New Dad mtb tips

The bloke OTOH can continue largely as before and it takes a while to realise that their old life while technically still possible to continue is in practical terms, probably gone (with the caveats in my previous post). Loads of blokes end up trying to continue their previous hobbies (eg getting out on the bike) while also doing the parenting, not really getting that it often doesn’t work all that well with constant stress, chasing home/being late/etc.

That was definitely me early on and I clearly recall when I had that moment of clarity and things got a lot easier to deal with afterwards, though I undoubtedly ended up on the bike less.

Nemesis nailed it here. It’s not going to go away. I have 3 boys now, and whilst I struggle on longer rides with my childless friends, they don’t get to watch their kids drop their first big bomb hole, or jump a little jump, or holler with sheer delight as they rag it down a hill.

Running is a good shout, never did that till I had kids.

If trails are in reach, and you don’t feel like an hour is ‘worth it’, get a single speed.

If they aren’t get a road bike and beast yourself on it for an hour.

Get lights for any of the options, and take whatever time you can around it.

Bad news for the OP.
The demands that kids make on your time only seem to increase as they get older.
Wait until they’re old enough to take part in the myriad of after school activities / sports / hobbies…… guess who has to take them there and pick them up again?
You’ll spend many an hour waiting in the car in a darkened car park of some community centre because it’s just not worth driving home and driving back again.
You’ll spend more hours standing by the side of <insert appropriate sports field / court / leisure centre hall > watching their valiant efforts to improve in their chosen activity.
Bizarrely, you will enjoy most of this and will only very occasionally feel the crushing despair that comes with the realisation that your free time has been almost completely subsumed by theirs.
Ignore this. It is temporary and will be more than compensated for when they score a goal / compete in a competition / play in a concert.

As far as bikes go, pretty much what everyone else has said. Go local. An hour at a time, when the opportunity presents itself. You CAN make it work.

Babies are the easy bit. 3 year old toddlers of either gender , 6 year old boys and 12 year old girls seem to be the hard bits in my experience thus far.
God help us all when they reach 17…..

And that’s also a good point. I actually turn down going out for a spin at weekends sometimes because I’d rather see/play/do stuff with my kids – I already feel that I don’t see them enough during the week so want to at the weekends.

Changed priorities.

Sometimes you just need to be a Dad and crack on but this does not mean that your riding days are over

Agree ‘me time’ for both of you and write it on the calendar. Even if you end up staying in / coping with troublesome baby / swapping the time with your Mrs it’s there and can be traded by mutual consent. We’re 5 years into this gig and this method is still working.

A road / CX bike should not be disregarded either, the trail starts at the front door and getting into a good rhythm is incredibly stress relieving. Driving time is converted to riding time.

Money spent on good lights is money well spent. Early mornings and late nights become ride time too.

Domestic admin shouldn’t be neglected either making one serving of something is only marginally easier than making five servings and freezing them (chilli / spag bol / stew etc.). Boiling some rice / pasta / veg and defrosting a box of something is super easy.

Convincing your good lady to let you ride is much easier if you’ve put a hot meal in everyones belly. Likewise if it’s her turn to go out then having an easy meal up your sleeve (or in the freezer) is one less thing to worry about. Work smart not hard!

Kids don’t always respect your schedule so you need to be flexible but overall you can make it work.

And that’s also a good point. I actually turn down going out for a spin at weekends sometimes because I’d rather see/play/do stuff with my kids – I already feel that I don’t see them enough during the week so want to at the weekends.

+1

1) You’ve just got to find the balance that works for your family.

2) If your partner is having a bad week then there’s a decent chance that you’ll have to bin the ride that you’ve had planned for weeks.

3) There’s a fine line between getting out and taking the piss. For example, this weekend: Leaving at 7:30 and back by 12:15 after an 18 mile relatively local route was alright. Massive day out trip to Coed y brenin (mates left at 7:00 and didnt get home till gone 5:00) = taking the piss.

