Disclaimer: This footage is not doctored. There was no digital retouching done to take out training wheels.

5 Minutes. That’s all it took. Don’t believe me? Here’s an extended” grandma” edition that’s 10 minutes long. I push him maybe 3 or four times, and then he’s off on his own.

I had read in the past that there’s no statistical evidence that push bikes get kids riding real bikes sooner, but I call BS. Noah has been riding his for just over a year, and he took to the pedal bike like a fish to water. Seriously, in the extended video, I shot video for the entire “lesson.”

And he’s already a pro. He rides now like he’s been doing it forever. On occasion he’ll get flustered because he tries to start out by pushing the pedal backwards, and the brake stop him, but other than that, he just hops on and goes.

Later in the afternoon we went to a park so he could ride some more, and the combination of heat, hills, and time of day got the best of him.

He had lost it. His mind was trying to hold two opposing thoughts at once. At one point he said he wanted to go home and take a nap, then the next that he wanted to keep riding. Then he asked for a blanket and his “bobby” so he could just nap on the bench there. I told him we could go home, and he responded with “But I wanna ride my bike! I don’t like it anymore. My legs hurt! I don’t want to nap!” Just a stream of nonsensical consciousness that would have put Alanis Morrisette to shame.

Today he got some time to ride around in our driveway, but that’s hard since it’s basically just a hill. I’m counting down the days until Desi’s 1 Year birthday so Tree will let me get him in the kid’s bike seat and the whole family can finally go for a bike ride again.

She wonders why I don’t want to have another kid…it’s cause I don’t want to take another 18 month hiatus from family bike rides.

posted on 06.19.11 @ 8:28pm
tags:bikes, cycling, noah, video