Sunday, October 12, 2008

First Bike for Aidan

Aidan turns 4 on Tuesday, but today we had his party. Since he was going to be getting all his other presents in the afternoon, Kells and I decided to go ahead and have his bike ready for him when he woke up this morning.

You may recall that Aidan has been riding and loving his Skuut for about a year now. Aidan and I have logged quite a few miles with him on the Skuut and me on my Cannondale. So Kells and I were quite interested to see if this would translate into anything noticeable on a bike with pedals.

On his wishlist, Aidan was quite specific in wanting a bike "with training wheels." I tried to talk him out of it, but Aidan really really wanted them to the point of starting to cry when I kept suggesting that he might not need them. So, hey, you wants the Training Wheels? You gets the Training Wheels and we are all happy.

Naturally, as soon as Aidan saw his bike this morning, he wanted to ride it. And, after the fastest change from pajamas to clothes ever seen in this household, he and I were out on the street (7:15AM). Since the bike had training wheels, I could carry my coffee in one hand and walk/run alongside him. We were out for about 45 minutes when it was time to come in to get ready for church, and Aidan said, "Dad, I don't think I need the wheels anymore." He and I decided that after church, we'd get the wrenches out and take them off.

And after a fast lunch, with him doing most of the wrench turning, the training wheels were retired with little fanfare.

Then, after four trips out and back with me running behind holding the seat, Aidan says, "I don't want you to hold the seat anymore." So I moved to lightly holding his back (which was much more fun for my back). And after two trips out and back he said, "I don't want you to hold my back again." After which, it seemed like a good idea to get the camera.



You can see that the pedals fit him fine, but the bike is just a bit too tall for him, so he has a bit of trouble keeping it up after stopping. But he regards that as a feature, since his second most favorite thing to do after riding the bike is to pretend to crash it. So usually he just lets the bike fall over and he goes over too, with much giggling.

In fact, we had to convince him to actually ride the bike "seriously" because when the camera came out, he would go for ten feet, then wobble his handlbars on purpose (saying "woah woah hee hee woah woah") and fall over. What a ham. But it's a testament to his comfort level with the bike.

Oh, and Aidan said today, "The Skuut is Honor's now, because I have a new bike."

5 comments:

Lindsay said...

That is AWESOME! Way to go, Aidan! I can't believe he can even turn without issue.

I was thinking of getting JTC a glide bike for Christmas this year. FP, I believe, has one that you can add pedals to later.

Walter said...

that's amazing!

mary said...

So great! I've got to post the ride footage on my blog now.

Anonymous said...

That is wonderful, Aidan! I can't believe how easily and how young he's learned to ride the bike!

Scott said...

Dude - he's awesome.