4) Get a turbo/road bike/commute by bike if you can. there’s nothing more demoralising than finally getting out in the hills then realising that you’re massively unfit, try and keep your legs turning over one way or another.

Just to cheer you up, 17 miles with a 5 year old and a 6 month old:

Strava

I don’t think I can add a lot to whats been said apart from my own personal experiences.

My wee girl is a year and a half now, and I’ve seen my riding cut from 2 – 3 times in the weekday evenings, plus weekends, to maybe once during the week, and on the odd occasion a morning in the weekend.

For me it’s just been about adjustment. At first I really missed getting out for a regular pedal, but the older my daughter gets the more I love spending time with her rather than being on my bike. I just compensate by shorter rides, doing it late evening, or very very early in the morning, absolutely beasting myself when I do get out…oh, and by buying a turbo trainer for when the other half has her time off.

My number one tip is to not let ‘a hobby’ (which it is for most of us) spiral into arguments with the other half. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I have pre-organised rides, solo or with groups, and have had them thrown in the air due to kiddy related tantrums, sleepless nights, illness etc. I will admit I used to get pretty bent of out shape when my schedule changed, but you soon learn its all about compromise – for both of you (and that’s why I bought the turbo trainer!).

A plus point for me is that my daughter is now old enough to ride her balance bike, and sit in the wee ride seat on my CX bike; so I get to actively share (not force) my cycling passion with her. And trust me, there is no greater pleasure in life than hearing her laugh out loud when we hit a fire road descent in the local forest!

combining mtb and being a new Dad

MTB = Faff = Time.

Time spent in a car driving some where is time out of YOUR time.

#1 Start running. No faff, can run from your door, more time/fitness effective than mtb

#2 Get a turbo trainer

#3 Wait until children reach the age of about 5 🙂

Do get a Weeride though. Best thing ever.

Buy a trailer. Solo ride time is going to be limited, so see if you can all get out together as a family – you get a workout without (literally) leaving your wife holding the baby. We did our first cycle trip out when mini Ransos was 3 months old…

i dont remember things being so convoluted, i like to go out riding my bike – she likes to go out for lunch, have her nails done or whatever. take turns, share the load, chill the frig out.

I have a 13 year old and a 10 year old. Very rarely ride at the weekend, and mostly do night riding.

Hopefully in the next few years they won’t need me around so much, so I can get back to riding in the daylight. In the meantime, at least I have a better relationship with them, than I did with my own father, when I was a boy.

I think my grandad nailed it many years back when he was still alive.

“Dad first, husband second, man last”

You need to reappraise your expectations and what you think you “can” do, and adjust everything from frequency to timing of when you go out on the bike.

I changed things up to commute by MTB every day, twice a week I extend my ride home by 30 mins to take in some trails (but that means I leave the office bang on time to do so with minimum family disruption). One evening a week (usually a Thursday now my mrs is back working a couple of nights a week), I get out for a longer ride as little ‘un is at her grandmas. Saturday mornings is always without fail my time with our daughter, and then usually Sunday AM is my riding time, but always on the proviso plans might change and can be a bit fluid.

Main thing is to realise your priorities and obligations have massively changed, and you need to fit in around them.

I wish I’d read a thread like this a few years ago, as it would have helped me no end to know that just about everyone goes through the same thing.

The lesson I learnt between having our first and second child was not to push for your bike time, be there for the family, and pretty soon the opposite will happen… you will not want to miss out on the family time to go biking.

I learnt this the hard way when we had our first, and experienced all the conflict described above as a result, and in hindsight, this wasn’t fair on the missus.

If I recall for the first few weeks and months, all they do is feed, poo and sleep 20 hours a day – so if the nipper is on boob, there is even less you can do until the colic kicks in, so plan ahead and get out on some quick short rides. It actually gets harder as they get older especially if you have more children and you end up winter night riding at 9pm.

No doubt when our third arrives in March my rose tinted specs will get a reality check.

