Short Circuit

In the continuing saga that is Kiernan Learning to Ride A Bike, progress tends to be incremental, rather than by leaps and bounds. That's fine with us. We are in no hurry. This is obvious since it took us eight years (plus...yes, we know...plus) to get him off of training wheels. Now that he is off and riding, the little moments of progress are more pronounced, if less profound. In posts past he learned to ride on his own, and then mastered starting and stopping, and began the process of negotiating turns. This past weekend he learned to lead.

After soccer practice on Saturday we returned home and changed clothes. I decided a good father/son activity would be to go right back out and do some more bike practice, only this time I wanted to ride with him. Problem is we haven't quite figured out the logistics of bicycle transport yet. It's way too much of a production at present. Neither my car nor Wendy's has a bike rack, or bike clamp thingy attached to the back, so getting the bikes to the park takes some doing and involves multiple vehicles. Seats have to be put down or removed, and children have to be squozen in between them. It's pretty annoying. I don't see how in the future we are going to get around this. I need to figure out a solution that works for all three of us. Something Wendy can do too, when I'm not around. So hoisting bikes onto the roof of the car seems out of the question. Furthermore, mounting three bikes onto the back of the car seems unweildy. I mean, parallel parking is enough of a task without a weird extension slapped onto the back of the vehicle.

What I want is unreasonable. I want either some kind of teleportation device, or a bike shrinkage device. As neither of which seem to be in the offing, I suppose I'll have to figure something else out.

On this particular Saturday I was in luck. I figured if I could pull one of the back seats out of my car I could get both my bike and Kiernan's bike into the car and still get the two of us over to the college parking lot. The college is within fairly easy riding distance, but he's not quite ready for that kind of street riding yet, as he expressed to me when I floated this as an option. Wendy was off taking advantage of a massage Groupon that was about to expire, so I only had to consider our two bikes. As I said, luck was on my side. The seat behind my driver seat removed, both our bikes fit perfectly. Off to the college we went.

I pulled our bikes out and handed Kiernan his helmet. "I need to get one of these for myself," I said. "Why?" he asked. "You're an adult." I smiled. "Yeah, but I still need to protect my head." I don't want to wear one of those goofy helmets, but he's such a good sport about it that I want to do it out of solidarity. I can't stand it when his neighborhood friends rib him about wearing his helmet. I feel like a jerk for making him wear one. But why should I feel that way just because their parents don't care about head injuries happening to their children? [Yeah, that was a cruel thing to say, but it made me feel better.] The point is, I need to get helmets for Wendy and myself; if he has to endure the indignity brought about by safety [read: over-protectiveness , we should have to be in the same boat.

Kiernan got right on his bike and started riding, and I hopped on  mine too, following. "Don't follow too closely!" His voice conveyed way too much concern. "Why? You'll be fine," I assured him.

"What if I stop too quickly?"

"I can handle it. Believe me. I'll stop in time."

"What if you don't?"

"I will. I promise."

"I'll warn you."

We did a couple of circuits of the parking lot, me being careful not to be too close, and him being nervous I wasn't being careful about being too close. I offered to lead once, but he said he wasn't ready for that. "What if I follow too closely?"

Where all this worry about following too closely comes from is anyone's guess. I am reminded of learning to drive. My first time on the highway in Virginia, going to the mall. My dad constantly harping on the two-second rule for space between our car and the one in front of us. He was driving me nuts! Maybe that's one of those things that skips a generation, like the twins gene.

Anyway, it was a great day, and I can't wait to get back out again. Lessons to come, for those following his progress:

-Learning to start with his left foot: right now he can only get going if his right pedal is in the exact perfect position. He'll walk the bike around the block to get the pedals situated for this. I want him to start launching with his left foot, and then be able to start from the pedals at any position.

-Learning to get going with the bike facing uphill: right now he can only get started on a flat surface or facing downhill. I want him to be able to get going from a dead stop, on an incline. This is going to be a tough one, I believe. But it's a goal. And as I'm discovering daily, goals are good.

Here's a video of me following him that day at Pierce College. Yes yes, I know. Working camera while riding a bike is not exactly modeling good safety practice. What can I say? I'm a guerrilla blogging dad filmmaker. Some risks are to be expected.