In association with Tern Bicycles
Hannah enlists her friend Celia on a mission to re-enact a favourite book from her childhood. Luckily, Celia is indefatigable.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who stare at me blankly when I say the words ‘Each Peach Pear Plum’ to them – and others who gleefully recite “I spy Tom Thumb!” or “I spy Baby Bunting!” as they know this favourite children’s book by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. Luckily, the first group of people can generally be awoken from their confusion by the suggestion ‘Fancy riding bikes to a picnic?’. Anyone still staring blankly at me by this point probably shouldn’t be friends with me.
Let there be pie…
One person to be relied upon to enter enthusiastically into any creative endeavour is Celia. A multi-talented plate-spinner, she has come to my rescue on many an ill-thought-through plan. She has added skill to my vision, for example, that time when I decided to build myself a bed out of pallets. No, they don’t just pop apart like YouTube suggests. And getting things straight is both difficult and important. I hoped that this ‘Each Peach Pear Plum’ idea would prove less splinter-inflicting and more grin-inducing. The plan seemed simple: load up bikes with picnic equipment and children, re-enact the I-Spy book of my childhood, and finish with a grand finale of eating a plum pie in the sun with friends…
A flurry of fancy dress ideas, plans for floating a ‘baby bunting’ down a stream, finding a small dog to ride in a basket, and other such fantasies were tempered as we realised that guaranteeing sun while also rounding up children and adults on bikes was challenge enough. Luckily, the opportunity to try out a Tern Orox meant that many cats could be herded into one basket: here was a bike that would carry children and a picnic over the wood (I spy Robin Hood), up a hill (I spy Jack and Jill) – and hopefully not into a ditch (…I spy the Wicked Witch). Apparently, an Orox is a type of large extinct cow – though in this case, it’s a Bosch-powered belt-driven Rohloff-geared cargo bike with fat-bike tyres. I can’t help but think that a better name for an innovative multi-purpose multi-tasking work-hard play-hard bike like this would be a ‘Celia’.
One of Celia’s greatest talents is baking, making the sourcing of an appropriately photogenic plum pie for the final picnic scene of the book suitably simple. The lure of Baked Goods By Celia™ is always useful when wanting to coax humans into some organised activity. By some miracle, the sun was shining on our chosen day, and we loaded up the bikes ready to tackle a nice mixed surface loop that would deliver views, some opportunities for procuring additional picnic supplies, and a good appetite for a hilltop gathering in the sun.
Raccoon wrangling
While I may have a fertile imagination when it comes to recreating children’s books featuring fairy-tale characters, I am not a total fantasist. Any pie made with my pastry might be solid enough to withstand a wrecking ball (perhaps I should have baked a bed?), but Celia’s pastry is melt-in-the-mouth flakey. I carefully transported it by cargo bike to my house, for safe keeping and collection en route, after the bumpy off-road stuff was out of the way. In its place, we strapped a shop-bought chocolate cake to the front rack. We wouldn’t turn our noses up at eating it if it made it around the route, but equally, we wouldn’t cry if it bounced off and into a ditch along the way. As well as the stunt cake on the rack, into the panniers we packed beer, Buck’s fizz, cups, cutlery, crisps, Jammie Dodgers, party rings… and a token box of vegetable crudités. (Celia is an eternal optimist, as well as committed to the idea of meals containing all the right food groups. My standards are more lax.) Picnic blankets strapped to the fork, all we needed now was a supply of children and riders, and we would be off.
Did the school bell ring, or was that an ominous toll? The first signs appeared that this ride might not be the fairy tale of my imagination. My teenager retired to bed, too ill to ride. Instead, husband Kevin dropped everything in order to join us and make up the numbers. With me on an ebike, he hauled up the hill to Celia’s behind me on his full suspension bike, an unscheduled afternoon of max heart rate efforts ahead of him. Our friend Rick was already there, on ‘The Raccoon’ – an ancient Orange P7 with a raccoon-shaped tool bag strapped to a rear rack. Celia was loading Tilda (5) and Benji (3) onto the Orox, and Celia’s partner Anthony (46) wheeled out his hardtail, fitted with a front ‘ShotGun’ child seat, just in case sibling rivalry required physical separation. Unfortunately, he had a flat.
