Teaching my boy to ride

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Rough Rider

Grey Hound
Joined
Oct 17, 2009
Messages
5,294
Reaction score
85
Location
Cape Town
Bike
Husqvarna (all models)
So I decided that it was finally time to teach my 13 year old son to ride. I took a couple of hours out last week Thursday and Friday and surprised him, he never saw it coming at all. Earlier in the week I had arranged to borrow a bike from a friend (Honda CRF150R).

On Thursday morning I asked Jake to try on my spare kit, telling him that we may take a ride on the XT when the weather clears. I was happy that he fitted into everything including boots, Leatt brace etc.

We then got into my van with the kit, he is so doff sometimes  ??? he did not even ask why the kit was being put into the van ;D We then went to pick up the bike from my friend's place, and things clicked into place for him and oh boy was he excited :blob6: By this stage it was absolutely hammering it down and i did not think we would get a chance to take the bike out of the van  :(.

I decided that the best place to go would be the little MX track at the Big Barrel Pub in Richwood, it was an inspired choice because we were able to have lunch and wait for a clearing in the weather.

When we saw a bit of a clearing in the weather we unloaded the bike on a muddy dirt road behind the track and Jake got kitted up. I started the bike and waited for it to warm up and then took it for a quick spin, and found it is true these little things have some poke  :mwink: which was a bit of a concern for me as Jake had literally never sat on a bike before and here we were on muddy road with a mean little MX bike.

I decided that the best would be to start off in second gear and gave him quite a lecture on the importance of clutch control, i told him not to worry about any other controls apart from the clutch. Anyway after a 20 minute battle and some frustration from both of us he finally managed to pull away without stalling. After that things started to come right very quickly and before I knew it was changing gears, starting, stopping etc. Next thing I knew he was picking up a bit of speed and standing on the pegs.

Then reality bit him, he grabbed a handful in second gear and landed on his ass with the bike on top of him. I was shocked at how violent it was, but when I saw he was fine I started laughing. He was a bit embarrassed because in the process the rear fender broke off and he thought he had completely destroyed the bike. I was very pleased that the fall did not seem to faze him and he got straight back on the bike (crashes like his dad, hard and often but gets back on and grabs the tiger by the tail).

So on the first ride we got the mud out of the way. The second ride, the following day we went to Parklands and he started learning to ride sand (nothing better than straight into the deep end). The ride in the sand went really well without much drama.

The third day we went back to Big Barrel and he started riding around the MX track, I made sure that he stopped with both feet down on top of each of the jumps, I did not want him launching himself straight into hospital.

The fourth day, Sunday, was not so much fun, he spend the day cleaning the bike.

Picking the bike up
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Riding on the muddy road
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Giving it a handful through a puddle
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Riding up a small dune
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And down the other side
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Having the time of his life
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Click to see short video.
 
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