Pedalfest 2016

This past Saturday we spent the day at Oakland's Jack London Square for our favorite annual bike festival, Pedalfest. We watched BMX riders do amazing stunts, we helped provide pedal power to the pedal powered stage, we rode around on crazy bikes, the girls decorated their bikes with ribbons and stickers, we ate tasty food, and the girls took part in the kids' bike rodeo to learn bike safety skills.

Jack's Night Market

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Jack London Square. All opinions are my own.

Summer is almost upon us. 

The kids only have a few more weeks left at school, the weather is starting to warm up, and the fun Summer events have started.

A few Fridays back the girls and I celebrated the imminent arrival of Summer at the first of many fun Summer events at Oakland's Jack London Square. Jack's Night Market is a fun monthly event held at Oakland's premier waterfront location over Summer. A mix of local artisan vendors, tasty food, music and quirky entertainment, Jack's Night Market has something for everyone. 

 

52 Weeks: Week 49

Week 49: Jack London Square Tree Lighting

I'm a little behind with my weekly post so this one is almost two weeks old. Oops!

A few Fridays back the girls and I got into the Christmas spirit by attending the annual Christmas tree lighting festivities at Oakland's Jack London Square.

We arrived a little late thanks to BART delays leaving us waiting on the platform for quite some time in Berkeley, but the girls enjoyed the night even though we missed the official "lights on" moment.

Pedalfest 2015

A few weekends back we attended Pedalfest, one of our favorite local festivals.

Pedalfest, held at Oakland's waterfront Jack London Square, is a day full of bike related fun. We watched BMX riders do tricks, made pedal powered smoothies and art, decorated our bikes, took part in a parade, learned bike safety skills, powered a stage with our pedaling, rode crazy bikes, and took in the atmosphere of the festival.

First up Ava and Lola took part in the kids' parade. We've always missed out on this in the past so the girls were pretty excited to join in. They decorated their bikes with ribbons, stickers and pipe cleaners courtesy of Oaklandish and then followed El Arbol the Bike Tree, through the festival.

Pedalfest 2014

It has been another busy weekend for our family.

Not one, but two of our favourite local festivals were held this weekend. The 4th annual Pedalfest was held in Oakland on Saturday and the Berkeley Kite Festival was held on both Saturday and Sunday.

We started our weekend by spending the day at Pedalfest. In past years we've gone on a nice long family bike ride to Jack London Square where Pedalfest is held. This year that proved a little tricky with Mathilde too young to ride on the cargo bike. Instead Kim and the big girls rode on the cargo bike while Mathilde and I took Bart and walked the rest of the way. It pretty much took the same amount of time and we arrived within minutes of each other. Perfect!

Pedalfest 2013

Time for a little break from the Canada trip posts - trust me, there are loads more to come!

Before we headed off on our trip to Canada we enjoyed a day of two (and three and four...) wheeled fun at Pedalfest in Oakland's Jack London Square. We had taken the girls to Pedalfest last year and they absolutely loved it so we knew that they'd be keen to go back. 

We jumped on our bikes and set off on the 11km ride from our place in Berkeley. This was the first time I'd ridden the bike in months (I didn't ride while I was pregnant) so I was a little worried that I'd be out of breath half way into the ride. I'm pleased to say that I made it there and back with no problem - although of course, I did make Kim ride the big bike with both girls on the back while I rode on my own!

Our first stop at Pedalfest was to check out the crazy handmade up-cycled bikes. Some of these we'd seen at last year's Pedalfest, some we'd seen at Maker Faire and some were completely new to us. The girls loved riding on what we called the "Bomb Bike". The girls and I sat on the bomb part of the bike which swung around as we took corners. They also rode the bomb bike with Kim. You can hear Lola's reaction to the back swinging around in the Vine clip below. 

Riding the bomb bike

Pedalfest 2012

This last weekend was a busy one for us here in Berkeley. On Saturday we attended the annual bike festival Pedalfest at Jack London Square in Oakland and on Sunday we went to our first family baseball game, also in Oakland. It was an Oakland weekend all round!

More about the baseball later, let's have a look at Pedalfest...

I bike Oakland