Xtracycle Friends and Family: The Prospect Family

A note from Xtracycle: We love our community and we hope, by now, you know that nothing brings us more joy than to watch our riders lives transform. Our reaction is constant awe at the love, ingenuity, and edgerunning nature of Xtracycle riders all over the world. Our goal is to inspire you as well and that is where our new blog series begins, Xtracycle Friends and Family. We aspire to bring you stories from our community all across the world and share their stories. This week, we share the story of our friends from Toronto, The Prospect Family. They are a 3 kid family that uses our EdgeRunner 10e along with a host of other bikes to get their family around on 2 wheels. I’ll let them tell you in their own words and introduce their family in their own unique way:

Nice to meet you, we’re the Prospects! We are a family of five living in the east end of Toronto, Canada. We are firm believers of two things: 1) that happiness is a result of small incremental gains, and 2) that you can achieve these gains by asking questions and answering them through independent thinking. One question we asked ourselves was, “why do we drive everywhere?” A simple question that turned out to have a simple answer, but it took many conversations to get to this answer. Ultimately, this led us to pursue cargo biking as a family and to get rid of our car (but keep our van).

While not popular yet, we are starting to see more cargo bikes in Toronto. With more bike lanes added each year and more families frustrated with driving, we think that Toronto is ripe for cargo bikes. Since we get heaps of smiles and questions as we ride around the city, we thought that a blog will help answer some questions. We will be documenting our journey as we become a bona fide cargo biking family: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Since taking the plunge, we’ve been so happy, and often in unexpected ways. Everyone should feel this way. We hope you will join us one day.

The Characters

  • Mr.Prospect: tends to overdo things, obsessive about the hourly weather, your A/V crew.
  • Mrs.Prospect: voice of reason, packer of snacks, whisperer of children.
  • The Peacemaker (5 years old): avoids conflicts, actually lives the motto “dance like no one’s watching, sing like no one’s listening”.
  • The Light Switch (3 years old): when he’s on, it’s a party; when he’s off, watch out! Currently really into bathroom humour.
  • The Forgotten One (9 months old): we’re ashamed to admit he was once (or twice) accidentally left unattended for (short!) periods. He retaliates by demanding attention at ungodly hours.

The Fleet

The EdgeRunner

  • The Edgy: Xtracycle Edgerunner 10E with two Yepp child seats and a “Hoopie”.
  • The Bullitt: by Harry vs Larry, with a canopy covered pod and one Yepp child seat.
  • The Focus: our adult solo commuter bike.
  • The Frog: hot pink, cool bike, with handbrakes and fenders that The Peacemaker loves.
  • The Anchor: a small Norco bike we picked up for free that weighs about the same as a cargo bike.
  • The Balancer: a balance bike that we also picked up for free.
  • The Scooter: gotta start somewhere.

Stay tuned for more awesome stories as part of our Friends and Family series!

We know that you have a story to tell as well and we’d love to hear it! Share your stories below and let’s inspire together!

For more from The Prospects, visit http://www.prospectquery.com/