Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day

Then the day goes all to the chickens. Really though, this is Nate. Works at the Golden Bike Shop, cool guy....just wears a chicken suit for kicks....whatever gets your rocks off brother. Wear that to the Pint to Pint and I'll wear my ballerina Viking costume, it'll make a good ol time even that much cooler in a riding a bike kind of way.



Saturday was National Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day and in all things great about our local mountain bike club, COMBA...they held a spectacular event just for the wee ones. More then 60 kids participated and the trails at Bear Creek Lake Park held just the right amount of mellowness and spice to keep em interested but also enjoying themselves.



So the morning started off with a variety of skills workshops where Ayla kept begging to just go ride, Self diagnosed ADD runs in the family and daughter like father, she just has a hard time sitting around and watching someone else do something while we get to twiddle our thumbs.



Kids helmets are so cool. I wish my melon was smaller so I could have flames and flowers....well, the flowers would have to be skulls and crossbones or some other version of uber cool, for a guy that is. Chicks can pull off the flowers so well.



So we joined the small girls group of 4-6 year olds but I had Ayla on the trail a bike since she is still learning the world of two wheels where we ran laps around a doubletrack circuit and we got to cheer on the other little girls riding downhill and making a small steep climb. We rode till about 11:30 and stopped for a well timed lunch of pizza and hoogies from Woody's out of Golden, Colorado.



After lunch Ayla decided she wanted some singletrack and being one not to deny my daughter of the simple pleasures in life I was more then happy to oblige. We rode a few miles with many giggles and smiles and made our way back over to the Pavilion where we found everyone packing up except for one other trail a bike. This was Scott and daughter Sienna. Ayla talked Sienna into riding some singletrack with us which made her father really happy since he couldn't quite say the words to convince his girl that singletrack and mountainbiking are as synomonous to eachother as an icecream sundae is to the cherry that tops it off. Understand, I was going to make that a reference to beer and its head but I was applying the analogy to that of one four year old speaking to another.



Whoot! Whoot! Sienna on her 1st singletrack...I think she is hooked

Not even a mile in the singletrack, Sienna's trail a bike had a flat. Her father didn't even have a tool on him much less a pump or patch kit. Being the always prepared, pack more then I ought to mountain biker that I am, I fetched my tools out of my 20 + pound Wingnut and had them set up in just a few minutes...even had the 15 mm wrench to take the wheel off Sienna's trail a bike.



Ayla is really still having a good time..She is concerned that Binky, the stick in her hand may fall and suffer the fate of all other sticks, being just a random stick on the trail.

15 minutes later and Sienna's father who I still want to call Scott but I honestly forgot had a flat on his Salsa. Goatheads run rampant on the Front Range and tubed tires such as the ones Scott was running suffer the wrath of the prickly little buggers. Using the tools out of my always prepared pack we got him up and running again and we back on the trail with our girls giggling and smiling all the way.


Scott and Sienna pulled off on our next lap and Ayla decided she wanted to keep riding. Happy to continue on singletrack we took off towards Mount Carbon and just as we were about to make the climb up, Ayla decided she had enough. It was 2:30pm and we had been at the park and riding for most the while since 9:30am. More then impressed with my girl for the day of riding we turned around and passed two other riders on the way back to the car where Ayla proclaimed," We won, we won, we were so much faster then them, Daddy!"