The Daily Hailey

In my mornings of research, I’ve been keeping an eye on a number of websites in hopes of finding bikes for Brady and I. Dekker has been begging to go for bike rides already, and we figured it was time we all got bikes so we could go as a group. Just about everything is more fun as a group 🙂

A couple of days ago, I finally found a bike that met Brady’s request. He had an idea in his head, and it appeared to not be the popular thing, because it was nowhere to be found, at least not without spending waaay too much money! He and I both wanted a cruiser bike, but that was particularly hard to find in mens bikes. But I found it! Finally! It was within our price range as well, so we decided to go out this morning and see if we could get Brady a bike, and myself as well.

Canadian Tire was the place, and I’m just going to say it right now. It had SO many bikes, but was SO poorly let up that I didn’t really know how to even start to look at them! Inside, there were tons of bikes, stacked at least three bikes high on the walls. You couldn’t really get a good look at anything up there, and it was all too full and messy and narrow to push a cart through. There was a line of bikes directly beyond he entrance door, so you couldn’t actually stand there and look without getting in the way of other customers trying to enter the store. There was a single line of bikes outside that we could actually look at, so we had to have an employee paged before we could finally pull out the bike we had come for so Brady could try it. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the option to switch gears, and the gear it was permanently set in was too high to bike slowly with little kids in tow. When we asked the employee if there were more mens cruiser bikes, he told us to go look on the wall inside. He was very uninterested in us and entirely unhelpful, so we left.

It was disappointing, but we decided to check Walmart next. They had some options online as well. Nothing as cool looking as the one at Canadian Tire, but still, options. And that was where we found Brady’s awesome new bike!!! He found a really great looking red mens cruiser. I just about opted for the ladies version of the same bike, but my mind was back at Canadian Tire on an entirely different bike. Rather than going back to where we had started, we went to a different location in hopes of finding a but more assistance. And we did!!! We managed to get me a beautiful new off-white and purple cruiser, as well as an adorable Solly-sized helmet.

But that was about where the success stopped. For the next 3+ hours, we tried to make sense of how we’d take everyone out for a bike ride. Firstly, Dekker has a bike that he can ride pretty well. But there are three others. We could get a bike trailer, and one extra seat on one of our bikes. Or two seats and a trailer. Three seats would be a hoot but probably not the smartest move. We don’t know! Everywhere we look is pretty expensive. The bike seats we’ve managed to find are on nice sales, which is great, but the trailers are just so pricey :/ We can do it, but we’d so much rather not. Guys, we looked everywhere. Today, we went into Walmart, three different Canadian Tire locations, Costco, and PBR Auctions. We called Peavy Mart and Once Upon a Child. I looked online at more sport stores but everything was even more expensive there. Kijiji had a few options but the ads I responded to didn’t write me back. We really tried, and in the end, we came home with two new beautiful bikes, a helmet, and no way to actually take the kids biking.

I’m somewhat disappointed, I won’t lie, but now my research will just shift, and I’ll keep my eyes open for trailers or seats or whatever else. As you guys all know, I’m not AT ALL opposed to second hand items, so feel free to give me a shout out if you see an amazing deal that you yourself aren’t snatching up! It’ll happen soon, I’m sure 🙂 Garage sale day is coming soon! I want to have our own garage sale, but at the same time, I’d rather be shopping. Priorities…