This is half-pie.

So our smallest turned 4 today.

I had no idea what to get her for her birthday… but luckily Becky had observed that Rosa loved using her cousin’s Hap Chi. These little wooden bikes are apparently the perfect gateway drug to a life of bicycling. Becky naturally checked out TradeMe, finding no (reasonably priced) Hap Chi, but instead finding lots of colourful alternatives. S=R, no other bids, and we’d scored one at an absurdly reasonable price.

Too cheap almost. Was it too good to be true? I don’t think so. The bike we’ve got is quite strongly constructed and seems pretty good quality. It should last a while.

On some auctions the seller refers buyers to the website for Park Racer, an American company selling little wooden bikes. The only difference between Rosa’s bike and the one on the Park Pacer homepage is the lack of a logo on Rosa’s. It looks suspiciously to me like whatever factory in Asia makes Park Racer’s bikes has a tasty little side business leaking unbranded stock out onto the global market… and at very low prices. Oh, the perils of outsourcing your manufacturing!

Not that I’m complaining. Rosa loves it. It’s her “cheetah” bike, she tells us; and it goes with her “cheetah” dress. And it’s inside now, leaning against the wall, waiting for its proud but tired little owner to return in the morning.