My son is 16 and has just finished GCSEs so he’s staying up until early hours on his computer then sleeping to well past midday and sometimes is still in his pyjamas when I get home at 6.00pm. I know we all did it and I understand all the stuff about teenagers being on a different time zone to adults and needing 11 hours of sleep etc. but it still irks me that he’s missing out on vaulable free time and not getting fitter. We are lucky in that he loves road cycling so we both go out together. At 16 he weighs only 9 stone so he can out-climb me on hills if he makes the effort, although he lacks stamina and the ability to pay attention and judge his effort. We have hooked up with some youth training sessions at the track in Nelson thanks to Cycle Sport Pendle who kindly allow us to join in despite our complete inexperience. Last night was a kids’/parents’ session where we raced around the track, it’s a tight circuit and it was damp so we did ten miles of circuits at a lowish average of 17.8 mph thanks to the need for constant braking, tight cornering and accelerating. Some of the kids aged between 10 and 14 were amazingly strong and fast and to his disappointment, my son wasn’t able to keep up, falling half a lap behind even me and riding alone. I also got dropped, but I’m 59 so he should be faster than me by now. I’m quite worried about getting his strength and fitness up to a reasonable level; will this just come naturally as he stops growing and is able to put energy into muscle development? His body shape is tall and painfully skinny and I even think we are not feeding him enough as he’s always hungry.

Any parents been through the same uncertainty and got any words of wisdom?

Take the kid mountain biking. Put some fun in his life.
Racing; going round in circles; keeping up with fast kids – I know my son would lose interest in minutes.

God I’ve got all this to come as a parent but I remember a bit of it as a 16 year old.

My 2 peneth: 1) those 10 and 14 year olds might just be better than him so he may just need to suck that up 2) nudge him into a branch of cycling he enjoys and the fitness will come by time in the bike but only if it’s fun. Does he get his kicks out of circuit racing? Big days out? Bike packing? Keep it fun. Watching your fitness improve as an adult us interesting and rewarding, as 16 yr old is boring and slow

He wants to do his first 100 miler so we have bought the Sustrans map of their new “The Bay Cycleway”, which goes 81 miles around Morecambe Bay from Glasson Dock to Barrow in Furness and we will extend it a bit, so there’s an incentive there for him to build fitness and stamina.

I’ve 3 sons; 21, 20 and 16 – they all have gone thru the CBA stage, and the youngest is still in it.

He’ll come around, or not. Or maybe like me he’ll not ride a bike from 16 (when I got a moped) to 40 when I took up MTBing.

His body shape is tall and painfully skinny and I even think we are not feeding him enough as he’s always hungry.

My youngest is also 16 and a bit skinny – eats like a horse, as in he came in last night at 9 and had a left-over curry then proceeded to also have a bowl of cereal.

All this talk of tall and skinny and always hungry reminds me of myself when I was that age, didn’t really fill out properly till my mid twenties I reckon. So not sure I’d worry about that.

If he wants to be faster, tell him to ride his bike more?

Nought wrong with being on a computer a lot, never did me any harm either… though I could never sleep in till midday – still is a burning fear within me that if I have too much of a lie in I won’t have time for breakfast before lunch!

Hi, I have no kids of my own but I used to coach a youths cycling team so my comments are offered as a mix of that experience and my own experiences from 18 odd years ago.

I recall post GCSEs being a bit of a ‘dead spot’ which I struggled to fill. A ‘project’ of some sort might help your son with his getting out of bed in the morning. By which I mean, if you have no reason to get out of bed, why would you?

As regards the cycling. As he’s skinny and good at climbing I would suggest/guess that he’s suffering from a low power to weight ratio. This won’t be apparent on hills as his low weight won’t hold him back, but lacking the raw power to give it some ‘grunt’ out of a corner on a flat course will soon expose this. The solution is resistance training of some sort combined with speed work to keep the legs supple and able to pedal quickly. I wouldn’t worry about getting dropped in his first road race…happens to pretty much everyone.

So…what’s to be done? I suggest you talk to your son. Maybe even over a pint of beer. Find out what he wants. Not necessarily from cycling and so on but more generally. Thoughts of cars and motorbikes are not far away so maybe now is a good time to start making that sort of plan?

