Biking with kids

Today I was desperate to get out of the house and do something in the gorgeous weather, so I decided to try biking with my giant chariot stroller hitched up to the back of my bicycle.  We've had the stroller since last year, but the rules say that you can only put a kid in there (while attached to a bike) if they are over one year old, so this is the first season that both offspring can ride.

Things to keep in mind:

1. My children weigh 20 lbs and 37 lbs respectively.
2. Despite the appearance of a trim physique, my body is actually hiding fat very well and I am extremely out-of-shape.
3. I live in a deceptively hilly neighbourhood on the top of the Niagara escarpment.
4. Jadzia hates her helmet and spends most of the trip trying to liberate herself from it.
5. I hate excercise.  No, really.

My parents only live about a kilometre away, so I made that our destination.   My pipe dream when we bought the chariot was that I would bike everywhere, save a million dollars in gas, and become the fittest girl in the world.  As I began my journey I was thinking: this is easy...I'm always going to use my bike to go to Mom's house, and the library, and maybe some farther places too.  Then I hit my first hill.

I then noticed a design flaw in the road system.  Every stop sign and curb is followed immediately by a steep hill.  Once the bike gets going, I can pull 57 pounds of children plus 20 lbs of stroller fairly easily.  Getting going is the tough part.  Getting going up a hill is next to impossible.  The stroller does its darnedest to drag me backward while I huff and I puff and I creep up the hill at the break-neck speed of one inch an hour.  But exercise is the name of the game so I only gave up and walked the whole contaption up the hill twice, the rest of the time I charged ahead.  Super woman, was I.

By the end my legs were jello, my lungs were on fire, and my heart was threatening attack.  Luckily the ride back was slightly more downhill.  I was right about one thing; much more of this and I will definitely become the fittest girl in the world.  But is it worth it?