Pedalmaniac

Friday, October 27, 2006

Fishing



Things are getting a bit wet here. The commute into work the past couple of days has been wet. I thought I needed to remember a little summer -- and it's only October.

Tabblo seems to be a pretty good way to show photos. Check it out.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Pedalheads

Before my son's fourth birthday we decided to try and get him to ride his bike without training wheels. Aiden was a keen rider, we rode trails with his training wheels on and what messed him up was his training wheels hitting roots, trees and rocks. He used to get so frustrated. He begged us to take them off. I was worried that this would be a step backward for him, but we were surprised and he took off right away. He never looked back.

My daughter is a different story. She has not been as keen as Aiden with cycling. We ride on the trail-a-bike, but she pedals backwards. We go for rides with her on her bike and we end up pushing her. But her cousin had just finished a week with Pedalheads and was training wheel free, and although Tessa wasn't initially keen, we decided sign her up -- she was almost four.

The day before she was to start I decided to look at her bike to make sure the training wheels could come off -- she had a tiny bike that was in rough shape. I noticed that the rear rim moved independently of the hub and realised that this was not a good thing. So I panicked. I went out and bought her a new bike -- typical doting father.

On the first day the instructors at Pedalheads take off the traning wheels, and then they spend the rest of the hour bent over running behind the kids. Better them than me. They are all young and nimble. I watch them and instantly get a sore back. But they percevier. By the end of the first hour Tessa was riding across the field without training wheels, crashing into the fence 200m away, and loving it! By the end of the week she had it! She could ride around in circles, in a staight line and she had good control. The best thing though was she loved it!

Thanks Pedalheads for saving another dad's back

Here's the video:

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Welcome Back

Well summer is officially over, and I didn't blog once. Well almost.
Anyway it was such a great summer and there was so many thing s to write about.... but there just wasn't enough time.

Here are some of the great things that happened that over time I might get a chance to write about in the next few months. We had a month of vacation away from phones, internet, and T.V. We swam in the lake, sat on the beach, hung out with friends and I only rode my bike twice. Hmm there is definitely something fishy there.

My daughter, T, learned how to ride her bike without training wheels -- before her 4th birthday!

There were injuries (none too serious) and there were tears, all because in August there was more riding.

One thing that I will have to rectify for next year was the fact that there were no Epic adventures (other than the triple crown). No Moab, no Chilcotin, no road trips -- next year.

So I'm back, I'll try to be more prolific. Don't count me out yet.