It was mentioned on another thread that kids are easily put off cycling if you make them ride too far etc.

It made me think about the best ways to enjoy riding with your kids.

I find it quite hard as mine are 8 and 3 (have older kids too but they can just get on with it) so taking them for a trail ride together tends to be very unchallenging for the older one.

So we usually do more things like skills parks/dirt jumps/skateparks/finding a bit of street or woods that we can mess about/ramps in the garden.

The 8 year old also goes to a kids mountain bike club which means I get to ride the trail centre with the younger one.

I also take the 3 year old out on some short local singletrack, and I take the 8 year old out in the evenings – just started to take him out for night rides which he loves. Took the 3 year old out in the woods at night too but he was scared 😀

Sounds like we do a lot but obviously it doesn’t all happen all the time.

What stuff do you do with yours?

This

[video]http://youtu.be/OaqxIXs_mn4[/video]

If they’re having fun it’s all good.

Can’t say we bothered with independent cycling to go anywhere until they were 4-5. They rode locally.

The age difference with yours is tricky. May be a tagalong for your youngest.

My daughter aged 4 at Delamere. Bike riding without the effort.

Once they’re older though, they can soon do anything.

My boy at 7 – http://sometimesridesbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/hadrians-cycleway-coast-to-coast-to.html

Continued – http://minipips.blogspot.co.uk/

Our youngest is still in balance bike territory but still enjoys the bmx track and little steep roll ins! What he will roll down and over is astounding to me. Big brother (5) can give it a bit more oomph although still not getting airborne he will ride harder on the corners and flats. They stop and interact / talk periodically. I try and help them, watch, take videos/photos and have a few laps myself.

The big one also comes off on days riding with me on his own usually 5-8 miles of off road with some challenging for him climbs and descents some errors and twisty corners.

Think you might be pushing it taking a 3yr old in the woods at night 😯

Might of been the topic I started the other week about kids bikes and cost.
Think all you can do is just try your best to get them out when possible. Pretty hard at the moment with the short days.
I find it hard with a 12yr and 9 yr old and have resorted to taking them out separately or we all go out as a family on the canal etc.

Im a bugger for forgetting my sons capabilities on his bike and sometimes wonder if I put him off going on certain local trails.

3 definitely pushing it a little but our eldest had done a local night ride with me when he was about four and a half about this time last year. Wired up my old cateye triple shot for him and he managed a mile or so only really limited by his bed time and stopping for some free firework watching on the seafront.

We kept very close to home so he was confident in where he was because the same landmarks were still visible as they tend to be lit up

Brilliant learning to ride video 😀

Seriously in awe at minipips milage, wow.

Yup 3 year old was a little spooked in the woods at night, but he had been desperate to try it. Next time we are just going to go to the school playground where it won’t be so dark and scary.

We don’t have a BMX track locally which is a shame.

I did used to take the 3 year old out on a Trailgator but it didn’t work that well for us. I have been thinking about a proper tag a long we could take for longer rides – he might be almost big enough for one now.

Looking forward to when he is big enough for 20″ wheels and gears!

If good weather on sunday, we are going for our first evening ride with lights, off road, 7 year old daughter.

I used a trail-gator with our youngest. I think it hindered his learning. His Bro’s are twins so this was never an option so it was balance bikes, then pedal bikes (no stabilisers).

The younger lad was ace on the balance bike but was reluctant to leave it. He virtually missed out the 16″ wheeled bikes but when he tried the 20 at the age of 5 he loved it so no harm in the long run but just FYI…

With the older bro’s there was of course the competition element of having twins and if one was doing something the other wanted to but still I don’t think the trail-gator helped with it giving the freedom to ride without a care e.g. wave your hands all over the pace and sing star wars & superman theme tunes.

We don’t have a BMX track but we do have loads of bridleways, national trust houses, forestry commission land etc… all was good for us.

…and as I’m sure you remember from your eldest the most important thing…. Snacks! (preferably with hot chocolate in a flask).

Delamere is perfect- feels ‘scenic’/out there yet you have ice cream (or chips!) EASILY within reach and if you tell them at the begining of the ride they are prepped!

MB Junior is 13 now and last night declared his intention to attempt a 100 mile sportive for charity next year. Living close to the New Forest has been great for getting him into biking at an early age. Typically on a Sunday we would go out as a family for the afternoon and Wifey would drop me and him with bikes to make our own way home with no particularly big hills in the way. There were a few memorable tantrums:
“I don’t want to ride home. If you loved me you’d let me back in the van. WAAAAAAHHHHHHH”.
He’d always settle once she’d driven off and eventually admit he was enjoying the ride.

