Aren’t bikes grand?!? Since my daughter was born nine years ago, bikes have continued to become a bigger part of our lives with every year that passes. A vehicle of fun transport for the mundane, for health, for fun and exploring the world around us, we really have had a lot of amazing times.

What could be better? Jumping in the van with my daughter, singing along to Bon Jovi. Hitting a trail centre, playing on the jumps area with your nine year old whooping with joy. Bombing round the red with her hitting every optional feature, with grins from ear to ear as she manages stuff she hasn’t done before. The post ride cafe; food and the babble of excitement from the day. And when we get home, “don’t put the bikes away dad, we will go out on them again”. I feel very lucky that we have bikes in our lives. 🙂

Kids and bikes together are ace. My daughter is only just 6 and loving her bike but not to mountain bike yet…I think this year a Vitus 20+ might be in order as her Cnoc 14 doesn’t look very comfy off road. Assuming she grows a bit / keeps loving her bike

Kids on bikes rock. 🤘🤘🤘

Amazing, totally feel your joy!
Went to Cannock today with my 9 year old. I love mini roadtrips together. He hasn’t ridden for ages and seemed to have fallen a bit out of love.
Couple of years ago he was insisting on being towed up the not significant hills. Today, he _insisted_ that we do another lap of the blue. Yeah, it’s not hardcore tech, it’s not mega long, but watching his confidence come on lap after lap, determined he wanted to do a sixth lap. Amazing.
Turned round to me half way through and went ‘I love being on the woods, daddy’.
Threw some encouraging whoops at some of the other kids out there as well.

Kids on bikes is genuinely one of my favorite things in the world.

Great post.

Somebody posted a video here a year or two back of a young girl tearing it up on the trails. I believe the child belonged to one of the STW staff, and it started with her shouting “I’ve done a massive skid!” I’d love to see it again, so if anyone else can recall more about it please post a link. Cheers.

@joebristol the Vitus 20+ is a cool bike, one of our friends had one and his daughter really liked it!

It’s interesting and challenging bringing children up, to say the least, and obviously quite joyful too. Overall. As we’ve brought Amber up, she and friends, seemed to wax and wane in enthusiasm if we just focused on the bikes “just to go out and do this specific ride”. Chuck in loads of play (tree climbing, swings, exploring, treasure hunts, designing routes for friends, more freedom), don’t force it and it seems to have helped my daughter and her friends just enjoy biking a whole lot more. 🙂 and this half term weather has been glorious!

@easily kids and skids 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

My boy loves the downs , not so keen on the ups 😁 we met Phil Atwill on the shuttle bus at the weekend andy lad was pretty chuffed when he told him he had a nice bike

Big thumbs up from me!

My boys did their first adult mtb club ride a couple of weeks ago and bossed it. Chasing their 10 year old girl friend who’s been doing these rides regularly for a while now.

There’s little more fun than chasing after your kid down a good singletrack.

Here’s the youngest on GMBN’s send or fail a couple of years ago on the little tabletop i built for them…blink and you’ll miss it!

One of the best memories of my daughter growing up was on a bike. She’s now 19 but around the age of 10 we were cycling along a path, side by side. She said “Dad! High 5” and held up her hand. The absolute joy on her face as we rode along is making it dusty in here right now!

Kids on bikes. No. 1!

I’m all in…. more please 🙂

Where was that @moonsaballoon, we watch Phil’s videos so that must have been epic! 🙂

Maybe we could all get together at somewhere like the Malverns classic with the kids of Singletrack :):)

Happy to chip in here! My 6yr old on a Vitus 20+ doing the hope line at gisburn last week!

We’ve ridden the full blue twice now, bit of pushing and some towing up the hills. We ride half way up the big hill and do the bottom half of the hope line, it’s easy enough to roll down.

Can confirm the vitus is indeed an ace bike. And she loves the fact her tyres are fatter than mine!

I’m wondering if she’d cope alright with a route around troutbeck in the lakes next, half way up garburn, then down to the caravan park. Not sure after that.

+1

Kids on bikes is genuinely one of my favorite things in the world.

This is so true.
My two, now 18 and 14 still ride regularly and the youngest still talks about how she misses riding every day to Primary school now she gets the bus.
Same as the OP, as soon as they could ride, family outings and rides from home, riding bikes has been a large part of their childhood. Now they ask me to ride with them which I love and the eldest, off to Uni in September has suddenly discovered an interest in basic maintenance.
I have always seen it as a parental responsibility.

