Tour de Parks 2012

Last year, the We Go By Bike crew (my/Katie's family, and Fabi's family) participated for the first time in the Hillsboro Tour de Parks. Here in our suburb of Portland, Oregon, the local county bike non-profit (Washington County BTC, a worthy group) plans a family cycling event to coincide with a day-long downtown Farmers' Market extravaganza. As you can read in my description from last year, the event is free with suggested donation, and you can choose to ride with your two-wheeler-ready kiddo around two parks, a quick toodle around town through six parks, or a double-digit mileage (about 15 miles) by seeing TEN parks!  After zipping too quickly with our small passengers through six parks last year, we decided for this year that cruising ten different parks was the way to go.
But wait, what's this! With the Tour de Parks cycling event not commencing until early afternoon, our family decided to do a little local berrypicking by bike first. We'd scoped out a nearby family farm (around 5-6 miles away) with "u-pick" blueberries at a good price, and weighed our longtail cargo bikes down with buckets to arrive just a hair after morning opening hours.  In no time at all, we had 35 pounds (!!!) of blueberries! Home by bike.

With berries safely stowed in the fridge, we scarfed down some sustenance and zipped a couple miles to Downtown Hillsboro to meet up with the other half of We Go By Bike (Fabi's family: Fabi, Gabe, and kiddos Dani and Matthew) and be ready to hit Tour de Parks. And we're off!

For this event, Fabi chose to ride her Brompton folding bike, the inaugural trip with the homemade kid seat supporter that Andy fabricated for Dani so that she could join her Mommy on the Brommie.

Our whole group at 53rd Avenue Park: (from left) Dani on Fabi's bike, Matthew on Gabe's bike, Alton on Andy's bike, and me (Katie!) on the far right.

Once the ride was over, we hit that downtown market celebration and got Alton a gigantic chocolate ice cream cone in the sweltering heat. Below, he communicates, "Can you just stop taking pictures and let me eat my ice cream now?"