a new bike's in town

While riding home from work, hours later than I have these past weeks, I was trying to wrap my head around the idea that my summer really IS over.  Feeling a bit of melancholy, I decided to take a different route, one somewhat longer than my usual ride, but that did not have me go right through the center of downtown. It was rush hour and the Yale campus is burgeoning with newly-arriving students, and I just didn't feel like riding with that much traffic as I was far more in a 'moseying' mood.

The later hour and the different route combined for a wonderful moment of serendipity as I pulled up to a red light, only to look across the street to see the most wonderful sight-- a gorgeous red cargo trike complete with adorable young passenger!  The cyclist turned and headed north before my light turned green so in a moment of enthusiasm-- and I guess, a bit of cargo bike craziness--  I decided to forget riding home and followed the trike.

I ended up calling out to the rider who looked at me and responded, "Sara?"  It turned out to be a friend- of-a-friend-of-a-friend with whom I had some email exchanges about cargo bikes and then a quick impromptu meet-up at a Saturday's farmer market.  R had headed down to Rolling Orange in Brooklyn where  he had a grand time test riding their many cargo bikes and ended up purchasing the floor model of this incredible trike, a De Fietsfabriek FF 16.

If only I had a real camera with me I would have loved to capture this beauty in all of her glory. However for a first glimpse, you can see what my very un-hip 'dumb' (as opposed to a smart phone!) cellphone caught:

Stay tuned though because I do plan to find out LOTS more about this new addition to New Haven's ever-growing cargo bike population.

And I'll leave you with a far better image of the trike....

photo credit: http://www.defietsfabriek.nl/nl/nl/147/model_am/21/ff_16

Ride, Families, Ride!