A group of us rode a loop from Pitlochry on Sunday. It’s only a four hour 20 plus mile ride but it has nearly 3800 feet of climbing and descending in it. There were three fourteen year olds ‘along’ for the ride.

They were flying. They’ve been only been riding for a couple of years. They rode full of enthusiasm and boundless energy. I don’t have kids myself, but found them a total inspiration. Well done to their folks for getting them into the sport. They are all interested in racing, so their future looks bright. They mostly ride with a local club in Glenrothes.

Is this typical across the country?

took my 12 yr old nephew out to Brechfa (green and blue) for his first outing a few weeks ago. He was loving it and getting some air off everything he could! He cant wait to do the red now.

Have been out with my 9 year old son the past couple of weekends. He’s loving it and full of enthusiasm which is fantastic. Got him a well used but pretty light 24″ alu framed rigid hardtail off of the Bay, some new conti explorers are on order as is a Camelbak off of the classifieds. Just need to get him some decent full finger gloves from somewhere!

Italspark tells a great story about taking his 4 year old daughter to the GT skills loop on her balance bike. While there, a group of weekend warriors on FS bikes with body armour were filming each other.

Miss Italspark was unimpressed by their skilz. ‘Mincers’ was her assesment!

Within a year she was riding the Blue and asking when she could get some clicky shoes.

There are a lot of clubs all over scotland dedicted to youth developmemt.in xc racing. The kids l train do 2 training sessions on there mtbs,turbo train with the local roadies and ride for fun on saturdays. Their commitment to training is outstanding. This is repeated throughout scotland

Except where druidh is.
He would say they are wasting their time because they will never get to be world champion.

Got some kids in their teens round the corner from who are well into road and cx. Taught them loadsa spannering but not been out with them, they’re too fast for me. I may well come into the aforementioned mincer category :O

Seen 2 young lads doing the World cup DH at Fort william last year, must’ve been about 11. Had pretty ‘normal’ bikes, ‘normal’ clothing, and one had a backpack with their sandwiches and juice in.

They had done 4 more runs than us, and were absolutely pinning it. Great to see. Also very well mannered and chatty. Brilliant.

Wish I had biked at their age instead of playing football.

lambchop – Member
Just need to get him some decent full finger gloves from somewhere!

Decathalon do some pretty darn good un’s I got a set for my 4 and 5 year old son’s the other week… there just like proper adult gloves “suede” palms, snot wiper on thumb etc… there brill for about £9 a pair if i remember.

Check out the kids I ride with in this vid. The wee girl in the end sequence will be riding the sxc series and fancies herself as a downhiller in the future.
http://www.trailscotland.co.uk/7stanes-mabie-video/
A project set up with the aim to get people including kids into racing;
http://www.southwestscotlandcyclingproject.com/page/page/7885620.htm
We had 15 out practicing the race course on Sun am for the coming weekends race.
Lots of kids out with their parents which is something 7Stanes hoped to encourage from the early days. Just need more and better beginners loops 😆

Felix, Thomas, Alex tignes by ianvincent, on Flickr

The lad in the middle was amazing on a bike, 8 yrs old, fast and fearless.

030 by ianvincent, on Flickr

Took my lad to coed-y-brenin when he was 13,he rode the mbr and the karrimor over the weekend and I was one proud dad 🙂 …… he`s now 20 and studying at Aberystwyth uni, so he has nant-y-arian trails on his door step 🙂 …. great to see kids out there 🙂

We see loads of kids at the CXs I keep meaning to take a picture of the pile of little Pina mountainbikes that the race organisers bring along for kids to try out on.

My lad got well into it at 12, won a few Cx’s then trained with Team MK and entered a road race. A year later he gave up 😥 and went back to football as he missed his mates.