Riding with the grandkid...

In keeping with my theme of trying to catch up on recent rides, I came across a couple of photos of my grandson's first "real mountain bike" ride.

He and I ride in the neighborhood pretty regularly but he's always asking me to take him on a "real mountain bike" ride.

Evidently, he's made a distinction between our rides together where I'm in regular shorts and t-shirt and no helmet and my rides where I'm in biking clothes and a helmet.

So, on a Sunday after church while the rest of the family relaxed, he and I loaded up our bikes, our gear, some snacks, and water bottles and headed over to Lake Chabot for a "real mountain bike" ride. 

There's a trail that although it's paved for the first section, follows the lake around to the back where it turns into dirt.  With only a couple of hills, it's a nice fun ride and I was sure there'd be a couple of puddles for us to splash through.

It was actually a nice day for the middle of November and there were quite a few people out on the trail. We played "dodge the walkers" for the first part, but once we crossed the bridge and the trail turned to dirt, we pretty much had it to ourselves.

One thing I found interesting was that I thought he'd be complaining on the uphills and zooming down the downhills....after all, that's what I do on every ride, but it was the opposite.  He did say "my bike is slow going uphill grandpa" (again, I have the same issue, but didn't have the heart to tell him it was our fault not the bike's) but in complete opposite to me, he was careful and tentative on the downhill sections....I'm pretty sure that will change with time and more confidence.

We made a couple of stops to throw rocks in the water, have a snack or sit on a dock and look for fish.  We also made a point of going right through the middle of every puddle we came across and actually found a little "secret" trail that wound through the bottom of a creek.

All in all it was an awesome day and we both really enjoyed our "real mountain bike ride"

Here's a short video of our "Secret Trail"
http://vimeo.com/53978305

caleb mt biking movie1 from Rich Sims on Vimeo.