Both my girls were on MTBs from an early age and although they are now grown up they haven’t lost the bug. We have ridden together in some amazing places. Most of my best rides have been when we have been out as a family

The last 20 years have flown by

Great Thread! My Daughter is only 21 months but loves being out on the bike, started with a seat on the back and now she’s on the Shotgun, it’s not my bike anymore, it’s ours 😂 I almost feel seasick just before we set off as she bounces up and down on the footpegs in excitement, she’s just got to learn that climbs are not the time to shout “More! Fast!”.

Seeing the pics above and reading the stories really makes me look forward to adventures when she’s on her own bike.

Bikes are awesome.
Kids are awesome.
Bikes + kids are awesome.

Mac-Riding was awesome, having continuous chit-chat as you whizz down the trails. Then follow-me tandems, shifting the emphasis more towards them riding by themselves but with the back up of mum or dad to hitch them on when they got tired. Then ditching the follow-me tandems and onto tow ropes: more freedom again, but the safety net of a tow up the hills later in the ride.

Brilliant being able to share something I love doing myself with the whole a11y family. Long may it continue.

Two photos taken on the same day, same bike, totally different purposes:

@Tracey, you’re photos sum up perfectly that “kids on bikes” are an absolute joy.

Love riding with my kids, never far and never gnar, though ones now at uni using a bike for transport, and daughter is a gymnast so rarely has time to fit it in, but we have plans for a bimble tomorrow as its half term.

She now objects to Bon Jovi in the car though. I’m more likely to have to listen to the soundtrack to Hamilton.

These memories will stay with you forever.
My nephew was a fearless 6 year old when we first started to take him ‘proper mtbing’. Quite a bit of walking up some trails, with a bit of moaning, however he loved the downhills so much that he soon forgot the strain of having to ‘earn the downs’. One or two tumbles along the way, where a promise of a hot chocolate soon made it all worthwhile. Him coming home covered in mud and the odd bruise didn’t dent the joy of these days. He was also competitive and always wanted to jump higher, ride faster and go down the ‘biggest’ drop offs. He’s 19 now and still rides, but mostly just to get from a-b.

He’s 18 now and still occasionally comes out with me.

So many happy memories though.

In fact I wrote a book about it all. 🙂

@easily I think this is the video you mean?

@steamtb we were in Rotarua . He was over for crankworx which is in a few weeks.

I love hearing about people’s kids who’ve grown up and still ride . I’ve got 2 boys 9 and 5 , my dream is that one day they go out riding together without me , if that makes sense 😁 hopefully they’ll still have the odd day out with their old man but if they’re riding when they’re older off their own back then I’ll think that a job well done

this was very early on in my lads riding 🙂

This one was later

Good thread. snotters jr is 4, I’m really hoping he takes an interest in riding for obvious reasons. He is quite small/slight/reserved, enjoyed riding on the top tube shotgun seat and managed a small balance bike pretty quickly. He has nailed scooting around on his Frog 40 sans-pedals, using the brakes, weaving around and can fly down nice gentle gradients but I cannot for the life of me get him interested in learning to Pedal at all. I am hoping that once it warms up in Spring we can make that breakthrough and do some family rides.

https://thumbsnap.com/t/3mCBZhRJ.jpg

(Tips on making the ‘pedalling’ breakthrough if anyone has any!?)

Tips on making the ‘pedalling’ breakthrough if anyone has any!?

MAke it interesting… once you do that and they’re hooked, they’ll be asking to go out all the time.

Its not the ‘going out on the bike’ bit, he loves that, we have all sorts of little adventures. Its literal act of pedalling rather than scooting. He even has a little stand for his bike so he can sit on it and spin like daddy does on Zwift etc…

But then, hes a 4 yr old. One day he’ll probably just decide himself he wants to do it!

100% agree! We’ve had some of the best days on bikes, and they open up and chat so much more when they are enjoying it!

I knew i’d won though when i handed over hill towing duties to the eldest!

Amen to all these posts.

Here’s Binnerette number 2 from a few years ago on the trails at Phillip Park. She’s been riding since she was scooting along on a balance bike

Over the last couple of years she’s lost interest as she’s been doing the stuff that teenage girls do. Fair enough.

Then last week I get “dad… is my bike still ok to ride? I fancy going riding again”. I reacted to this question in the same way most on here would. So, I’ve just had a delivery from Merlin this morning. There have been other deliveries over the last couple of days. I thought I’d just give her bike a service and maybe upgrade a couple of things. Erm…. I may have got a bit carried away 😀

So todays job is to get all this lot fitted and the forecast looks good for tomorrow, so we can head out. I can’t wait to show her the upgraded/pimped bike. In complete contrast to her older sister, she’s a very girly girl. The bike is going to be looking very very PINK!