I don’t have much to add to this but to say –
Congratulations
There is life after having a baby
It is not the same as before. It is better.
You will still be able to ride your bike, but not as often or for as long. My main riding time consists of 2.5 hrs every other Sunday morning – and I always make sure I’m back on time. I get away for a day ride 4-5 times a year.
I don’t care if its a snowstorm, if I’m allowed some riding time I’m going out in it.
I shudder at the very thought of a road bike, but I do commute to work on an old MTB. I view this as maintaining some kind of fitness so that my ‘proper’ riding time doesn’t suffer from being unfit, and I can concentrate on having fun rather than fitness during these rides.
I also scour local OS maps and have found some areas where I can get out at lunchtime for an hour once a week or so which keeps me semi-sane (only semi though, I think the lack of sleep in first 3 months permanently leeches away a little bit of sanity ).
For the past 3 months I’ve been building a double jump to ride on my lunch hour…It’s coming on nicely thanks I’ll share pictures later in the week.
Take up running? get out.

I do Tuesday night MTB and one morning road/CX at weekends.

It’s regular, expected and I stick to it. I try to double handle on at least 2 other nights and get both of them to bed on my own so the Mrs can just have a few minutes without them hanging off her.

Basically, ride less but ride smarter.

I dont ride my bike anymore. It just got too much hastle and when my knees played up i gave in.

But when i did it worked like this.

Finish work and get home between 5.30 & 6pm
Play with child no 1 and baby no2. Have a bit of dinner etc.
Child no 1 would go to bed at 7.30pm and child no2 would have a bath with me as the signal it was near bed time.
Child No2 would go to sleep about 8pm and their mother would follow at 9pm.

That was my signal to get my shizzle together (Bag already packed, car loaded with bike etc)
I would jump in the car and hot tail it to the trails (45mins) and meet friends. Do a 1-2hr ride at about 10pm and get back for about 1pm.

That would give me time to get washed and stuff put away ready for the babies 2am feed i always did. Get up at 6.30am for the next days work.

I used to do this twice a week 🙂

If you organize yourself you can get 2 rides in per week and still maintain a good balance of fatherly and husband duties. My argument was that i was riding while she and the kids were resting.

It is hard work and tbh i found i enjoyed doing stuff which involved the kids more than i enjoyed riding my bike so it slowly stopped. You can always come back to it.

Out little dude has just turned one and it is getting easier to get out plus my other half is really understanding.

At first the bike didn’t really get used at all- it was literally randoom rides at night but in November / December in really grotty weather my enthusiasm waned very quickly. Once he was a bit easier I started to get into a routine of one night ride and once morning / afternoon at the weekend. I also wangled the odd day in Spring. for me it got better once she was back at work because she missed having him to herself a lot, so was happy to get shot of me for mummy time!

It’s now a regular two nights a week and a weekend ride. At the same time my other half gets to go swimming three times a week. We always make a point of doing something together – be it swimming, a walk, a trip to the park etc.

As has been said, it is really hard in the early days – I remember having the off arguement. She resented me because it was easy for me to get time out and I got grumpy because I was made to feel grumpy for having a bit out time out. Me being more flexible and planning bigger rides better has helpeda lot.

Did you in all honesty handle it badly, or is she just manipulating you into thinking that you handled it badly?

Life doesn’t need to stop when you have kids. Don’t let anyone, including the missus, tell you otherwise.

for me it got better once she was back at work because she missed having him to herself a lot, so was happy to get shot of me for mummy time!

This reminds me, my wife has house based hobbies (sewing etc) and sometimes actually asks me if I’m going out in a hopeful way so she can do her own thing 🙂

I went riding for a couple of hours 2 days after the 3rd version of me was born

She has no issues with me being out riding all day, it’s what I do, what I’ve always done, I don’t stop her doing anything and we still have loads of family time

Some women are just crazies

Life doesn’t need to stop when you have kids. Don’t let anyone, including the missus, tell you otherwise.

+1

I can’t remember riding when the kids were little, I was riding to work occasionally at the start with the first one. Regular commuting by the second. No leisure riding at all.

