Bike Rider

A few weeks ago we took Elise's training wheels off her bike to see how she'd do. Mark took her down to the elementary school the first time and described it as, "A good first effort. It wasn't amazing." Since teaching a kid to ride a bike can be painful on a parent's back, I, being the shorter of the two of us became the helper from then on. So I took her out a week later and she did okay. I actually let go a few times. She probably went about 20 feet at the most before I had to rescue her again. The next time she did a little better . . . maybe 30 feet or so. Then she had bike day at school and I figured it wouldn't be a cool thing to send her off with just two wheels and a pat on the back for good luck. So I put the training wheels back on. She had a great time just getting to ride without crashing every 20-30 feet. Then a couple of days later we went out for a walk as a family and she rode her bike with the training wheels still on. Another great time for her to just have fun riding and not worry so much. So what's the count now? Three attempts with no training wheels then two days with them back on. This evening we took them off again and headed back down to the track. I couldn't believe the improvement. Elise was all of a sudden a bike rider!! She was just off and going. It was amazing! Next time she's out I'll have Mark videotape a bit and I'll attempt to get it on the Blog. But this kid had me sweating. There were times I wasn't even at a casual jog to keep up . . . I was out and out running and occasionally calling out, "Slow down!" And when she comes to a stop, she doesn't just slow down and stop. She pedals and pedals, then slams on the brake and skids out. She turns to look at me like, "No big deal Mom. It's all good."