My absolute favourite topic!

My two are 6 and 10, the littlun’ loves a flowy Blue, his big bro is building confidence on easier Reds. Biking with kids is a massive faff and can require superhuman patience, but is never not worth it.

Sherwood Pines this week

Everything about this thread is awesome, apart from

 singing along to Bon Jovi.

That’s worthy of an anonymous tip-off to social services!

I’ve got to the point where if I’m not driving the shuttle for my daughter and her mates I’m just about managing to keep up with her on the descents. She still gets rinsed on the climbs, but neither will last.

One thing happening is that biking for her is becoming much more orientated around her riding with her friends than with the family, which is no bad thing. She doesn’t realise how lucky she is to have so many like-minded riding buddies.

Great thread, all true.

From this – https://youtu.be/XiOj80Pbxxw

to this in 12 short years! – https://www.instagram.com/tv/CX1Jdo0hMJ-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Neither of my kids have been on a bike for years. But they have found sports that they love which is the main thing. Son has been diving for 12 years and I get so much joy from watching him and am totally in awe of his skill levels, I couldn’t even stand on the edge of the 10m platform nevermind do a handstand on it. Daughter plays football, not to the same standard, she’s happy just doing it for fun and plays at regional u16 level. But when I pick her up after training she’s absolutely buzzing which is great to see. I think it probably suits me, I like my bike rides so I can get a bit of me time and if they do want to come for a bike ride it’s special because it doesn’t happen often.

Riding with my kids is by far the best thing we do as a trio.

The dynamic has changed a bit, from “Dad taking his kids out” to “3 mates going for a ride”.  Which is really nice!

Jacob will be 15 this year and is very sorted rider, he rode Glentress off piste blacks and the Golfie last sumer on a 130mm forked “trail” hardtail with minimal issues.

Dylan is now 13 and taller than his brother, he is not quite as keen or as confident as his brother (not that he should be as he has 18 months head start) but loves a flowy blue or red but exposure freaks him out a bit.

Probably the best thing we did was get them decent 24in wheeled MTBs with dropper posts after the Islabike years.  They really came on in leaps and bounds on those bikes.

I think some parents worry about their kids “being in the way” at trail centres, which I get, but I can count the issues we have had (idiotic adults riding too close behind or dodgy overtaking maneuvers) on one hand and the positive experiences are too numerous to count.

If anyone needs kit (gloves, shorts, jerseys) or shoes (I’m sure i have a tiny pair of 5.10s under the stairs) give me a shout.

Stealth ad: I also have a XS Ragley Blue Pig, with wheels and forks to suit, if anyone needs a rolling chassis for their smallish ripper.

Proud Dad photo dump:

I think I need to start saving for a Vitus 20+ for the daughter having seen all the above!

She’s quite petite but her cnoc 14 looks a bit small on her now and she quickly spins is out on tarmac but can struggle uphill with the single speed nature of it

I think I need to start saving for a Vitus 20+ for the daughter having seen all the above!

Do it, they’re ace. Budget for a 14-34 Tourney freewheel though if you plan to use it as an introduction to actual mountain biking. Jr really struggled with some of the short, sharp ups on the Cannock Blue with stock gearing, but can spin up most things now.

I also fitted some Clarks Clout hydraulic discs I had in my spares box. They make such a difference for little hands with limited grip strength.

Proper grippy pedals and shoes are also crucial. This is a bit of a leap of faith as most parents look at the teeth and see potentially minced shins, but not slipping off crap plastic pedals in the first place is key IMO.

(Tips on making the ‘pedalling’ breakthrough if anyone has any!?)

We’ve just been through this with my youngest who is nearly 5 . I think the simple answer is wait till they tell you their ready, that worked with my oldest who one day after a tag along ride said that he wanted to ride his bike himself and off he went . Having said that my youngest is a stubborn little so and so 😁 so one day I just said to him that we were going to learn to ride with pedals and there was a bit of groaning but half an hour later he was pedaling. You know your kid best so do whatever you think will work with them . One tip that worked with mine was holding them under the armpits rather than being tempted to hold on to their bars . It’s a lot easier to run that way , and you can take your hands away a lot easier when the time comes . Once they’re going progress comes pretty quickly and is so satisfying to see , he’s been pedaling about a month now and is always asking to go to the pump track to practice his bike skills…..and get an ice lolly 😁

Thanks @stwhannah, that’s the one.

Is that you and your kid? I have no children but watching that video makes me wish I had.

Either way, that girl is an inspiration to us all.