My youngest is now nearly 6 and I’m still restricted to 8:30am curfew at the weekend and a night am ride or two in the week if I can be bothered. I’ve learnt to love the mornings, in the summer I was out at 5 most mornings. In the winter I just have to suck it up.

I love riding my bike but my family is more important, so whatever keeps all them happy.

I’m lucky enough that my commute is quite rural and I can go on either the road bike or mountain bike. I still try to get out every weekend for either a road or mountain bike ride but it doesn’t always happen. I try to spend as much time with my 8 month old and wife as possible but getting out in the fresh air keeps me sane. I regularly offer to take the little guy out to give my wife a breather.

Everyone’s babies are different. Ours have both been bloody nightmares – our toddler is ten times as easy as when she was a few months old. If anyone gives you advice about babies without qualifying it with the realisation that some babies are much more difficult than others then they have NO IDEA of how hard it can be for some new parents and are best ignored. I’m currently managing a just small bit of MTBing on my commute but know it will get better…

The smugness/cluelessness of some of these “nothing has to change” posters in this thread helps no-one. You don’t have to give up your life but I guarantee if I’d behaved like that in the first few months my wife would have had a nervous breakdown or worse. Our babies are at the extreme end of the scale for endless mind numbing screaming and shocking healthcare professionals at how difficult they are whilst some babies are really placid and easy going. If you haven’t been stuck with a truly difficult baby for days with no respite (we have no family within a couple of hours drive) then you don’t know how intense it can be.

Good luck!

prawny – Member
I love riding my bike but my family is more important, so whatever keeps all them happy

your family should appreciate what makes you happy too. happy dad generates a happy home.

babies are hard work no doubt, but its rarely a two man job 24/7. i agree epic days out will stop but cant see why 2 or 3hr blasts a few times a week should?

as long you you pull your weight during the other times and give her 2 or 3hr breaks a few times a week too.

happy dad parents generates a happy home.

FTFY. I do find it amazing how ready some people are to abandon their lives once kids come along. It’s true some babies are very difficult, and admittedly mine were p*ss easy, but it’s surely not beyond the realms of possibility even in that situation to find a couple of hours to take a break?

babies are hard work no doubt, but its rarely a two man job 24/7. i agree epic days out will stop but cant see why 2 or 3hr blasts a few times a week should?

It’s not about it being a two man job 24/7 – unfortunately most of us have to go to work to earn money, so the one left at home has to do the heavy lifting in the baby care sense. And then there’s trying to fit in sleeping, eating, cooking, running the house.

When both of ours were less than 4 months old there were long periods where when they weren’t asleep they required constant one-to-one attention to stop them screaming (and even then they’d often scream anyway). And then they’d only sleep for half an hour and sometimes take over an hour to help to get to sleep the next time. Most babies aren’t like this but enough of them are that it’s worth considering. You probably don’t see babies being like this because if you have one of these you barely leave the house…

It doesn’t go on for ever but in the early days you can really be in the trenches and it’s just a brutal game of survival. Getting to play on a bike simply doesn’t get a look in…

Buy an off-road tourer type bike (CdF, Arkose or similar). Usually much less faff involved in getting out for a ride. I’ve got a 4 year old and a 5 month old, my CdF sees by far the most use of my bikes.

Dazh – I feel quite strongly that most don’t simply abandon their lives as soon as children come along.

Those that do, probably chose to, as their life becomes their family. Others, like me, (who initially persisted and struggled with giving up my regular rides) had to stop, for many reasons.

So I would agree with others on here that you cannot lump everyone into the same ‘grow a set of balls and tell her going riding’ bracket, as there are many more factors at play when it comes to young kids and finding your feet as a family, which clearly must come first.

…just be glad it’s bikes you’re into where you can just head out the door as opposed to surfing (where I live, obviously.)

