I am struggling to get my son bike confident so today I was very pleased to have another adult along to help us out on a bike ride. We hadn't been out for 2 months so he was not at all happy about getting on his tag-a-long. Every bend, bump and slope was an excuse to get off. Having a child scream "I am going to die" as you sedately go down a hill on a main road is rather distracting! Some other lovely cyclists even tried to reassure him but it didn't seem to work... so it was a relief to get to Kendal weir (a whole 2 km) and have a rest:
Sitting watching the ducklings helped me to unwind a bit:
His battery was recharged with a slushy:
Whilst the rest of us had ice creams:
All feeling better we had another go on our trusty bikes:
My son still had a few wobbles as we headed along the canal path through town. Its a pretty flat and quiet route so it should have been ideal to get him confident! He seemed to only relax when we got to the really quiet part of the route:
There were very few people on the path which was lucky as the undergrowth didn't leave a huge amount of room to cycle along:
The last part of the route to Natland was on the road. My son was doing really well until we were forced to stop on a hill by my lace tangling in the pedal! It was quite a relief to reach the school in Natland where the children had fun in the playground:
Then we had a much more relaxed cycle ride back to Kendal. My son was even confident enough to look over his shoulder to watch out for cars. He was so pleased with himself after he and I shot off and left the others "miles behind":
He didn't even mind helping to get our extra long bike back up to the road:
We fair whizzed back across town and between us even pedalled up the hill to our estate! Amazing the difference it made to have a confident young man on the back of the bike:
So now we need to keep up the momentum and get out at least once a week during the summer. Hopefully eventually we won't need an extra adult along after a while..
