My 16 year old takes a ride with me
 

My 16 year old son is very active and a good athlete. He plays on a competitive soccer team, the high school soccer team and also runs track and cross country on his high school teams. Sometimes he likes to get on my road bike and fly up and down the street in front of the house a couple of times and thats it. Yesterday as I was going out the door for a ride I invited him as usual. He suprised me by saying "sure". I put a pair of platform pedals on my Sirrus and raised the seat about 3/4" as he is 6'1'' and off we went. The first couple of miles we rode easy and talked about shifting, comfort on the seat, cadence etc. When we came to a pretty steep hill I downshifted a couple of times, kept my cadence in mid 90's and took off. As I was near the top of the hill I was huffing pretty good and I had just looked over my left shoulder to make sure I wasn't too far ahead of him when he pulled up on my right side and just started talking to me like we were riding on flat ground. I just thought I was getting in good shape, but compared to him, ha. We rode 20 miles at a moderate pace, had a nice conversation and it was a blast for me. When we got home I asked him if he wanted to do it again sometime and just like a 16 year old he said "sure" and went back in the house.

Good times, fer sure. My 16 y/o son is a much stronger rider than I, a fact he's not reluctant to share with me. Still, it's great fun to go MTBing with him.

I thought you were supposed to be an experienced Bike rider**********

If you are going out with youngsters- You have to make certain the milage is just a bit too far for them- On the road this will be about 50 miles. They may be fast but they lack Stamina.

Then there is the doctoring of their bike- Dropping tyre pressure by about 30% is just the starting point but a knobbly tyre also helps. Then there is the brake adjustment One pad just rubbing on each wheel works wonders on getting the little kiddies tired out on even a short ride.

Then there is the final thing to do and that is to select the saddle. You know the one- The one that you gave up on 5 years ago- made of leather that has gone rock hard and you set it up with a nose up attitude.

Hope this will help you show the youngsters that the old man can still kick it on your future rides.

I've had three of my kids stoking my tandem at various times.

The most interesting is when I took a daughter, who was about 16 or 18 at the time, with me on an organized ride. Now my wife and I had ridden many rides with this particular group and nobody ever seemed to be particularly interested in our bike. On this particular occasion, guys were tripping over one another to talk to her about the bike. While I, of course, had all of the correct technical answers, none of the boys seemed to care much about anything that I had to say.

RoMad, you are a man blessed. Hopefully, he will ride again. I find that converstations with my sons during such an activity tend to take on a easier, more relaxed quality. Sometimes, they forget I'm their father and disclose things that I'm sure they would never do in another situation.

My elder son, one month shy of his 23rd birthday, has taken up road cycling with the San Diego Bicycle Club, as well as nighttime mountain biking on the UCSD campus with local bike shop personnel. He's enjoying it, I am getting to ride with him occasionally, and he is getting great use out of my 1980 Peugeot PKN-10, which was always 2-3cm too tall and too long for me.

My son is 41 and we often ride together, usually doing around 30 miles on trails. Gives us a good chance to talk about nothing. I learned a long time ago, the best things in life aren't things.

Another sweet spot in time. Riding with family is without doubt the most enjoyable time one can spend on a bicycle. Makes me feel good to read this sort of thing. Thank you, sincerely.

Yes. I would definitely agree with that.
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