Once the new baby comes, time for doing hobbies shrinks close to zero in the first months. In the long-term prospect, having a kid is a challenge with many advantages. Going out with kids to have a ride will be the excuse from home duties. Kids are more likely to join you for a ride than spend the afternoon with school textbooks or vacuum cleaners. (Just don’t tell them they will have to do that later anyway. We all do.)
Riding with kids or launching regular cycling holidays will give you the excuse and also justify investments into your own bike. Should the bicycle be a means you need to match with their fast-growing skills, your non-cycling partner would undoubtedly show sympathy with a decision to upgrade your old crate to a brand new bike.
Your old biking buddies often move out of town, find new hobbies or new friends. After a while, you might realise how hard it is to find someone to ride with. With cycling kids, you will nearly always have somebody around to arrange a bike trip. The kids might slow you down but it won’t take long before they leave you behind. One day, they might prefer to ride with kids of the same age but if you bring them up to love for the sport, they will definitively come back to you after a few years of teenage defiance. The wonderful thing about having kids is you will play the main role in raising them according to your likings. Do you want them to cycle? Let’s go out and do it.
1. Invest your own time into the improvement of their skill
Kids will steal a lot of time you were spending on cycling, that’s beyond all doubt. Learning to ride a bike is an important moment in every child’s development. Most children will be ready and willing to learn to ride between the ages of three and eight. As most parents would agree, time with kids flies and the breaking moment comes earlier than you could have expected, so be ready not to miss it. You can start with a balance bike at the age of three and then switch to the regular bike.
2. Make cycling fun
At first, cycling is neither a sport nor a challenge for kids. They regard it as a part of a game you arranged for them. As soon as cycling fails to be fun, the kids simply quit. Beware – the more you push on, the more furiously they resist. If you see them losing interest, change the subject immediately to something else. Cycling could be replaced by hiking, playing hide and seek, watching animals or building homes for forest elves from the tree bark. You can decorate their bikes with flowers, fringes or ribbons if it helps to create a better relationship between the child and the bike. You will be amazed by the progression kids can do if they like what they do. Always respect their needs in the first place. As a loving and respectful dad, you’ll be rewarded with trust and loyalty.
3. What if the decline cycling because of the world wide web
Taking them out is a way better activity than spending a day in front of the screen. If your kids see you enjoying cycling, they will most likely follow you. From a certain age on, it starts to be nearly impossible to prevent them from being on social media, though. On the other hand, you can make use even of the connection to the network. The motivation for cycling may well come from profiles and accounts of MTB superstars worth following, such as Brandon Semenuk, Rachel Atherton, Danny MacAskill, Tahnée Seagrave, Aaron Gwin, and many others. The kids might also love to join you to see a local race that might inspire them in their efforts. Once they see anyone doing backflips in the dirt park, they might insist on riding to be better bikers too.
