Food and Snacks – Carry all their favorite food and drink and take many breaks. Make sure they eat a lot when needed. Kids have high metabolism and their energy comes in bursts. Take breaks often and make them a fun treat.
Sign them up for training or events – Women’s bike camp or Kids training camps will teach them valuable lessons and allow them to be with their peers. Sign your wife up for a metric century or the kids in a race or kiddie triathlon. Nothing motivates like a looming event.
Find the local pump tracks and bike parks – If you’re lucky enough to have access to these, go to them regularly. Build up the skills and the comfort level with bikes. Support all activities to get pump tracks and bike parks opened in your neighborhood.
Turn off the distractions - If you kids would rather play the Wii for 4 hours on a Saturday, you’re screwed. It’s hard to compete against that. So you have to limit the easy/lazy activity so they will go out of the house and achieve.
Be Patient and Listen – Guide them but adjust to what works for them. Some folks need to build confidence before taking risks while others take risks and build confidence. What works for you may not be the same thing that works for our wives, husbands or kids. Kids like to be around other kids. Just some time at a park with another kid or two on bikes will get them seat time. You can build skills just on little trails. Little curbs, rocks and things are all over the place that the kids will start going over. Adjust towards the different personalities of your kids as well as some of them may be risk takers while others may be fearful of anything new.
The goal is to start the cycling fire in them. So you have to be diligent and consistent until they fall in love with it and start looking for it themselves.
Here are extreme cases of success. Malcolm is a 4-year old who is so stoked on riding. Notice how the dad acts like the ride is no big deal. He holds back his enthusiasm and lets Malcom’s independence flourish. He respects what Malcolm suggest and follows Malcolm’s orders to go first and to keep going as soon as Malcolm arrives. When Malcolm falls to the ground on minute marker 4:08, dad does not come rushing in to help. Finally, we’re able to infer from this video that dad has built a training course at home. This course has prepared Malcolm for this ride.
And this is 8-year old Finn Finestone who grew up in Whistler, British Columbia. Finn is the son of the great Brian Finestone who is the park manager at Whistler Mountain Bike park. Brian has prepared Finn well by letting him take the lift trails down at age 3. Then he enrolled Finn in many of the kids training camps at Whistler Mountain Bike Park.
And What has worked for you?
Mtbr has a thriving Families and Riding With Kids forum here.
About the Author:
The author of this article is Francis Cebedo, founder of mtbr.com. A short bio and history of the site can be found here http://www.mtbr.com/aboutfranciscrx.aspx. Francis has a 12-year old son and a 9-year old daughter who ride with him every week now. His wife now rides 3 times a week too. Next year, their family plans to go Bend, OR and Whistler, BC to visit the family mountain bike meccas of the world.