Happy 16th Birthday, Ian

Sixteen years ago, a pink crying blobby thing splashed into the world.

Now, he’s a five-foot-ten young man who’s getting really strong at cycling and is doing well with school. He’s our Ian.

It’s Friday today, and Tammy and I had to work, but Tammy got up early to make a birthday breakfast for us before work. She made French toast, sausages and fruit and then woke Ian up with an air horn. 😂

That was followed by opening cards from Stephanie, Baba and Grandpa and Grandpa Biickert as well as presents.

Ian had a few “IOU” presents:

• The Purdy’s store in Market Mall was inexplicably closed (permanently?) when the kids were there having their bikes stolen, so we couldn’t get him the chocolate bars that he wanted.
• He wants a 2023 Tour de Victoria cycling jersey, but they’re not for sale yet

Tammy and I were off to work. Miranda was put in charge of putting the finishing touches on Ian’s birthday cake, and she and Ian farted around watching videos online. They had a Skype call with Baba and Grandpa around 10 o’clock.

TLDR: the kids got new bikes today. We went down to Bow Cycle at three and were home again by six with two new bikes.

Over the course of the last couple of days, I’d started a dialogue with Daniel at Bow Cycle about getting new bikes for the kids. One way to look at this is that it’s a terrible loss and a cost to replace their bikes. Another way to look at this is:

• Miranda’s bike was a 10 year old hand-me-down that didn’t fit her right, and wasn’t quite the right kind of bike for the commuting she’s doing to Abbeys and (soon) to the University.
• Ian’s bike was a medium and he’s grown so much in the last three years that it didn’t really fit him any more. Plus, he’s been sniffing around for a gravel bike because of FOMO for the BCC Gravel Party on Thursday nights.

Miranda has been riding the purple bike to work for a couple of days and not enjoying it. She thought she might like a flat bar, but when she had to ride into the wind on day two on the way home, she was not thrilled. She wanted a drop bar to tuck down and couldn’t. She wanted something with fatter tires to soak up the bumps and with attachment points for fenders and perhaps a pannier rack. Originally the thought was to replace Ian’s Fire Mountain with a large version of the same bike, but when the suggestion was made that maybe a gravel bike would be a better fit, that seemed obvious.

So it became evident that both kids were heading in the same direction: Miranda going from a road bike towards a gravel bike, and Ian from a mountain bike to a gravel bike.

Daniel had some suggestions. Ian and Miranda got to test ride a bunch of bikes but in the end the bikes that the kids chose were the same ones that we’d researched before going to Bow. The tested bikes:

• Ian: Kona Rove
• Ian: Specialized Diverge E5
• Ian and Miranda: Cannondale Topstone 3
• Miranda: Kona Rove AL 700

The experience was great. The kids got to try the bikes and form their own decisions. There was even a great gravel alley with a hill that Ian could try the bikes on to see if they were good on more than pavement. Miranda settled on the Kona Rove AL 700 right away. Her ride on the Cannondale was barely a block before she turned back because she didn’t like it. Ian was a bit more choosy. The Specialized and Cannondale were more familiar (more like his Cube Attain road bike) but the Rove was the one that felt the best off road. It’s main functions will be winter commuting on studded tires and BCC gravel rides.

We also bought some good bike locks.

We arrived home just in time to say hi to Grandpa on FaceTime, and Stephanie, Zach and Tristan called between dinner and dessert. Dinner was barons with corn on the cob and yam fries, and the cake was a Ding Dong cake.

All in all it was a good day. The weather tomorrow’s supposed to be better. Maybe we’ll have a chance to take Ian’s new bike on the Coulee trail. Sunday is the Banff to Lake Louise ride.