Mt. Biking with a 4-year old: Dangerous? Dumb? Maybe. Lots of Fun: Yes!

Now that the kid is getting a bit bigger, I thought it might be fun to try mountain biking. Since we got the Xtracycle for carting the kid around on, I thought I could haul him on the trails.

So, on Friday Finn and I went to ride the Boogaloo trail. Georgi packed a small picnic lunch for Finn and we headed out.

From Misc 2010

Even with the extra 42 pounds of kid and +10 pounds of the Xtracycle, the climb to the top of Boogaloo wasn't too bad. I thought I would have to walk at some point, but was able to climb all the way.

From Misc 2010

It went very well, only one crash - dropping over a log, I didn't appreciate the "low-clearance" created by the bike's long wheel base and the chain-ring drove into the log, bringing us to an abrupt stop - just a few bumps, it it didn't slow us down much.


We had a nice lunch overlooking town. Rest of the ride went well - I had to go pretty slow on the downhills because Finn got nervous. It's a fully hard bike (no suspension), so I was worried about how "rattled" he'd get - but I think the long wheel base helps smooth it out a bit.





Tonight when we went to the hospital (to see Finn's new cousin), Finn told us - "Hey, there's the bike trail we went on", remembering where we came back from the ride on - pretty good orientation for a little guy.

Anyway, mountain biking with 4-year old was a success - seems we had fun and no permanent injury!