Our lad has made me rather proud (in a cycling sense) recently.
First was the York Rally. He entered his first bike race - the under 6 balance bikes. He is fiercesomely competitive (no guesses where this comes from
) but still only 3. We were rather pleased when he came in 3rd and was only beaten by the 5 year olds!
The second occasion was also at York. We went to the Minster service (by bus) and thought we'd let him start the parade back on his balance bike while we trotted alongside on foot. We fully expected that by the time we'd got to Micklegate Bar he'd be rather knacked and we'd end up catching the bus back. He didn't share this expectation. He did flag a bit near the Knavesmire, but a few pretend shovelfuls of coal later (he was pretending to be a steam train) he had enough puff to get all the way back. I think he really enjoyed the applause as he got back onto site.
This sort of performance, together with the fact that he'd started treating his balance bike like a BMX (standing up on the stays and coasting down steep hills, using the front axle bolts like BMX pegs and stuff like that) were convincing us that he was ready for pedals. We duly ordered an Islabikes Cnoc14 for him which turned up yesterday. Blow me down if he wasn't pedaling independently on the first real attempt on a "proper" bike with pedals today. This attempt turned into a 2 mile ride (with mid-ride ice-cream stop natch - it was hot) by the end of which he was even getting the hang of stopping with brakes (rather than shoes) and starting. He'd even started to race his Mum and me as we ran along with him.
As I said, I'm a proud Daddy today!
