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<p>An Elgin, Ill. family that has taken to bicycling as a primary form of transportation is documenting the experience to help others understand what it takes to be less reliant on cars.</p><p>&#8220;If you&#8217;ve ever had to bring kids anywhere in a car, you know it can be an unpleasant experience,&#8221; said Parker Thompson, who writes the Elgin Bike Hub blog. &#8220;Kids don&#8217;t like to be in car seats.&#8221;</p><p>By contrast, the family&#8217;s boys, ages 2 and 4, seem to enjoy the experience and the adventure of going somewhere involving a big cargo bike and various forms of public transportation, Thompson said.</p><p>One day earlier this month, the three missed a train from Elgin to get part of the way to Oak Park for an outing with the Chicago Dads Group. Instead, they hopped on the new Pace express bus service from downtown Elgin to Rosemont, boarded the L train to Chicago and took a CTA bus from the city to Oak Park &#8212; a trip that took about 90 minutes, Thompson said. A stay-at-home dad, Thompson&#8217;s trips often involve bringing along sons Noam, 4, and Gabriel, 2.</p><p>&#8220;The boys love the city,&#8221; Thompson said, and the process of traveling with toddlers is made easier by &#8220;the sweet deference kids can get.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I do not use the car for trips that are in town unless there are extraordinary circumstances (like snow-covered roads along with negative wind chill recently). It has also meant I make decisions about where we can go based on what it would require for transportation,&#8221; Thompson wrote in his most recent blog post. &#8220;I try to make plans for activities that are accessible by bike or public transit.&#8221;</p><p>Thompson said his wife, Katie Shaw Thompson, also rides a bike to work when she can, a mile-and-a-half trip from home in the Elgin Historic District on the east side to her job as pastor of the Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren on the west.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s great for stress relief,&#8221; Katie Thompson said of the bike-heavy lifestyle. &#8220;It does take a bit getting used to. A plus is, with my job, I am not always that physically active, so it&#8217;s nice to get a little bit of exercise, too.&#8221;</p><p>Thompson said he and his wife are both from Pennsylvania. They took to city biking while in grad school in Berkeley, Calif. The family also has lived in Richmond, Ind., then rural Iowa, off a gravel road, which added to the challenges of bicycling.</p><p>The Thompsons moved to Elgin in November 2015, and chose to rent a house in a neighborhood that would lend itself to getting around without an automobile.</p><p>&#8220;We were excited to move to a place where we had the ability to walk or bike to places, in a community versus having to drive places,&#8221; Thompson said.</p><p>The family practiced having a partially car-free lifestyle throughout last summer, using a trailer on a bike. That led to buying a cargo bike in September, selling a second car and switching to an auto insurance policy with a rate based upon the number of miles driven.</p><p>Thompson said his &#8220;baseline mileage&#8221; on the bike is about 25 miles, which includes trips to grocery stores along Summit Street and trekking to an early morning shift at Arabica Coffee downtown. He also has a seasonal job as a camp director. His wife averages 20 miles per week bicycling.</p><p>Thompson said he&#8217;s gone as long as six weeks before breaking a &#8220;car fast,&#8221; and he also joined Elgin&#8217;s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee in October. Still, Thompson admits there are big challenges for relying on a bicycle.</p><p>&#8220;The suburbs are built for cars,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Getting to places such as Costco is a task not attempted because of the distance to Lake In The Hills or St. Charles and the traffic along Randall Road. Weather has meant staying home with the boys on exceptionally cold days instead of venturing outdoors. But snow isn&#8217;t always a problem.</p><p>&#8220;The roads clean up pretty quickly here. It&#8217;s easier to bike than walk after a big snowfall, though the roads do get narrower,&#8221; Thompson said.</p><p>Despite inclement weather in December, the two said they biked a combined 180 miles and drove their car just 137 miles.</p><p>For those who might want to incorporate more biking into their daily routines, Katie Thompson recommends practice.</p><p>&#8220;It takes a while to feel comfortable in traffic,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You might want to try biking with friends for a bit first, and you need to brush up on the rules of the road and know the physics of it. But it&#8217;s worth it.&#8221;</p><p>But Parker Thompson acknowledges that it isn&#8217;t always fun for everyone in the family.</p><p>&#8220;It definitely is not easy &#8230; a pleasant ride to the grocery store turned into frozen tears and cries of &#8216;the weather is mean&#8217; from my 2-year-old when we had to return in a frigid head-wind,&#8221; he recently blogged. &#8220;Despite all of the challenges, there are far more smiles than tears (from all the riders). We feel great and little bit of the good kind of crazy.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">The Thompson family of Elgin, Ill. relies on bicycles as the main mode of transportation. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_bikers1.jpg</photo0><caption0>The Thompson family of Elgin, Ill. relies on bicycles as the main mode of transportation. </caption0><photoCredit0>AP photos </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_bikers2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The Thompson family of Elgin, Ill., relies on bicycles as the main mode of transportation. From left, they are Noam, 4, Gabriel, 2, Parker, and Katie Shaw Thompson. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_bikers2.jpg</photo1><caption1>The Thompson family of Elgin, Ill., relies on bicycles as the main mode of transportation. From left, they are Noam, 4, Gabriel, 2, Parker, and Katie Shaw Thompson. </caption1><photoCredit1>AP photos </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_bikers3.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Dad Parker Thompson of Elgin, Ill., shows how he readies his sons Noam, 4 (black helmet) and Gabriel, 2 (orange helmet) for a ride on the family&#8217;s cargo bike. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/web1_bikers3.jpg</photo2><caption2>Dad Parker Thompson of Elgin, Ill., shows how he readies his sons Noam, 4 (black helmet) and Gabriel, 2 (orange helmet) for a ride on the family&#8217;s cargo bike. </caption2><photoCredit2>AP photos </photoCredit2></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Mike Danahey</p><p>AP Wire Service</p></bylineMeta></div>

Family ditches car in favor of bike as main transportation