Hit the Trails!

Thursday afternoon our trail-a-bike finally arrived. After picking up Mills and Sara Rose from school we went straight to our local shop, Aptos Bike Station for the pick up. She's a beauty!! The kids were incredibly excited and despite the fact that it was dark outside they begged and whined to go biking right then. Deciding that this idea went against my better judgement (all day at school, no dinner, 2 kids under 8, dark- not happening), I bribed them with pizza and we went home to set about the task of getting the new machine hooked up to my bike. For those of you who knew G and I at the peak our bike riding days- it felt like the return of bike night! The kids had a blast wrenching on the bikes and before we knew it we were ready to roll. Unfortunately because of work and school, we weren't able to hit the trails until Saturday a.m.


This morning everyone was up bright and early and after a pancake feast we loaded up and headed out the door. We drove (yes I know...we drove) the 5 minutes to the parking lot at Niscene Marks (too many cars for RoRo on a Saturday morning). Keep in mind that this was not only the first outing with the trail-a-bike...but this was also Sara Rose's first "mountain biking" experience. Granted she is a whiz on the greenway, but she had never really ridden on dirt, even groomed dirt trails. We started out a little slow, which was quite tricky considering Mills was on the back of the trail-a-bike bouncing around while I was trying to maintain pedaling but not go so fast that I wouldn't run over Sara Rose. She quickly got the hang of it and started zipping along. Mills could not stop grinning, or singing for that matter. I am sure we were quite the sight going down the road. All said we rode for an hour and a half, with only about 10 minutes of total break time to dig in the dirt. I am not sure that I have ever seen Sara Rose so proud of herself! Today was one of those rare times in her short life where she has really been the "big" kid. She is quite a mountain biker, riding over everything, and even managing to gain enough speed to pass a runner or two. She obviously enjoyed the freedom of being on her own bike, and was anxious to prove that she could hold her own on two wheels.


After a fabulous bike adventure we headed down to the Pixie Deli at Rio Del Mar beach. We had planned to head out on the beach for a romp, but erring on the side of caution I opted to buy blow pops for the kids after lunch and zip up to the grocery store while they were distracted and before any post-ride grumping occured. All in all a great day- so good they already have another ride planned for tomorrow and have vowed to ride every day that we are out of school!