Final thought? This summer is an opportunity. It’d be a shame to let it go to waste. Work. Travel. Cycle. The world is waiting.

What does your son want to do. Does he want to race or just ride his bike as and when he fancies it ? What ever you do don’t be one of those terrible pushy dads 😯

it’s a tight circuit and it was damp so we did ten miles of circuits at a lowish average of 17.8 mph thanks to the need for constant braking, tight cornering and accelerating. Some of the kids aged between 10 and 14 were amazingly strong and fast and to his disappointment, my son wasn’t able to keep up

You might find the younger kids have been coached for some time and have better technique as a result – in what you’ve described there, a rider with better technique has a significant advantage, regardless of size. A straight, wide, dry dragstrip would probably be a different story.

I coach youth riders and can appreciate your concern. At your son’s age, other riders have quite possibly been in some kind of development setup (whether that’s a BC or regional programme or just regular group rides or grass-roots coaching sessions) for a while, and are used to the routine and structure involved. Some of the 14/15 year old kids I work with work incredibly hard and much of the time you’re trying to encourage them (and their parents) to back off a bit and not risk burning themselves out.

So to come to it without this background can be daunting, but you’ll probably find that the youth coaches at the club you mention would be keen to get him involved, as it can be frustrating to see talented riders drain away from the sport during their teenage years, however inevitable that might be. Might be worth a longer chat with them, I’m always happy to chat with parents with concerns, I’m one myself.

As for his physiology – it’s impossible to predict. Play it safe, help him to eat properly (the right things, don’t freak out about the quantities!) and balance it with plenty of physical activity, both on and off the bike.

As others have said though, enjoying his riding is the number one priority – most youth riders, however promising, don’t make it to the elite level in the sport, so need to have the enjoyment if they’re going to keep riding as they become adults. For lots of people – young and old – competition can provide that, whatever the level, and the youth setup is a way into that world.

Good luck!

As Taxi says, its about what your son wants at this stage in his life. From personal experience at his age I left biking alone and went down the cars / mates / girls route and then later came back to the bikes. Its probably the last time in his life where he will have this mix of freedom and little responsibility; all his mates will be out doing things or up late online doing God knows what, he may just want to enjoy some time buggering around.

Have the chat, but be prepared for something you may not want to hear; road cycling can be quite high pressure without obvious reward, further pressure and a sense of disapproval at home could take any fun out of it or worse still negatively impact other areas of his life.

being perpetually starving is normal at his age. He’ll fill out and get stronger a bit later. Some time after that he’ll get fat like the rest of us.

When you’re younger you can eat what you like, drink what you like, and still climb into your 26″ waist trousers and zip them closed. Then you reach that age, 24-25, your muscles give up, they wave a little white flag, and without any warning at all you’re suddenly a fat bastard. – Rimmer

Some great advice there, thanks all.

He is genuinely into cycling and has been since he was able to balance his first bike. He has reached the level of obsession where he reads cycling websites and watches GCN videos and takes pride in his bike and his kit, which is good as it gives us common ground when father/son relationships can often be awkward. However I won’t be surprised if cycling takes a back seat when girls and cars come into his life.

There is kids & youth road training at the UClan track in Preston on Tuesday nights if that is any help.

It is more structured to teaching them proper road racing skills, through and off, riding in bunches, sprinting etc so maybe less scope for getting dropped and demoralised. I know my kids much prefer it to the actual race meets which soon become a grim lone time trial if (when) they get dropped off the bunch.

The Nutcracker MTB races and NW cyclocross series have all been fun and friendly, but the speed of some kids is frighteningly high….

At 16 unless he has got massive natural talent your lad will get dropped very quickly on his 1st try on a crit, there are some very good riders at that age who have been riding circuits such as CSP’s in Nelson since they were 8 or 9, its not just about fitness, alot to do with technique/confidence. My lad got dropped consistently all through his 1st year (at 14) and can still struggle in crits. However through joining a club he has developed a love of cross racing and TTs as well as recreational riding.

If he likes cycling/racing I would recommend joining a club, CSP are supposed to be very good in the 16 to 18 age range. They will have good coaches for technique and fitness and will do more activities than purely crit racing. Above all don’t get dis-heartened after the 1st attempt.

EDIT: Tuesday nights at UCLan as mentioned in Mick_rs post above are very good with a range of abilities taking part