Anyone with young children who go biking?

Mancunianfightingcat

Due to the fact that my dad is a dirty old man, I find myself with a 5 year old brother! (I'm 32)

My dad's a keen cyclist but not a mountain biker, so my little bro is growing up around bikes, he cycles to and from school most days, either on his own bike or on a tag-along, which is about a mile each way.

Anyway my/his dad has just bought him his first mountain bike and little bro wants to come out cycling with me, every time I see him he asks, when?

I'm quite looking forward to taking him out and plan to go somewhere like Gisburn Forest to do some of the easier stuff.

What I'd like to know is,

How far can I expect him to ride before he passes out? I'm guessing about 4 or 5 miles, but I'd like any input form people with more experience.

Cheers

sws

My 5yr old daughter loves a trip out to the Green at Glentress. We normally do 2-3 circuits of Green, about 5k max. I don't want to push her beyond that at the moment mainly beause we've got a fairly long hike a bike up to the car park from the bottom of Green and takes a fair bit out of her.

Never been to Gisburn, but Green at Glentress is a pretty nice track, nice and undulating, nothing too taxing and the trail itself is probably a better surface than a lot of roads round my way.

fitch28

my daughter started going mountain biking when she was 7. i usually found the best thing to do was to find a short loop and let her dictate when she had had enough.

Mancunianfightingcat

Good tip with short loops,
there's a loop about 2km max I'm now thinking of, forest road to start and then swooping singletrack down back to the forest road/car park.

BorisSpencer

Remember kids aren't interested in riding up a hill to admire the view, but they they will ride up it for an arse clenching, scream all the way, decent.
Keep an eye on him and stop regularly for snacks and drinks, if he's anything like my lad the end will come quite suddenly.

nerak

1. Short - loop ideal
2. Fairly flat - hills wear kids out quickly
3. More than single speed bike
4. Bananas for energy if you get going and he starts flagging (sugar!)
5. Goalposts with cool rewards (inexpensive things to make him feel good he's achieved something)
6. Patience!

nerak

Oh yeah, and his mate to compete with!

dsmiff

Both mine started proper Mountain Biking around 7, can't really avoid the hill's where we live.

Both had pad's and full face helmets (that I would carry on the way up), once they where a bit more skilled and got the first few crashes out of the way (which they will) did they stop wearing the full face. (I'm sure some with disagree with this but I've seen enough kids and adults face plant there)

As regards hill's most of it is in the mind, would always set a goal on a hill, don't just let them stop -if we did it would always be "Ok but lets get to that tree first".

It took my 7 year old about 4 attempts to get up the hill at Llandegla in one go, he got hugh satifaction from that.

At 5 we only really did rides on the roads

borderboy

I have 3 boys( the youngest was 4 when we started) and they are now all mad keen on dh biking. At first we took it nice and steady and did some road biking on mainly mtb bikes with 5 gears on the two older boys bikes the youngest had a fixy. We would do about 4 or 5 miles max.
After about a year and they had all grown bigger and fitter we all had a bike with a min of 5 gears. So we got a bit more adventurous drove to the top of big hill with 100,s of acre's of open moorland and got them used to off road biking, which was very hard at first but kept them full of jelly babies and water and they got better quickly and would ride 10 miles of quite hilly x country without too many probs just had to push the little one's bike on the steep bit's.
Now after 3 years of cycling we will do 20 miles no probs they are very very fit they all did the marin 2 weeks ago the mbr and the taryw at coed y brenin the day after.
The smallest is 7 and he showed a few lads up on the pink heifer down hill section and more impressively the next climb gave them a couple of minute's start because he was having a pee and stormed past them on the climb. The eldest is now 13 and races dh so will the 10 year old (11 soon) next year if we can get him a licence.
It is the best feeling in the world seeing your kids on a bike instead of sitting behind a play station or pc and being asked how old is the little one? by an adult they say ahhh "isn't he small" then he goes and passes them on the next climb.
I love being a Dad
Both me and the wife love biking and have spent a lot of money on there bikes gear and racing but it does pay off as we love the dh scene as it teaches the kids that there is much more to life than a PS2/3 and pc's get out get some fresh air into you and meet some great people.
Here endeth the lesson sorry it's so long
There is a video of them below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZjCwLAZPbo

Mancunianfightingcat

Thanks, some great advice there! He's fairly fit and does ride every day so I hope he'll last a good few miles! I'll let you know how we get on.

Cool vid borderboy and what a fantastic garden!

Mark_K

Mancunianfightingcat wrote:

Due to the fact that my dad is a dirty old man, I find myself with a 5 year old brother! (I'm 32)

Sorry but THAT has the be the best starting line to a post EVER pmsl
Anyway on topic my lad started at 7 with short loops on fire roads then started finding nice bits of single track for him on the flats now he'll happily do 20+ miles of road with lots of encouragement on hills and when he falls ! Problem now is i have to take his 3 year old sis with us on my bike (in a i-bert seat) climbing some of the hills and doing some of the bomb holes with a 3 1/2 stone kid on your handle bars soon ups your fitness levels trust me :roll:

Hercule Q

i was up haldon a couple of weeks ago and i saw a child must of been about 6 hooning down the red run on the berms and rocky sections, he was better than some of my mates

pte1643

My Daughter is 8, she can bike for miles. Blue route in Thetford mostly.

v23

borderboy wrote:

5 gears on the two older boys bikes the youngest had a fixy.

Seriously? A fixie at 5 years old. That's awesome. I don't think I could ride one on the roads with confidence even now.

Or do you mean a single speed?

naefearjustbeer

I have a 3 year old that happily sits and peddles along behind me on an argos special tag along bike and a 7 year old that takes the lead on her mountain bike, we quite often do 4 mile loops on and off road through some old quarries. The hills do kill her legs quite quickly though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5twv1E7z3A All good fun.

Eranu

My two are getting into biking too My 6 year old daughter did a 6 mile loop with me the other day all off road with a couple short but fun decents and a some short sharp climbs. She contantly asks to go out on her bike now not on the road but to the BMX track in the park or to the country park, I'm sure she'll be overtaking me soon!

I also went out with them both today, me on foot, my 3 year old on her push along and Katie on her bike. It was just in the woods round the corner from me but they both did really well only about 3 miles but the 3 year old was really hacking it along on her push along she had a great time and was flying down some of the little slopes with her feet of the ground. I don't think it'll be long before I need to buy her a proper bike