The pressure started to mount. While the Orox could transport everything that we required to our picnic spot, not everyone had an Orox. This meant that while we were taking the long way round to the picnic, others would be making their way there on paved roads – and the clock was ticking. If we didn’t get our skates on, the others would not be having a picnic – merely sitting in a field. We pressed on, leaving Anthony behind to catch up later.
I spy, I spy, I spy
Our first fairy tale ‘I spy’ would be Robin Hood – in our case, a fine local pub. But Tilda and Benji were busy I-spy-ing from the moment we were rolling along. Sheep, a miniature well, some swings, trees… you name it, it could be spied. And it could be sung about. Tilda regaled us with a medley of songs, ranging from ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ to the self-penned ‘This Bike Is Brilliant’. Rick had a go at joining in between breaths. Kevin paused hopefully as we passed the pub, but we pushed on, looking forward to leaving the road and traffic behind. As we hauled our way up another stiff climb, things got weird. Two giant multicoloured creatures, possibly dogs, overlooked our route. It was hard to tell whether this stood out as especially unusual to Tilda and Benji, or whether such sights were no more remarkable than all the other things you can see from the back of a bike. Foxgloves! Sheep! Oooh, this bike has lights, Mummy! More sheep!
In my experience, one of the great under-advertised joys of riding a bike with a kid on the back is the chat. There’s the running commentary of things spotted or the stream of questions about things spotted. ‘I saw a cat! I think I would like to be a cat one day. Cats lick themselves clean. What do cats taste like? I taste like cheese.’ Even as my babies have grown into teenagers, the back of a bike has continued to be the source of good chat. Maybe it’s the fresh air and freedom, the trust the passenger is putting in the pilot, or just the lack of eye contact, but it’s one place where the words seem to flow in place of the usual grunts. Many a meaningful chat has been had as I hauled a teenager around on a cargo bike.
It is hard to imagine Tilda and Benji growing up into young adults like my own kids. Tilda especially is at that peak stage of awe and wonder. Everything is interesting, and everything is possible. Celia fields an improbable stream of questions so it’s just as well she has e-assist to help keep the show on the (steep) road while answering them all. In an abrupt switch of focus, Tilda abandons natural history questions to declare: “A witch! A witch! There’s a witch in the woods!” I make appropriate cackling noises as I lurk in the undergrowth taking photos, at which point Tilda urges Celia to go faster to escape the witch. Rick and Kevin try to make faces like they’re enjoying themselves as they work to keep up.
How now brown poo?
Finally, we’re up at the top of the hill. Apparently being a passenger is hungry work, so we have a snack stop. Rick produces two boiled eggs that he’s carefully decorated as self-portraits. Anthony manages to catch up, so finally we’re all together. With the descent ahead, Tilda gets into some trousers to stop her being chilled, and Benji gets switched to the front of Anthony’s bike to help keep the sibling vibes high. We take a look at the stunt cake, and it’s holding together just fine. In fact, we’ve managed to haul everything up and down some very steep trails without anything – or anyone – bouncing out. Impressive. The trickiest thing is navigating the gates – with the Orox up on the kickstand, you need the kids to sit nice and still while you get off the bike to open the gate. Getting kids to sit still while the world around them is worthy of pointing at with great enthusiasm can be tricky. We work our way through a field of cows with calves – another chance to point enthusiastically.
I confess to Celia that I’m feeling a bit stressed about our schedule, and the fact that we have to get to where we’re going before people get sick of sitting in a field. Tilda tells me – in a voice that is too sweet for me to argue with – “Don’t be stressed!” then sails off down the bumpy descent in a series of whoops and singsong cries of ‘Bump, bump, bumpity bump’. Kevin follows, finding kickers (jump, jumpity jump?). Maybe it’s the effect of an endlessly positive five-year-old, or perhaps it’s just riding bikes, but it’s certainly hard to stay gloomy when the sun is out and you’re surrounded by views.
