It has been a rather spectacular year for family biking, everything from bike parks and trail centres to exploring Snowdonia for a week 😀 I’m lucky enough to have a rather wonderful 12 year old daughter and we’ve always loved biking together, but this year has been something special, a combination of exploring new places, amazing trails and her discovering she loves big gap jumps 🤣 day or night, and whatever the conditions. Snowdonia, Gwydir, Bucknell and the Long Mynd have been some of our most loved places this year, although zipping around Granada in Andalusia on e-bikes was also a highlight.
Anyway, I slightly digress, we’ve just got back from Surrey visiting family and my nephew took us out to his local riding spots, including quite a few decent gap jumps and features. I’m generally pretty good at hitting new gaps, but there was one I was struggling a little with; challenging to get the run in right, fairly short landing followed by a drop. My daughter pretty much said, that’s your attempt, hold my beer dad 🤣 I’m just going to see what the take off feels like…
The video makes it look a lot smaller, but still, that level of control and precision was beyond me yesterday, I absolutely love how chilled she was, I wasn’t chilled watching her at the apex of her jump 🤣 it’s been heartwarming to see her quiet confidence and progress this year; happily queuing up with hordes of teenage boys to hit a jumpline. She often gets lots of attention as there still aren’t many girls riding, especially 36kg 12 year olds with ponytails, who are quite happy to send it with the boys!
Awesome 😀
Planning a BPW trip with my son in 2026. We first went when he was about 13... it's brilliant to go riding with them. I can't jump though! 🙂
Hang on hang on... that's not an... EBIKE she's riding is it?! 🤣
Awesome 😀
Planning a BPW trip with my son in 2026. We first went when he was about 13... it's brilliant to go riding with them. I can't jump though! 🙂
Hang on hang on... that's not an... EBIKE she's riding is it?! 🤣
BPW is ace with kids! And. Yes 😶 she has a Canyon Neuron but much prefers jumping and going downhill on the heavier Merida E-one sixty, she gets pinged around less amongst other things. She absolutely loves the eeb and doing a ridiculous amount of running, dancing, ballet, circuits etc so she fits in loads more riding now too!
Proper jealous and envious of this...excellent work!
That looks awesome, loved the commentary on the video too!
That looks awesome, loved the commentary on the video too!
Yeah, I wasn’t expecting her to go so deep 🤣
I'll be on an Ebike at BPW, but my son certainly won't. He'd be like "WHY?!" , but then he is a very fit and healthy 23 now 🙂
Yeah, I wasn’t expecting her to go so deep 🤣
I wasn't quite expecting that either! Definitely jumps a lot better than me!
Hope my boys will get into riding more. Currently the 9yo stops every two minutes because his legs ache. The younger 7yo isn't riding without stabilisers. The 9yo regularly beats me at Hot Wheels 2 Unleashed however (racing game, split screen racing on PC).
Yeah, I wasn’t expecting her to go so deep 🤣
I wasn't quite expecting that either! Definitely jumps a lot better than me!
Hope my boys will get into riding more. Currently the 9yo stops every two minutes because his legs ache. The younger 7yo isn't riding without stabilisers. The 9yo regularly beats me at Hot Wheels 2 Unleashed however (racing game, split screen racing on PC).
Kids definitely have that path of least resistance when they are younger and Amber was the same. We found two things worked for us. The first was to make a ride an event for something else too, a swing, a tree to climb, a coffee shop, or something else that she chose to get to. The other that was wildly successful, was a Vero and Val score sheet; she got points for everything from muddy puddle riding and skids (your tyre bill will increase) to going up and downhill, jumping etc, and enough points = prizes. She was always very keen to build up those points 🤣 couple that with letting her plan routes based on the fun factor and at the grand old age of 12 she wants to ride as much as me! Which I only complain about if it’s raining, dark and cold 😆
Jesus indeed! Good on her!
Brilliant! She didn't just clear that, she absolutely sent it! Massive props, that's not small.
Not as big as that, but took my also 12 year old son riding with my best mate at our old haunt a few days ago and had a similar experience. I knew he could do some of the stuff, but he just didn't have the nerve. Said I'd show him the speed needed, suggested that I gave him a tow in and he could pull up before the lip. A few seconds later I hear a whoop behind me, and he's cleared the entire 6 pack first go. It's the best feeling, for me it's more that he's beaten the mental battle than the accent itself, as he's not always the most confident or resilient.
Then to top it all off we took my best mate's 5 year old with us on her Kids Ride Shotgun for a few laps, and the soundtrack of her joy was the best thing ever.
Off topic, but hi from another vintage SXOCer!
Nice! Very smooth. And totally on topic with no excess.
Though the post clip video suggestions from YouTube were very off topic and quite unnerving in their suggested content. Quite unlike the ones I usually get.
Brilliant! She didn't just clear that, she absolutely sent it! Massive props, that's not small.
Not as big as that, but took my also 12 year old son riding with my best mate at our old haunt a few days ago and had a similar experience. I knew he could do some of the stuff, but he just didn't have the nerve. Said I'd show him the speed needed, suggested that I gave him a tow in and he could pull up before the lip. A few seconds later I hear a whoop behind me, and he's cleared the entire 6 pack first go. It's the best feeling, for me it's more that he's beaten the mental battle than the accent itself, as he's not always the most confident or resilient.
Then to top it all off we took my best mate's 5 year old with us on her Kids Ride Shotgun for a few laps, and the soundtrack of her joy was the best thing ever.
Off topic, but hi from another vintage SXOCer!
The mental battle is such a big deal, Ambers had plenty of them and I really think working through them has helped her in so many other areas of her life. Ahhh the sounds of kids joy from bikes 😀
SXOC 🤗 I was just thinking about that yesterday, seems like a lifetime ago now, a lot of great times and fantastic people, I still regularly chat to several people I met at the club!
Can she teach me how to jump please as she is clearly better at it that I am
Can she teach me how to jump please as she is clearly better at it that I am
She is annoying 🤣 I’ve never really talked to her about jumping technique other than stand up to it, stay centred on the bike and stay relaxed. Even so, she is pretty much textbook whenever we slow videos down, with much better timing than me and somehow never stiffens up or dead sailors. Kids eh 😆 she does have a slight advantage from gymnastics and acro in that she can do aerials / flips etc, something I never managed as a kid. I probably need to do more plyometric stuff to get a bigger pop and not just strength work!