My Bike Gang

A couple of weeks ago we picked up a new bike for #1. Her old one was still in great shape but it was ridiculously too small.

We'd been in to Wal-Mart a few weeks earlier, eying up bikes and she already had one all picked out. So one night we headed down to pick it up.

As soon as we entered the store we saw a big line of bikes ripe for the picking. On the end was the bike she wanted, just one of them. I convinced her to head over to the bike department and look at some other bikes while we were there, just in case there was one she liked better. When we arrived at the bike section we saw that there weren't any of the ones she wanted left and she wasn't interested in any of the other bikes they had. Panic started to kick in for #1. I helped it along by saying, "Oh, oh we'd better get back to the other one! What if someone already bought it while we were here?"

#1 took off across the store like a bolt of lightening! I could see her running up to "her" bike with her arm raised in the air. When she got to it she slammed her hand down on the seat, thus claiming that it was now hers and that anybody else had better just step off!

We took our first bike ride the next Friday night.

#2 was now using #1's old bike which was quite a bit bigger than her old one and, since she had just learned the 2-wheel thing last year right before the bikes went away, she took a bit of time getting used to the whole biking thing. About half way through our adventure she had the hang of it. We took a rip up to the park that is near by. It has lots of walking/biking paths all through it. #1 was in the lead followed closely by #2 and way in the back was #3 (she pedals like hell but you just can't really go that fast with training wheels) and me. Every block #1 and #2 had to wait for me and #3 to catch up before they crossed the street. I like to think we looked like a bike gang but I have a feeling we looked more like a family of ducks.

Once we arrived at the park the kids were able to ride wherever they wanted without having to worry about cars or anything and we took a quick soccer break. This was a good opportunity for #2 and #3 to work the kinks out and get comfortable with riding (and more importantly with braking) again. Once they had their fill we headed back home. The kids were all bagged.

So, I made it back to the house with the same number of kids I left with. Nobody was crying or bleeding and they still wanted to go biking the next day. All in all, a successful first trip of the year.