Despite the fact that we are already loaded up with picnic food, a stop at our local Honesty Box is too good to resist. Tilda’s ice cream radar tingles. Even I, as a somewhat jaded adult, can’t deny that finding a freezer full of ice cream in a hut far off the beaten track is the stuff of fairy tales. Perfectly timed to temper the mood, Benji farts. He is at that stage of toilet training where every day (and certainly every fart) remains loaded with risk. There is a quick calculation of whether he’s eaten enough food since the last poo for there to be a risk of another. It strikes me that our education system should be doing more to prepare us for this sort of thing: ‘Benji is two. In the morning, he weighs 6kg. During the day, he does a massive poo, eats four Baby Bels, one plum, and three Weetabix. At 4pm he weighs 6.1kg. What is the current probable volume of poo contained within Benji?’
The times they are a-Tern-ing
Between the threatening farts and a flurry of ‘where are you’ WhatsApp messages from our prospective picnicking pals, we decide we’d better press on. Rick peels off for home – he’s needed in the kitchen. Kevin also sprints ahead, hoping to pack in a couple of quick work emails before pie eating begins. I begin to have visions of the final ‘I spy… everyone!’ being a sad ‘I spy… no one!’. The prospect of a lonely pie upon a picnic blanket has me stressing again, and Celia is also concerned that her friends have been waiting so long that they are about to leave. She leaves me for dust, easily pedalling up another 25% incline with both kids on the back as I peel off to collect the precious pie from my house and gingerly proceed up the road, every seam in the tarmac threatening to split its beautiful crust.
I make it over speed bumps, and even a few cobbles, to our picnic spot. As well as the Orox, there are another couple of less off-road capable Tern longtails, plus a gravel bike towing a trailer. Such a collection of child-carrying bikes would have been almost unthinkable not so long ago. Indeed, it’s only a decade since I was towing my kids around in a trailer, pretty much the only person in our steep-sided valley doing so. Back then, I twiddled my way up the hills in easy gears, at a pace that would make group rides frustrating. Now, with e-assist, anyone can load up children (and adults) with relative ease. On the Orox, Celia was leading the way on the group ride, not tarrying at the back. It’s an advance in technology that can open up a world of fun and family activity options, as well as green transport. OK, it’s not the open road (or singletrack) of carefree hours of pedalling that many of us (and Celia) might crave, but being able to take the kids with you on your outdoor adventures is certainly preferable to being stuck at home waiting for the opportunity to get out alone. Life with kids is full of logistics – herding all your cats onto one Orox is one way to add some simplification, of a sort.
Pie safely delivered, I attempted a final spot of cat herding to recreate the final scene from the book: a plum pie in the sun, with everyone hiding, and then everyone leaping out. Again, my friends were divided into two groups: those who enthusiastically hid, knowing why – and those who wandered bemused into the bushes. It is a measure of how tolerant my friends are that they all followed my request without much debate, despite the fact that at this point the sun gave up on the day, leaving us all on top of a hill in an increasingly cool breeze. The only other fly in the ointment was the distraction as Celia and I unpacked the panniers – did we really have all that on the bike? And two kids? And picnic blankets? Impressive! Ushered away from the food and into the bushes, plum pie (not in the sun, by this point) was quickly photographed before everyone descended. Celia’s pie was a triumph – no surprises there.
I hope you have a CeliaI may have bitten off more than I could chew (once again) when it came to the concept, but Celia had (once again) delivered the goods and saved the day. We packed the remains of the picnic (including, I suspect, all the vegetable crudités), and rolled down the hill discussing the merits of the Orox, to further musical accompaniment from Tilda. I was reminded of that great bike-themed children’s book, Mrs Armitage on Wheels (“What this bike needs, Brakespear, is…”), while Celia ventured that the Orox would definitely lend itself a recreation of ‘Room on the Broom’. Whether it’s friends that give you the impetus to try that scary trail feature or indulge your sillier ideas, we all need someone who’ll bounce along with us. I hope you have a Celia.
Uncomplicated and incredibly versatile, Quick Haul Long is a compact cargo bike for families on the go. It’s similar in length to a regular bike for easy maneuvering past traffic queues, but built extra tough to safely carry 2 kids or your biggest Costco hauls. And best of all, it’s a funner, freer way to get around for you and your family without putting strain on the environment.
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