Centennial Park

Date: Sat 30 May
Distance:        12km
Time: n/a
Max Speed: n/a
Av Speed: n/a
Centennial Park car free days

MobileMe Photos from our day
The rain held off all day so we took advantage of the car free day at Centennial Park and all took our bikes to ride. I got Kaelie a pedal bike during the week and a tow bar called a Tail Gator. It’s like a tag along but you attach the kids bike to the bar and off you go. It took a while to set it up and unfortunately it’s not going to fit on my bike as I’ve got the Topeak bag attached and both won’t fit on my bike stem. So Graeme had the pleasure.

I did fall off the bike again and it really shook me. I was riding behind the others and these two dogs ran across the road and one went one side of me and the other stopped in front of me and I hit him and all I could think of was no my arm, my arm, my arm! The owner of the dog unsympathetically said “you alright” I said yes and he said ‘it is a leash free area’ and walked off. I was dumfounded. How was it that I was made to feel that this was my fault? A women walking past with her dog (leashed I might add) asked if I were ok and said “outrageous”. When I finally caught up with the others and told them G. said that the dogs ran in front of Tam too and he had to skid to miss them.
The kids did really well. Tam did 2 loops which is 8km and Kaelie did one whole lap by herself and one attached to the back of Graeme which she loved. All I could hear following is Kaelie’s incessant chatting and the occasional “stop putting your breaks on Mikaela!” from Graeme. We told Kaelie she’d ridden 6km, she loved it.

We stopped and had a coffee while the kids played in a very wet and muddy park and then rode again and stopped at the restaurant and had some lunch after which the kids went off to play while Graeme and I sat, drank coffee and chatted watching them from a distance. I’m really glad we did it, I love doing something active together as a family. It makes me feel that doing things like this is a really strengthens the family bond.

When we got back to the car, G. swapped over his pedals and I put on his shoes to trip out the bike cleats. I was very very anxious. It took a while to get them in and off I went, I did a loop clipping and unclipping them. It certainly felt good to ride with them, but I’m still concerned with the being stuck to the bike feeling. I’ve made the decision it will not happen before our trip and I’ll rethink it when we get home.