The Girl’s first cycling experiences were as a passenger, a constantly-exhorting weight I pulled around in a trailer more or less at the speed she liked. “Faster, Tata!” would soon morph into, “Not so fast, Tata!” While I love her boundlessly, she was sometimes quite an irritating passenger.
Today, the Girl and I took our first father/daughter bike ride: a respectable distance of 2.1 kilometers (1.3 miles) in a nearby park. It took us 28 minutes, meaning we were riding roughly 4.3 km/h (2.7mph). There were a number of reasons for this rather slow tempo, all related to her lack of cycling experience.
- Having training wheels makes her dependent on them for balance. Thus, when one loosens a bit and is thus not providing perfect support, L panics.
- L is terrified of going downhill. When she gets going too fast, she panics and, instead of putting on brakes, plants both feet firmly — albeit very temporarily — on the ground. The pedals bite her ankles, she almost looses her balance and falls forwards, and the whole thing becomes a gigantic trauma. “You need to use your bakes” I said continuously today.
- The Girl doesn’t have the best concept of two-way traffic. Even when she sees someone coming from the opposite direction, she seems oblivious.
- She hasn’t mastered braking, so it’s always all or nothing. There is no such thing as coasting on the brakes.
- L’s bike is too small for her. Her knees almost touch the handlebars, and her legs are never more than 3/4 extended.
- When all of this combines into one experience, it is disaster writ large.
Still, a relatively successful first day out. We’ll start working on our first father/daughter century ride when we get her a new bike this spring.
As with everything else, it won’t be long before she will be wanting to race you!
Oh, she’s already trying to race me. I let her win the first one; the second one, I rode beside her for a moment, then said, “Watch this” — and you can guess what I did. From behind me: “Tata! Tata! Wait! That doesn’t count!”