“I don’t want to ride home. If you loved me you’d let me back in the van. WAAAAAAHHHHHHH”.
He’d always settle once she’d driven off and eventually admit he was enjoying the ride.

Brilliant. 🙂

Our’s are the roughly the same age gap as yours peabrain (9 and just turned 5). The eldest is wanting to do bigger miles, but the youngest is desperate to ride too and is now fine riding a reasonable distance (with some towing assistance).

So what’s working well at the moment is the three of us riding together – I let the older one blast on ahead as he’s fine on all the local trails (Dalby Forest) and knows his way enough, and then I ride with the little one and we meet up at the end of sections or whenever there’s an obvious stopping point. I then tow the little one up the boring fireroad climbs – so I get a bit more of a work out and the big one gets his climbs too. Then we usually end up at jumps/pump track or somewhere they can do laps so they can both get their fill of riding or sweets.

But I am also making the effort to get out with each of them individually so the big one can get his “all day” riding and the little one gets stuff more tailored to just him. Night riding for the big one (at least) is probably the next step.

They’re both members of a local club but haven’t really done any of their coaching or rides as it still less convenient than just riding from home (they race the local series etc though). Rural living means that most “activities” are at least a 30 minute drive away anyway, which makes getting everyone out locally a more attractive option.

The eldest loved being on a tag-along, but we didn’t use it for that long and I suspect the little one might not use it at all as he’s now pretty much completely independent on a bike and still not big enough to ride it.

Tantrums…. the big one had quite a few motivationally related ones, which sparked some very amusing ones from me (in retrospect). He still remembers the day “you threw the bikes into the bushes”! He’s learnt how the pain/pleasure equation of cycling works now though 😉

The little one has a distinctly determined streak and pretty much refuses all help until he’s satisfied he can’t possible do it himself. Then I just have to deal with his disappointment of realising that he can’t do it (usually cos he’s simply not big enough yet).

So emotions from both of them, but in very different ways!

I found that with my 2 (there is 3 years between them) that a bike seat really enabled us to get out and do rides that the oldest would find challenging and the youngest would enjoy.

I have one of those LOCT sit inbetween bars and seat carriers, which enables the child to see and allows you to talk to them easily. My youngest used that up till 5 quite happily.

I did mix up the riding as well though so the youngest would have a chance on his own bike, but he was/is just lazy compared to his sister

Now they are 6 and 9 it enables us to get out more and explore. Although i keep a rope handy for the 6 year old for when he gets tired

“Although i keep a rope handy for the 6 year old for when he gets tired”

Nice idea…I’ll make a note of that!

I’ve got a 240cm climbing sling, a 20cm extender and a couple of snap gate krabs on the back of my Camelbak. Makes it very quick to rig up a tow.

Then you just spend a while repeating “Are you sure you’re pedalling?” and “FOLLOW MY WHEEL!”

the best thing we did for our kids (8 & 6) was to take the bikes with us to Holland for a week.

Being able to just ride out of your campsite and not have to worry about roads/traffic for the most part made a massive difference to their confidence and also their desire to go out and ride. Living a few miles away from anything like a safe bridleway/towpath etc meant a lot of faffing about to get somewhere to ride which also meant by the time we were there they weren’t as bothered and thus didn’t enjoy it as much.

Now they know how much fun it is, they’re happy to help pack the car and get their stuff together while I load up the bike rack knowing that they will have fun when we get to where we are cycling.

Making sure they can cycle when they want to cycle (rather than 30 mins – 1 hour after they say they want to go out on their bikes) made the biggest difference initially for us

It doesn’t seem that long since our two girls started. Abigale was just three when she was on a Trailgator behind me and Kevin was following Katie down the trails telling her what to do. The shore and jumps that we built, when they were six and four, has long gone but the memories of every ride are still there.

The first time we took them to the Alps with Bike Verbier when Abigale was six was very daunting but I think after that they had really got the bug

Grown a bit since then, and a few bikes later

They are quite a lot older now with thousands of rides behind them but the bug is still there. Katie is at uni and cant get out as much but Abigale, now sixteen, is still ripping it up on a regular basis. This year she flew out to the Alps by herself for five weeks and we met up later. Next year she hopes to race Enduro.

Its all about them having fun, if they are enjoying it the rest just comes natural

Loving the stories and pictures.

I think one of the difficulties I have is that my 3 (almost 4 I should have said) riding ability far outstrips his strength and stamina.

He will happily rip down blue and orange trails and twisty natural singletrack, but it is such a gigantic pain in the arse getting him up hills – I often have to cycle and push him up, and even then he gets tired quickly. But because he likes the “fun” stuff he isn’t so keen on going out doing a few miles of flattish trails.

We’ve been loving the uplift at Laggan – he takes great delight in getting down the Orange before the Landrover gets back down 😆