A Tisket, A Tasket, A New Bike Because of a Basket?

Since I was a kid I’ve always been a fan of big dogs. I’m not sure how it started, maybe it was because our family poodle never wanted to be around me and even bit me when I was five. Or because that neurotic toy thing was later replaced with a loyal Shepard/Collie mix that my brother brilliantly brought home on my birthday much to my mother’s chagrin. If it wasn’t either of those reasons, it had to be my repetitive viewings of Old Yeller.

But then came Lance. Not some pound puppy, stray or offspring of a friend’s surprise litter. No, Lance was an addition to our family after a year of research of what dog would be small enough to take back and forth to Canada with me, to the office and of course spend his fluffy little Maltese days on the bike with me.

To locate the right cycling companion I read everything, contacted breeders and hung out at pet adoptions on weekends, lifting and sizing potential distance riders.

At less than 3 pounds, Lance came home with us and immediately turned 12 year old Duke back into a puppy. Every morning started with the two of them racing through the house while the cats looked for higher ground. Our Retriever mix had always hung out quietly under my desk or by my side where ever I went. Now I was forsaken as she became a partner in this rapid fire Mutt and Jeff scene.

Now came shopping! Lance would need all the doggie basics… a helmut, a portable water dish for our stops and a basket to ride in. I did resist the urge to get him a yellow doggy jersey.

The helmut was a guessing game to me. I knew how large he was at the moment but since he was a rapidly growing member of our family I had no idea how large his head would be. Lance was turning out to be just a wee bit bigger than the 4 to 5 pound baby Maltese the pet store had promised him to be. In fact, he has settled in at just a hair over 8 lbs. Bless his bow legged little heart!

I found a fabulous basket on ebay. Collaspible and light weight, plus it had a rain bonnet (just in case!). The basket became part of our sharing time together. I put it on the bed and petted Lance while he sat inside it while I watched TV or read (or truthfully spent too many hours playing solitaire on my cell phone.). I placed the basket on the floor next to my desk so Lance could hang there during the work day next to Duke would would squeeze under the desk between reams of paper and my feet. I even carried Lance around in the basket so he could get used to the motion of a soon to be basket on a bike.

What I never did was actually test the basket on the bike.

Uh oh. I couldn’t put the basket on the intended commuter bike, old Belle had her brakes in the way. No worries, at 40 years of well loved age, Belle didn’t ever shift out of 3rd or 4th gear anyways so I tended not to ride her much. Not to be diswayed I attempted to place the basket on my Trek (I will now admit to you what a geek I am and let you know that she is named Enterprise). Nope, didn’t fit here either. As I moved from one bike to another, I found that all 3 of my road bikes, from Belle to the WSD would not accept a basket of any sort at the handle bars!

I’m not comfortable with rambuncious Lance in a back pack, And believe it or not, I am too anal to handle the idea of one panier, making the bike lopsided in my mind. With the way I am about visual balance, I would have to get two dogs – and what if they didn’t match? Or worse yet, what if one was Lance and the other Lemond – would they get along? Yeah, he’s named after that Lance.

So here I am with my”bikey dog” still paying off a Madone 6.5 while looking at Beach Cruisers for the two of us.