I’m at that stage of my life when I ponder the big questions, like, “Why can’t my cat fit into a platypus costume?” and “How can I take plants with me when I ride my bike?” The former being hopeless (believe me), I’ve recently been given fresh hope for the latter by this article about bike-friendly plant holders.

Admittedly, these little Knog-like weed pockets are pretty amazing, but they don’t really satisfy my desire to travel extensively with a few rhododendrons or a three foot square section of corn field, forcing me to wonder, just how much stuff could I pedal around on a bicycle?

Yes, one trip to Portland, and I find myself thinking a lot about bikes as genuine car replacements. The technology is closer than you think, and it’s super awesome.

By now everyone knows that nearly every parent in places fat, geographically-challenged Americans traditionally think of as cold and dreary is transporting kids to school by bicycle. The barrier for me hasn’t always been the elevation gain involved in ferrying my kids around by bike, so much as the general inability of most bike transport methods to sufficiently terrify them. But the Dutch Taga bike finally has me covered.

The Dutch are a forward-looking people, breaking new ground not only in child transportation, but in the potentially far more lucrative children-as-airbags market. Still, I think the really untapped potential here has to be infant jousting, particularly if the Dutch can manufacturer suits of armor as tiny as they apparently can helmets. Seriously, is that the same helmet the woman is wearing, only freakishly Photoshopped down to scale for the baby, or can you really get stylish, visored helmets for six-month-old babies somewhere? Here it is again, from a slightly more suspicious angle.

That can’t be a real helmet. Or a real baby. And why does this woman look so much like my friend Jeff? I find all of this very suspicious, and a little off-putting, but still, the ability to strap one of my kids to the front of a bike and charge out into the world has genuine appeal. Nothing in the article says you shouldn’t take your Taga bike off sweet jumps.

NPR just mentioned the huge percentage of tech sector companies competing to be more and more bike-friendly, and there’s really a quality of life thing going on there. For a lot of people, getting to ride a bike to and from work almost means never having a bad day at work–or at least being able to leave it at work.

At any rate, I’m having a tough time forgetting you, Portland. The next time I get back, I need to be on a bike.