First Bike Hike!

Let me start out by saying that I think we missed the boat on getting my OS started on riding a "big boy" bike without training wheels. Partly due to my own laziness, partly due to his own timidness, its just not something we ever got around to until the end of last summer. He was already 6, and boy were DH and I ashamed when the neighbor's not-yet four year old hopped on his bike without training wheels not long after our OS finally started to ride on his own.

But, he is now a pretty confident, albeit somewhat shakey, proud rider of a two-wheeler. We practiced a little through the winter but the rather unusual amount of snow and cold made it difficult to get out as much as we would have liked. So now we are finally getting out on occasional bike rides around the neighborhood and its been a nice thing to be able to do as a family (YS rides in a seat on my bike, not on his own). The problem is, our neighborhood is SOOOOO hilly, even us adults have to get off our bikes and walk them up the hills sometimes, and poor little OS's legs don't do any better.

So I really wanted to get out somewhere that we could ride on more level ground and farther than the confines of our little streets. Having been to a local park, Hugenout Park, I knew it had nice wide gravel trails and a surprisingly level lay of the land. Problem is, we don't have a bike rack. After some manuevering, we managed to get one adult and two children's bikes into the rear of our SUV, and strapped the other adult bike onto the roof on its side. Yeah, not the coolest looking family driving down the road, but I'm glad we made the effort.



Our family's first bike hike went even better than expected. OS was able to lead the way the whole time, and we didn't even have to crawl along to match his speed. YS talked non-stop from his seat, as usual, and declared that this park shall forever be known as "Bike Trail Park." Sure, i can go with that. I estimate we biked about 3 miles, though a lot of that was circling around so its hard to say for sure. OS never once said he was tired and only fell when he wasn't looking and hit a tree (no injuries, not even a wimper!). Sometimes my family still surprises me as to how much fun we can have on an outing.

We rounded out the day with some time on the playground and a stop at the ice cream truck conveniently placed int he parking lot. Well, at least we'd burned enough calories to compensate for some of those popsicles!

We definitely will be doing another bike hike soon. It was a wonderful experience and I'm so glad we finally got to try it!