After a morning ride at Greenbrier (more on that in another post), I came home to spend some time with my family. Well my four year old daughter was at a friends, my wife was running on the treadmill, and Jack (my 6 year old son) was playing with some remote control cars. So I decided to take Jack on a ride through the paved bike paths in the neighborhood.
Jack readied his 20" wheeled Giant Frantic singlespeed first and reminded me to get my helmet. (I don't know why, but after a ride like at Greenbrier it just seems like overkill to put on a helmet for the neighborhood bike paths. Nonetheless, he was right and I capitulated.) Jack led the way around the various ponds. We stopped and looked at beetles, a rabbit, and the speed of the running water through the streams. Suddenly, we came upon a dirt path that was hidden behind some brush just off of the paved path leading into the woods. "Is that singletrack I see!" Well it was not much, but I thought that now was the time to introduce my son to mountain biking.
Jack has seen me come back from rides with scrapes and bruises so he has been a little nervous about the idea of mountain biking. This little stretch of trail was perfect to overcome the fear. It started with a descent that was a little much for his coaster brakes so I told him to walk his bike to the bottom. He watched me descend the hill and he thought it was so cool. Next there was maybe 100 yards of flat singletrack that we both rode with him leading the way. He was having a ball.
There were several small logs set up one after the other with about four to six feet between them. Obviously put there by some kids that were trying various stunts. I showed Jack how to do log hops, but he could only make it over the smallest of logs (ever notice that kids bikes are even heavier then adult bikes?). Although, the logs were no more than six or eight inches high it was actually a challenge to get over the approximately eight of them that were lined up so closely together.
We rode home and Mommy snapped this picture of the proud single speeder.
