The Humphreys Family appeared on CBC's The National, July 31st and on CBC's "Vicious Cycle" website. Anthony Humphreys, an I BIke TO blogger, shows the nation how he and his wife have been slowly indoctrinating their two young girls into despising gas-powered vehicles and making them believe that they can get everything done on pedal-power.
CBC puts them to the test in the segment bombarding them with some amazingly complex and difficult tasks such as getting all their groceries for a week; carting a kid's bike on a trailer to the gas station to check the tire pressure (because God knows, no cyclist would ever dare keep their own pump); and biking to the lake in their finery for a photo shoot.
I say it is just a fluke that they managed to complete all these tasks. There's no way they could repeat it.
Comments
AnnieD
Congrats
Fri, 08/01/2008 - 20:01Anthony, to you and your family! Way to set a good example. Hopefully you'll have convinced a few more. Love those "challenges"!
anthony
Too Tough to get me dressed up
Sat, 08/02/2008 - 02:33Getting me into a suit was the hardest challenge. The fact that I was able to put something together that both fit me and looked good really was a fluke. Decades later I'm still rebeling against my private school daze when I had to wear a noose (neck tie) and wool slacks and dress shoes everyday to all of my classes and meals. Jeans and a jacket -- no problem; but I hate wearing slacks, ties and dress shoes. I was lucky I hadn't thrown them all out as I still find I need to wear them for the high holidays, weddings, funerals, and CBC News challenges.
And, it was pointed out to me that I need a bike themed tie.
Dragging a bike to the gas station was weird because I do own a decent pump. I had to re-inflate the tire when I got home because I had to depress the valve too far in to the rim to get the gas station pump to work at all.
As you saw, getting groceries by bike was least of our challenges as we already do this almost every week.
This segment has sparked some discussions within in some familes, as you can see in the comments at Take The Lane's coverage of this, which is great.
Many people have called or emailed us (or commented) with their congrats and other nice comments, so a big "Thank You!" to all of you from all of us.
It was fun working with the CBC crew that was assigned to us, they treated us well, and we did our best for them. They seemed to like working with us, too. I'm happy with the segment .
But Herb's commentary about how we are "indoctrinating" our girls into "despising gas-powered vehicles" is a wee bit over the top (that is our mini-van behind us in the picture). But it's all meant in fun and jest. ;-)
Todd Tyrtle (not verified)
Fantastic!
Sun, 08/03/2008 - 07:58Fun segment. I like that they didn't seem to play up the "Wow look how weird these people are!" idea too much.
The challenge for me, that I'm sure that others here (and obviously you, Anthony) have already figured out is cycling with kids. I do a bit on the road with my 9yo now but find it incredibly stressful. This could be as much about my own worries than anything that actually needs to be done differently. So for the most part we stick to the off-road paths.