I’m away with family this weekend. We are planning to go out on bikes tomorrow or Monday. It will be flat and easy riding. The youngest (7 year old girl) doesn’t enjoy riding her bike. She had a fall a few weeks ago, but nothing serious. Since then she hasn’t enjoyed it. Anyone else had the same experience? If so, what did you do to help them enjoy their riding again.

Bribery. Promise her whatever cake she wants at the cafe stop, chocolate milk, coca cola – whatever is sufficiently treaty to motivate her. And follow my top tips (shameless plug) family cycling top tips
🙂

I think having a destination/reason for a bike ride helps, and definitely ice cream stops – bribery works every time 🙂
Or how about “we want to go to (insert destination here) but we can only get there by bike” – you may need to stick to off-road routes to get away with this one though.

Don’t “ride your bike” do ride to ice cream, park or other attraction. Kids don’t really care about the ride. They care about the arrival.

Don’t make her ride her bike if she doesn’t enjoy it? The “We” above should be “I’m”

Don’t make her ride her bike if she doesn’t enjoy it? The “We” above should be “I’m”

This! She’ll come round to it in her own time. Or not if its not her thing

Seems the issue is a fall and before she enjoyed it? If so surely the key is just address the lack of confidence / fear of falling off again? No idea how you do that but I’m guessing ploughing along anyway isn’t the best option. With no parenting experience I’d guess making sure you ride next to her at her pace and do a few short rides round nice flat grassy parks to build back up confidence?

Borrow/hire a tandem, family ride, ice cream
Family ride (own bike), ice cream
It worked for us

Put her up for adoption? Scientific research?
There’re some things just too important to get all hand-wringingly liberal about.

Thanks for the hints and tips. I think the weekend was a success. We messed about on our bikes for a bit at the holiday park. We practised starting off and stopping in a straight line, then moved on the riding around in circles and changing direction. After an hour or so she was riding up and down quite happily, bouncing over the speed bumps and even stood up a few times.

Yesterday we took the bikes to Coniston and has a ride along the lake through the camp site etc. She was happy and enjoyed the ride, especially the bits when we went off the path following some “single track”.

She asked if we can go on bike again when we see them in a few months.

When we lived in Oz my daughter was never interested in going for a bike ride.

But suggest going looking for “sick wallabies” and she’d happily jump on the bike and spend all day riding through the bush. (We occasionally found dead ones).

Maybe sick hedgehogs would do in the UK. 🙂

Pokemon Go by bike?

*Runs for the hills* 😆

Bribery. Promise her whatever cake she wants at the cafe stop, chocolate milk, coca cola – whatever is sufficiently treaty to motivate her. And follow my top tips (shameless plug) family cycling top tips

^This. Has worked well for us.

My kids love their bikes

[url=https://flic.kr/p/Jt67fH]Panther cubs[/url] by Perchy Panther, on Flickr

What could possibly go wrong?…….

[url=https://flic.kr/p/Hx3Lm1]Panther cubs[/url] by Perchy Panther, on Flickr

How did he get that badly out of shape in 2 metres?

Mine hated riding her bike but then she found camping on a bike:-)
A nice bike helps with lots of shoves up the hills
[url=https://flic.kr/p/K13kmH]Untitled[/url] by Richard Munro, on Flickr

How did he get that badly out of shape in 2 metres?

It’s a special gift he has. He inherited it from his dad. 😉

I hated it and sometimes felt forced, sometimes swearing and muttering my way through bike rides – then around 12/13 I started to actually enjoy having some kind of skill.