[image:
http://lh4.ggpht.com/teachndad/SCnEcCNSBjI/AAAAAAAAAiE/AUe3cH7g9xg/Sam%20BSA%20ceremony%2C%20April%20Climbing%20trip%2C%20Bear%2C%20Karl%20MUni%20126.jpg?imgmax=512]
This weekend I took my 10 year old son, Karl for his first real Muni
ride with fellow Muni rider, Eric Ambat, and we had a rip roarin blast.
Karl has been riding off and on since he started on a Juggle Bug uni
near his 6th birthday. I never really pushed him, but helped him with
the frustrations of trying to ultimately get on and ride the uni down
the block. Lately, he had been riding my old 20” uni very infrequently,
but he has been wanting to try Muni for a while.
After some mods to my trials uni, he was ready to rock. A swap of the
Jimmy C pedals to something less lethal – some old mtb pedals without
spikes and an airseat. I didn’t want him to experience the pedal bite
in the back of the calf just yet. My goal was to make the experience a
fun one.
We went to an area, which I learned in. It’s a single track trail that
runs about ¾ of a mile and works it’s way up in elevation very
gradually. There are some bumps in the trail to navigate over and some
short 20 foot stretches where you have to work to climb up. Overall
there is typical undulating surfaces you find on a hard pack single
track. At the top are some small mounds to ride over and some short
steep descent areas.
I had heard that kids learn fast. Well it’s true. I was amazed at his
progress, just over the time we spent riding on the trail from the
beginning to the end. He has only ridden on sidewalks and maybe down
the sidewalk driveway slope a few times. I got to see him ride over
small bumps in the trail as well as through depressions and maintain
his balance. Riding with 138 mm cranks helped a lot with the climbing.
I kept on scratching my head and wondering, “How did he do that with
so little practice?”. I remember myself 5 years ago in that same area
learning and having constant UPD’s. There was a steepish grade on the
way back that he managed to ride down, that left me jubilant and with
my mouth agape. I remember looking and yelling up at Eric, “How did he
do that?” and then yelling “attaboys” to Karl at the bottom.
It’s really fabulous watching your son do something you think is
challenging and work right through it in only a few tries. There’s
jubilance and pride.
I don’t know about other guys when they ride in groups, but there’s the
ride a little, play in a spot and shoot the breeze about whatever, that
happens on my rides with others. Karl fit right in with jokes from
school which were rife with bathroom humor. Eric and I chimed in and
laughed. There was plenty of laughter to go around. All around a
great bonding experience for Karl and Dad.
Links to a gallery are here
'http://picasaweb.google.com/teachndad/KarlSMUni '
(http://picasaweb.google.com/teachndad/KarlSMUni)where you can run it
as a slide show. Two very short videos are here at
http://tinyurl.com/46lp79
Cheers.
--
teachndad
Rod Wylie 'MountainUnicyclingLA.com'
(http://www.mountainunicyclingla.com)
'UnicycleTips.com' (http://UnicycleTips.com)
'UnicycleRoundupLA.com/' (http://unicycleroundupla.com/)
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