicycle arrived today! I put the big components together tonight but didn't have much time because I'm leaving to California tomorrow. Nora helped.

Two weeks ago I went to a bicycle store on H Street to take a second look at a bicycle that I had seen there. Jaap was there also and it was nice to get his advice. Nora looked around at everything and I had her sit on the Dutch bike for a little bit.

The bike we looked at was an Oma bicycle from Gazelle. It was a 51 cm frame -- too small for me -- but already felt awesome. So much nicer than the leaned-over style of riding. The largest Oma frame Gazelle has is 57 cm which is still a little too short for my 6'2 length, so ultimately I decided not to get a Gazelle. I found a store in Amsterdam that builds great bicycles and ships to the United States for a reasonable cost. So in two months or so I'll see the new bike appear

I've been bicycling to work every day after I came back from paternity leave and it feels great. My regular commute is short enough so I don't get too warm and it uses safe and easy roads. It's about 1.1 miles.

The conference this week was in a hotel near the Capitol, which is 6.5 miles from our house. I loved bicycling! And I felt great. On Tuesday my knee felt a little weird so I took the Metro instead but that was probably just from the wrong position on the bike and the rest of the week I didn't notice anything. I did feel a little guilty about my running -- I haven't ran at all last week -- but then again 13 miles a day is good exercise also.

The infrastructure in D.C. is getting nicer every year. I positively loved the bicycle lanes on Pennsylvania Avenue. They are protected from traffic and provide a great connection from the Capitol to the White House. It's also very symbolic that one of the best known streets in the United States now has bike lanes. Near Union Station they built a wonderful bicycle track on a street that I rode in 2006 when I said: "On my way back it was really cool to approach Union Station from the north, although traffic was pretty crazy there". Clearly, that has now dramatically improved.

When I got home today, my bicycle's parking spot had been taken.

Today I completed a project that had been pending for a few weeks. When Jaap was here I installed mudguards on my bicycle but not yet the bicycle rack.

It took a few tries and a visit to the store but it looks great now. I bought a pannier bag as well. This way I can do shopping on the bike more easily. I've done it many times before but since I had to carry the bag on my steering wheel I couldn't carry much.

Jaap and I just got back from a morning ride along the Potomac. We took the Capital Crescent trail to the Maryland border and back, about 75 minutes. It was nice to ride out when it was still fresh -- on our way back the temperature was rising already.

We had planned to take the Chain Bridge back to Virginia, but I took a wrong turn and we decided to just go back the way we came. From the riverside we saw the spot where we were swimming a week ago.

On Monday I brought our car for repair -- some cosmetic damage -- so the past few days I've been bicycling to work.

My own bike wasn't ready yet so I've used the nice BikeShare system for a few days. It works great. I can pick up my pick around the corner from our apartment building, bicycle for 13 minutes and then park it right near my work in Ballston.

Tonight I picked up my bike from the repair shop, so tomorrow I'll use my own bike to get to work.