New Bike!

Last night I went out and picked up a new bike for Nick. It was time. The poor kid was practically hitting his knees on his chin when peddling his old bike.

Buying a bike was a long process. We started at Erik's Bike Shop. I admit - I was using them to get a good idea of how to size the new bike for Nick. I didn't intend to buy the bike there. When they tried to sell me a $300 bike for a 6-year-old, I didn't even feel bad about using them.

Once we had the an idea of the right size bike we went off to Target. There were several choices. Being pragmatic (and cheap!) I decided to go with the cheapest option. I reasoned that a cheap bike would be better because I wouldn't mind if he beat the crap out of it. A kid should be able to ride his bike hard without having to worry about his dad freaking out over a scratch.

I said it was a long process. Really it was an easy process with a 6-week delay in the middle while dad procrastinated. Nick was marvelously patient about it all.

Anyway, we busted out the new bike this morning and took it to the running track near our house for some practice. I figure crashing on dirt is better than crashing on the sidewalk. Since this bike was bigger than his old bike, I figured there may be some crashing.

Nick shows off his new wheels...

It turns out most of the crashing occured when trying to deploy the kickstand (a feature that was missing from his old bike, probably because it originally had training wheels and I didn't add a kickstand when we removed the training wheels).

Of course Xander got into the act, too. He's been riding a tiny little bike with training wheels this summer ("the mud shark" is what it says on the side). He loves it and can get the little thing moving pretty well.

Xander does a drive by...

We plan on getting out for lots of bike rides this summer. We even have a ride-along trailer for Xander so he doesn't have to try to keep up with us on his tiny bike. :-)

Proud bicycle boys...