# Today my kid told me....



## mustang1 (20 Sep 2015)

My 4yo who's been riding for a year today told me "dad, thanks for teaching me all these good things about riding my bike". It was real nice to be told that. 

His preference is off road. My 8yo who's been riding since 2 has a more on-road preference. The 4yo likes bouncy and challenging trails. The older one prefers longer distance riding.


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## roger06 (1 Oct 2015)

I too have kids of 4 and 7 and we're finding cycling a really good family-bonding pursuit.


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## mustang1 (1 Oct 2015)

roger06 said:


> I too have kids of 4 and 7 and we're finding cycling a really good family-bonding pursuit.


Cool!

My wife doesn't ride a bike, nor does she want one. I was thinking maybe I'll get her one anyway. But I'm kind of in the market for a brompton so maybe she can use that.

Now that my 4yo can ride properly, I will get him a helmet. Yes, I know I know. But I wanted him tonget a feel for wind in the hair before she starts getting bogged down with other bike paranpharnalia. He uses gloves though.


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## User32269 (2 Oct 2015)

I've got an 8 year old lad who loves cycling. I'm trying to get his sister (5) and little brother (4) riding without stabilisers... not going well!
The big lad now has swapped his little bmx for a bike with gears and there's no stopping him, wants to do his first 20 miler before weather tuns Baltic.
Got my missus a bike last year...it has covered a total of about 0.4miles in all that time!
I now have to wear a helmet coz the kids all started crying that they didn't want daddy to die!


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## mustang1 (2 Oct 2015)

User32269 said:


> I've got an 8 year old lad who loves cycling. I'm trying to get his sister (5) and little brother (4) riding without stabilisers... not going well!
> The big lad now has swapped his little bmx for a bike with gears and there's no stopping him, wants to do his first 20 miler before weather tuns Baltic.
> Got my missus a bike last year...it has covered a total of about 0.4miles in all that time!
> I now have to wear a helmet coz the kids all started crying that they didn't want daddy to die!



Awwwe they care about you. Whenever I ride with the kids I always 
Wear helmet,
Have lights on,
Make deliberate actions to check for traffic.
It's just to give the kids a good example.

On another note, my 8yo has been telling my 4yo that she has gears. The 4yo thinks that's the coolest thing in the world so now I have to buy an ssfg bike to show him single speed bikes are also cool. (You may have seen my ssfg thread/s).


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## CyclePower (8 Oct 2015)

User32269 said:


> I'm trying to get his sister (5) and little brother (4) riding without stabilisers... not going well!



My now 7 year old learned to cycle on a balance bike. He rode it for about 3 years. When he then swapped it for a bmx bike with pedals it took him 10 minutes to get used to the pedals and off he went. No crashes, no crying, no soothing. I highly recommend balance bikes to learn to cycle. By this way children can skip the stabilisers completely.


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