Also, and perhaps related, I had (have) an understanding partner, but I think I do now genuinely regret the amount of time I spent surfing/hanging around in carparks wearing rubber, rather than being with the kids when they were younger. (Mind you when they were babies I did bugger all, even stopped going to the gym and would do pullups/dips in the park on my ride back from work.)

grow a set of balls and tell her going riding

That’s the last thing I’m saying as it would be a wankerish thing to do. I’m saying that with some organisation and effort, it’s possible to still do stuff that’s not related to looking after the baby. In fact I’d go as far as to say that after ensuring the baby’s looked after, doing other normal stuff, however difficult, should be the next priority for both parents.

go as far as to say that after ensuring the baby’s looked after, doing other normal stuff, however difficult, should be the next priority for both parents.

What they don’t tell you is that many (most?) women are far from ‘normal’ post pregnancy for many months. She may need a lot of support, and thetime you can best give it may well be when the baby is down for a while.

I think men (me included) tend to think of life as a check list (baby asleep, hour spare, go ride) of stuff to do or fix. It seems more nuanced from a female perspective and she might appreciate you just being there – which can involve crying off on pre planned time out when needed.

On the other hand if you’re lucky she might just tell you to bugger off and stop annoying her 🙂

I’m glad I didn’t read this thread 12 months ago!

We have a 5 month old lil lady…..

There’s been 3 weekends to date when I haven’t got out for a proper ride (ie, one that involves throwing the bike in the car and being out for 6 hours). I’ve done about half a dozen DH days that are 10 hours out the house and the weekend before last I did 3 days in Scotland with the chaps.

Is my Mrs awesome or what? (No, she hasn’t got a sister) 🙂

weekend before last I did 3 days in Scotland with the chaps.

You want to be careful with those….if the tassels get caught up in the chain you could be in a world of trouble.

There’s been 3 weekends to date when I haven’t got out for a proper ride (ie, one that involves throwing the bike in the car and being out for 6 hours). I’ve done about half a dozen DH days that are 10 hours out the house and the weekend before last I did 3 days in Scotland with the chaps.

Is my Mrs awesome or what?

Jeez, that’s a lot of time away in such a short period. I hope for your sake your other half gets similar amounts of time off…

You want to be careful with those….if the tassels get caught up in the chain you could be in a world of trouble.

How did you know it was the BrokeBike Mountain weekender? 🙂

Jeez, that’s a lot of time away in such a short period. I hope for your sake your other half gets similar amounts of time off…

Yep…..just takes some planning to ensure we both have the things in our lives that make us happy (including riding). This weekend I’ll be riding Hebden whilst the better half meets up with pals in York – I’ll then be following her up the motorway, hotel is booked for Saturday night, family day in York on Sunday.

I think I’d be a significantly less awesome Dad if I was miserable because I hadn’t ridden my bike……

i went skiing for a week with the lads (well, 5 days) when my first born was about 6 weeks old!

ive always felt a bit bad about that ever since tbh…

Some interesting posts here. Not sure I agree with anyone that says (or implies) nothing needs to change. If your priority is not your kids then I am very different to you.

That said I was very lucky to have 2 easy kids (having watched a good mate have 2 really easy kids and then go into melt down with a horrifically difficult 3rd – trust me the kid does make a huge difference)

I think most of this has been covered but:

– Drive as little as possible and ride as much from the house as you can. That is easier in some locations than others but the principles apply regardless. I did a lot of road miles.
-Adjust your ride schedule to minimize impact on family. For me it was 5am rides. Getting up was hard but it became easier and I ALWAYS was glad afterwards. Frequently was home to a sleeping house.
– If you have one then take the dog biking – takes care of dog walking chore. Can be sold as making it tired so easier for her to manage the next day as well.
– Commute by bike
– Run or do bike intervals near the house. Short and sharp and can be done with little time away from the house
– Try to do a few big days but plan them in advance to tie in with things like the wife’s family visiting (or in my case my mum visiting)so help is at hand.
– Make sure your other half gets out to do what she wants
– Try to get time to do couple stuff as well. Easier as the kids get older but whilst you are parents first and foremost you are still a couple.
– Finally when home – Pull your weight 🙂