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Quick improvements

Mirror bike columnist shares trials and tribulations with his two-year-old son
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With the family camping for over a month and Jon running things at Swicked, I figured this was the perfect time to get Regan riding his run bike more consistently.

He started riding it six months ago, but it looked a lot more like walking instead of riding. He definitely had more crashes than successes in the first few months, but since he turned two a few weeks back, he has started showing more interest.

So with four weeks and lots of time, I planned on spending as much of each day as possible convincing him to ride. I’d hoped we could have him coasting and balancing by February and maybe able to ride our pump track by summer. Lofty goals, I know, but if you can’t live vicariously through your children, what’s the point of having them?

We arrived at our sunny destination last week and before I had time to start the convincing, Regan was asking for his bike. Within a couple of days he would disappear down the road to find his favourite hill and grind his way up it, only to turn around and coast back down with his feet up in the air.

He is now cruising all over the campsite and yelling out, in kind of a growly dinosaur voice, “MY BIKE … DOWN HILL”.

It hasn’t gone without incident though. He gets up to speed and doesn’t know how to slow down. As he puts his little feet down to slow the pace, he flies into a speed wobble and periodically shoots over the bars and lands on his face.

His nose is a bit scratched up, but the helmet takes the brunt of it, so he just gets up and starts over.

With our goal fully accomplished and three weeks left of our vacation, the plan has advanced a bit. Maybe I’ll try and get Regan into the single track with Rhyley, get him used to some speed and rougher terrain. In hindsight, I probably should have brought his full face helmet. Oh well, chicks dig scars right?

I’m James Durand and I’m Going’ Ridin’