An Unexpected Turn of Events: GGR and TAKMBD

It was the youngest rider in the bunch who noticed it: "Oh, you have a flat!" Good timing I thought, this will provide a good learning opportunity. Under the guidance of the ride leaders, the kids (and the mrs. whom, I suggested might benefit from watching as well) gathered around and set to work. Guidance is the key word there; Anne and Angela didn't change the flat themselves, as I might have been tempted to do, instead they guided another young rider - the one with the offending rear tire - through the process of changing his own flat. A much better learning experience, and I was smart enough to recognize the flaw in my quicker, though less instructive, way of getting it done.

I took the son on a few of these Take A Kid Mountain Biking Day rides. He was a lot younger then. Like today's ride, those earlier ones (I think they may have been the first years of the IMBA-sponsored rides) were a lot of fun, but I don't think we would have turned a flat into a learning opportunity. Maybe that is the difference between those rides and this one. The women of Girlz Gone Riding, co-hosts with Jenson USA, are perhaps more teaching inclined?

Well, it wasn't my intent to debate the relative differences in traits between genders, and in either case fun in fun, and that is ultimately what this ride is about. Fun was had, all around, from the riding to the snacks, from the sightseeing to the winning of raffle prizes. Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day takes place each year in October. Kudos to IMBA, Jenson USA, and the Girlz Gone Riding for encouraging kids to get out on their bikes on our local trails.