first family bike ride!

(That's our first bike ride together, as a family, since we are clearly not the First Family.)

We have a Skuut bike for Sebastian, bought by an overly enthusiastic bike-riding mama (that's me) over a year ago. It's been too big for Sebastian until very recently. I brought it to the park a couple of weeks ago, and he didn't want anything to do with it. He has gingerly walked around the apartment with it. And then on Thursday, when we came home from work/daycare, he saw the bike and asked to ride it outside on the sidewalk. I was thrilled, and walked up and down the block with him while he slowly walked the bike. He was quite tentative, but clearly enthusiastic about riding a bike on his own.

And then yesterday morning, I asked if he wanted to go out for a bike ride, and he said yes, and then specified that he wanted to be on his own bike (instead of with me, on mine). He was very clear that I should ride my bike, and he should ride his own bike, and daddy should ride his bike, so the "whole family" would ride together. So indeed, off we went, up to the Aqueduct trail, the whole family riding bikes together. (It's really hard to go that slowly on a big bike!) I thought he might tire quickly of the whole thing, but he walked/rode his bike for probably a full mile along the trail, from Irvington to Mercy College. I then took him up with me for a little while, for the long downhill to the train, but then once we reached flat sidewalk again, he requested his own bike, and he biked another 1/2 mile.

At the beginning he was quite tentative, walking slowly and wary of rocks and sticks. But he slowly picked up confidence and speed, and even started doing a bit of coasting, where he lifted both feet off the ground. He got scared on steeper downhills, when he felt himself losing control, but slight declines were amazingly fun. He moved his little legs faster and faster and really motored along. All in all, an amazing success, and really fun, even if it took us 2 hours to bike 2 miles. :)