A big day

Sarah on Candycane Lightingbolt
at the 2010 North Park Youth Triathlon
 Photo by Ken Eber.

The kids have been riding 20" single speed mountain bikes for the past few seasons. They've gotten bigger, the bikes have gotten badly beaten, too. So it was high time for an upgrade. We took them to the "big city" and the new bike shop in town. The sights of the city, the sounds of the traffic, the smells of the bike shop all made for a memorable, big day.

Once we got the new bikes loaded onto the Enterprise, we took them over to the Oval for a spin on their new bikes. The weather for October was fabulous. The track was empty; we had the whole place to ourselves.

At the shop awaiting the new bikes

I manged to get in a quick (well, not really quick) 10 miler while the kids tooled around the track getting the feel of the new bikes. The girls got the Fuji Ace 650c, which, we thought would be too big for seven and nine year olds.  But the 650c size fit them nearly perfectly. 

Elijah got the Fuji Ace 24, a nifty 24" bike built for raw speed. Elijah is six so it fits him much better than a the next size up 650c. 

Hannah in pink and Sarah in black with
their new bikes.

The bikes themselves are nice: aluminum frames and clean craftsmanship. The parts are bottom rung, but I can upgrade with parts as things get (inevitably) broken. One downside is no quick release for rear wheel. Instead it's a solid axle bolt-on rear wheel (like a fixed gear track wheel), so this will require carrying around a 10mm wrench to repair punctures.

Overall, it was a really good day. No crashes, nice weather, good family time. In the end, everyone was happy with the big day. Next warm weekend day, we'll take them to the Stavich Trail, an all-time favorite trail, then it's mothballs until March.