I have immensely enjoyed every single moment riding with both my kids from the early days of having Sophie on the back of my bike in a child seat to recently riding the local Cat 1 climb with Oliver. Watching them both grow and develop their riding skills and abilities has been, mostly, very pleasurable with the odd moment of parental anguish thrown into the mix.
Both our kids have enjoyed many different aspects of riding and are now both proficient bike riders. In the early days Sophie always enjoyed going on the child seat on the back of my bike where she could enjoy the view, chat to Claire and me but most importantly she enjoyed kicking my bum and telling me to ride faster whilst Oliver loved being in the chariot filled with cushions and his teddies. How I wished the ‘Kids riding shotgun‘ product was around when our children were smaller, I am sure they both would have loved this!
We used a balance bike with both Sophie and Oliver and they then switched straight onto their first bikes without the need to use stabilisers. When you look at how children use stabilisers it is actually counter intuitive as they predominantly lean on the outside stabiliser wheel when cornering, for example when turning left they lean on the right stabiliser by leaning their body to the right rather than the left, the way they want to turn. The stabilisers themselves make leaning to the left almost impossible. By using the balance bikes they both knew to lean in the direction of travel. The other top tip when they switch to pedal bikes is to get your child to look well ahead, where they want to ride and for the first few times remind them to use the brakes to stop and not their feet. It took both Sophie and Oliver less than 10 minutes to make this transition.
Of course there will be days when they don’t want to ride as far as you would of liked them too but don’t push them to do more as they will be less likely to want to ride with you the next time. I remember overdoing it with Oliver and it was several months before he would come out with me again! Of course they will fall off, I did as a kid and I still do as an adult! It’s part of learning to ride, exploring your boundaries and abilities and learning new skills. Sophie and Oliver are completely different riders on the bike, whilst Sophie is happy to cruise along chatting and looking at the wildlife, Oliver is always more focused on going further or faster than before, for him it’s about the next challenge!
As a family we have been to the Italian Alps, hired e-bikes for the kids and ridden some big climbs. I distinctly remember the enjoyment Oliver had at smashing me to pieces on the Bormio 2000 climb on his e-bike as I desperately tried to keep up with him on my road bike. I also remember the jubilation both Sophie and Oliver had at riding the same climb on their standard road bikes and as a parent being on edge as I watched them both descend said climb in the rain, I was relieved when we all got to the bottom safely to say the least, but testament to their bike handling that we did!
Whilst Sophie currently prefers not to ride (I think that might be a teenage thing) Oliver is still Passionate about Pedalling, Bonkers about Bikes and Mad about Mountains.
