My 6 year old daughter seems very keen to ride singletrack and she is particularly set on doing some bombholes for some reason.

Anyone know of something like a mini yogurt pots nr Cranleigh or Haslemere?

I see a few people taking kids down BKB but they tend to be 10ish and lads normally, and by the time they are 13 they are hucking everything and laughing at you for being old and crap. little bastards.

The latter is actually a good thing as later it means babysitting = riding, but right now, an easy intro to freeride skills would prob save me some grief from the missus if it goes wrong.

There are some trails on Pitch she could do, but it would be annoying to other riders as kids that young are going to get in the way.

Apart from Cranleigh all the local BMX ramps are populated by stoned delinquents, and while to criticise that would be total hypocrisy, she will find out about all that later. So again, getting in the way.

I blame Steve Backshall – kids: we want to ride Fort William, missus: you need to work out more.

No surprises if this draws a blank, but even if you dont know my locale, would be interested to hear what age people started taking their kids out

I have been taking my son out since he was 3. Initially on a like-a-bike and now he is his 2nd pedal bike. Where I live the trails are a bit flatter(Nr Farnborough) than Surrey Hills, which I think is a good thing as he seems to struggle on the up hill bits.

I normally find something that looks fairly tame to me and let him play around in it. It doesn’t need to be too technical to make it fun, probably the sort of thing I would ride around with thinking about.

I find naming the trails is a good thing, even a short bit of singletrack becomes an adventure if it is called something interesting. The problem is trying to remember what it was called last time!

We often go out on a tag-a-long and this works well at doing some of the more interesting off road bits, but is hard work on the up hills.

Don’t blame Steve, he seems to do a good job in getting kids interested in the outdoors. Plus he gave my son a signed copy of his book last week.

Hey WF we started our son off at holmbury and the way we used to do it was we take it in turns taking him through yoghurts when it was quiet, either my wife or I would sit at the entrance whilst the other went down with him. The beauty of it being a short run you can run it over and over again and all the times we took him through no one moaned when I asked if they could wait a few minutes before heading in.

Cheers for the tips guys

I was quite tempted by letting her have a go at yogurt pots, no fear at that age (not that its scary) and made of rubber etc but thought I would check what peeps thought first. I would guess most people are totally reasonable about things like that.

jason – I was being sarky about Steve Backshall – the world needs more like him. I work at the beeb and he is an exceptionally brilliant presenter, although it looks straightforward, telly presenting is actually quite tricky… and then in his case you have to be encylopedia britanica, not get bitten or eaten, and remember to take your shirt on your mark off as well.

How many 30 something housewives did your lad have to queue behind to get his signed book?

So if you see an old fart on a Whyte being overtaken by a sprog on a purple Spec you know who to blame

is swinley too far away some section of the trails there would be erfect but obviously you need to know which the seagull run is very easy unless you go very fast

There’s some nice little trails in andaround newlands corner that are legal, easy and have a few interesting features for beginners.

theres some little and not so little bombholes on leith hill near the tower

winterfold, I am friends with his sister (who is also a pretty good mtber) so no queuing involved.

Why worry about being in the way? People can just wait a minute. It’s not a race track.

I`d say most of Swinley apart from around Surrey Hill would be ok, I saw a bloke with his two kids who were about four or five doing the whole nine yards on unicycles, so should be ok if you take it easy.

This might be a long-shot but have you thought about the bomb craters in the woods behind the Hawth Theatre in Crawley? I learnt to cycle there as a kid; plenty of fun bits, not big in size, and all the local jumpers/BMXers use the bike park by the playing fields instead. Went back there last year for nostalgia (20+ years) and it’s still really cool.

I don’t have anything useful to contribute other than saying that this thread is awesome! And that it’s very hilly and woody around Haslemere so there must be some suitably quiet yet rad enough spots.

This might be a long-shot but have you thought about the bomb craters in the woods behind the Hawth Theatre in Crawley? I learnt to cycle there as a kid; plenty of fun bits, not big in size

Had my picture in MBUK circa 1998/99 riding those 8)

Frikin’ rad!

Oxshott Heath/Esher Common would be a nice and gentle start and there are some easy bombholes next to the car park on Fairmile Common where the Portsmouth Road crosses over the A3, my mate takes his kids there and they are about the same age as yours.

In the summer we (me + wife + 7yr old) would park at the car park at the end of telegraph road. Then ride in a big loop around to Holmbury hill, which is actually fairly flat from there. It’s good riding for a 7yr old – who is super fit but doesn’t like hills. Our boy liked some parts of yoghurt pots but wouldn’t ride it all. Although his favourite was the second half of telegraph road and we used to do a few loops of that. Plus there are lots of open fireroads for the yongsters to ride too.

After a ride the wife + 7yr old would drive home and I’d ride – getting some good trails – Mother – Tower – Waggledance – SL -Wolverns – over N.Downs and home.

Everyone was happy!