Many thanks to the 90 readers who sent photos of city life and car-free transportation with children, and also to the 639 of you who voted. We are happy to announce the two winners of a free Breezer bike.
This picture of Dave Cowan's daughter, Isabelle, ran away with 259 votes -- an impressive 41 percent of the total.
Dave's friend Danielle Anderson took the picture, but the credit for Isabelle's precocious riding skills goes to Dave, a Safe Routes to School advocate in Denver, Colorado. He says Isabelle started riding at a young age on the back his Surly Big Dummy longtail, and then on a bakfiets when her little sister was born. In fact, Dave and his wife, Sarah -- who doesn't even consider herself a bicyclist -- biked Isabelle to daycare and then to the hospital to deliver Isabelle's sister, since it happened to be Bike to School Day!
As for Isabelle, she moved to a strider at two years old and now at almost four she can ride her own pedal bike sans training wheels, Dave boasts. She just learned about a month ago, and she's getting into practicing on different surfaces -- hence the concentration when facing that puddle!
"As an advocate for bicycling, I (and by default, I suppose we) really believe that bicycling can change the world," Dave says, "and I hope my daughters, if they learn anything from me, learn that."
Isabelle has been so excited about the photo contest that she's been asking to ride to daycare -- more than a mile. And in celebration of both their contest win and Walk to School Day, they'll let her do it this Wednesday -- "with many a precaution in place!"
Doug Gordon of Brooklyn Spoke is our second winner. His photo of a woman and child riding an Onderwater tandem to school in Park Slope got 165 votes, for 26 percent of the total.
Doug says he sees this pair riding almost every morning on Fifth Avenue when he's dropping his own 3-year-old daughter off at school. On the morning he snapped this picture, Doug's daughter saw the bike first and yelled out, "Papa, look at that bike! It's like Amsterdam!" If only all U.S. toddlers knew the ins and outs of Dutch bicycle varieties -- she's still talking about all the different kinds of bikes they saw on a family trip to the Netherlands last year.
"While it's not uncommon to see parents biking with their kids each morning, bikes like this one are somewhat rare," Doug says. He sees the bike as a metaphor for the relationship between a parent and child. "I love that it seems to allow a simultaneous freedom for the young boy and sense of supervision for the mother, perched so that she can see the road ahead. In many ways, the pull between those two desires -- independence for your kids and a fear of letting them go -- is a struggle all parents experience every day."
Congratulations to Doug and Dave! They'll each get this Downtown EX bicycle from Breezer for their fantastic submissions.
