Kids - How far do you cycle with yours?

[LeetleGreyCells]

I was talking with another parent yesterday evening who mentioned he and his 8-year-old son did a 13-mile loop last weekend, mostly on a muddy towpath.

My son is 9, 10 in 3 months, and the furthest he’s ever been is about 8 miles (last summer in nice weather on a repurposed former railway line).

I wonder, am I not encouraging / pushing him hard enough to do better?

For those of you that have kids, and we were all kids at some point, how far should we aim for at his age?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

My thoughts are to push him to go a mile further than he is comfortable with and build that distance each time. I really, really don’t want to put him off cycling.

Thanks

 

[Welsh wheels]

I was talking with another parent yesterday evening who mentioned he and his 8-year-old son did a 13-mile loop last weekend, mostly on a muddy towpath.

My son is 9, 10 in 3 months, and the furthest he’s ever been is about 8 miles (last summer in nice weather on a repurposed former railway line).

I wonder, am I not encouraging / pushing him hard enough to do better?

For those of you that have kids, and we were all kids at some point, how far should we aim for at his age?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

My thoughts are to push him to go a mile further than he is comfortable with and build that distance each time. I really, really don’t want to put him off cycling.

Thanks

As kid I was taken on bike rides when I wasn't fit enough for the distance. It didn't put me off though. Just take food in case he starts to struggle.

 

[steven1988]

My lad is 10 in August his furthest is 25 miles all off road however we are planning on a 45 in the summer for charity

 

[User10119]

The 10 year old seems to have an upper limit of about 15 miles on the tandem. That's assuming there's a nice café in the middle somewhere Last summer we did a 4 day cycle camping adventure with @kimble and tested whether he could do repeated days and it more or less worked.

The EldestCub and I had a few regular 15-20 mile 'training' routes that we did (with a café stop) from him being about 8. Shortly before his 9th birthday we did a 4 day (nearly) coast-to-coast tour to his Granny's totalling about 120 miles, and he did a few 50km rides and one 50 miler as part of 'training' for this. We built up to it over several months and I tried to add the difficulty in phases - so his first 30 miler was on a very easy nearly traffic-free route so he only had to deal with distance and not other road users. Another time we did a definitely achievable distance but added hills, and another time we went and learnt about roundabouts but did so by taking a short detour off a very familiar ride.

There's absolutely no way the SmallestCub could do that even now, at two years older - I guess they are all different!

 

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Push them til they cry.

 

[roadrash]

Please please don't do as @Marmion says, don't push them, make them pedal

 

[User10119]

Actually I just remembered that the SmallestCub and I did do a 35ish mile one a couple of years back - we rode with the eldest to his girlfriend's and then left him there (he came home later at what i calculated must have been around 20mph so as to not be late!) and rode back. We had a pub stop and a park stop and a corner shop stop and another park stop and an ice cream stop then a pub lunch. And we may have gone to another park after that... We probably had a moving average of about 7mph!

 

[Crackle]

It tended to vary. At that kind of age anything from a few miles up to about 10 or 12. So long as there was some motivation and interest then they'd keep going. When they got to around 12/14 we did a few little tours with 25 to 35 miles a day but they'd be just as happy to go mtn biking and scratting around in the forest or on a trail. Now both fully grown at uni and using bikes to commute.

 

[cosmicbike]

My lad (13yo) will gladly pedal about 15 miles or so on the towpath or similar, but he'd rather to 10 miles on the trails at Swinley. My daughter i sless inclined to cycle at this time of year, but will go the 5 - 8 miles to get an ice cream ride in the Summer.
On holiday is different, they both did 22 miles in France last year on one of the old railway routes in the Dordogne

 

[User10119]

So long as there was some motivation and interest then they'd keep going.

And ice cream. And cafés. And pooh sticks. And pubs. And parks just around the corner.

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

[QUOTE 5161367, member: 45"]Ours would do Wadebridge to Padstow and back on the Camel Trail (10 miles) when they were 6.

Your child is a failure.[/QUOTE]

 

[User10119]

We did have a bit of a catastrophic fail a couple of years back when we rode to Granny's (maybe 15 miles away?), stayed overnight and then set off to ride back the next day. We'd only got to the end of her street before his whinging brought on my sense of humour failure and we trurned round, parked the bikes up in the living room and caught a bus home instead.

 

[steven1988]

[QUOTE 5161424, member: 10119"]We did have a bit of a catastrophic fail a couple of years back when we rode to Granny's (maybe 15 miles away?), stayed overnight and then set off to ride back the next day. We'd only got to the end of her street before his whinging brought on my sense of humour failure and we trurned round, parked the bikes up in the living room and caught a bus home instead.[/QUOTE]

My lad whinges like hell for the first mile of every ride without fail. But then whinges when we get home after 15 to 20 miles because we're home to quick. Work that one out

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

My lad whinges like hell for the first mile of every ride without fail. But then whinges when we get home after 15 to 20 miles because we're home to quick. Work that one out

Sounds like kid logic to me.

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

[QUOTE 5161424, member: 10119"]We did have a bit of a catastrophic fail a couple of years back when we rode to Granny's (maybe 15 miles away?), stayed overnight and then set off to ride back the next day. We'd only got to the end of her street before his whinging brought on my sense of humour failure and we trurned round, parked the bikes up in the living room and caught a bus home instead.[/QUOTE]
Whinging for kids is a necessity I believe. It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something.