Jayson and I took up biking when I was pregnant with Lydia. Or, I should say, he took up biking and I watched because let's just say that no part of me that makes contact with the actual bike and is not my hands or feet was ready to get on a bike. Once I had Lydia, I joined him. We had biked before, but not seriously, and we now do some pretty major road biking, including the Leukemia Lymphoma Society Scenic Shore 150 bike ride that is a 150-mile bike ride that occurs over the course of two days. Leading up to that ride, we go on some nice training rides.
We have always been eager to get our girls interested in biking too, so we started with a Burley when Lydia was one. A Burley is basically a cage that you attach to your bike so you can pull around your screaming, crying toddler as she Houdinis her way out of her helmet. The first summer did not go so well, but the next summer she was two and handled the helmet much better. Unfortunately, I was also recovering from the birth of Audrey, and not touching the bike. The next summer Lydia was ready to go, but Audrey was only a year old and going through the screaming-crying-ripping-of-the-helmet stage. The next summer (are you sensing a pattern here?), I was recovering from Charlie's birth, and also, we had three kids, which do not fit into a Burley without some strategic stacking.
Which brings us to this summer. We got a Trail-a-Bike for Lydia. It is a contraption that attaches to my bike and has one wheel and some pedals. Don't be fooled - her little legs may be moving, but it's all cosmetic - I could strap a bowling ball to the seat and get the same results. This of course, doesn't stop me from telling her she needs to pedal super hard for the next hill or we're not going to make it up! The inaugural Trail-a-Bike ride in our driveway involved a lot of tears and clutching the handlebars with white knuckles asking one of us to hold her on the bike while the other one rode in front of her. After running up and down the driveway next to her, I had enough. Bribery goes a long way though, and we told her that as soon as she could ride the bike, we could go anywhere she wanted and she picked the ice cream store. That prompted her to quickly pick up the necessary skills to keep her butt on the seat while I did all the work.
However, Charlie is one. Which means she's in the screaming-crying-pulling-of-the-helmet stage. We went on our first big ride today and Charlie was pretty miserable. Finally, on the way home, we let her sit up a bit. The Burley is designed in such a way that the harness kind of pulls the girls back into more of a reclining position, and having their head back kind of pushes the helmet forward. We let Charlie sit with the straps under her arms instead of over them, and she loved it. I guess if we had to choose between the harness or the helmet, the helmet wins.
So, the trip was fairly successful. We still need to work on a more stable ride with the Trail-a-Bike. It kind of feels like Lydia is doing the Y-M-C-A back there while I try to balance. I'm scared that she'll make a sudden movement and we'll hit the pavement. I refuse to clip my bike shoes into the pedals so I can act quickly in the case of an emergency. But, we're getting there.
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