a weekend of "FUN!"

If you did not participate in your local Take a Kid Mountain Biking day this year, you NEED to do it next year.  Yeah I know, I didn't want to get up early after a week of being overtired from work either... but I'm glad I did!

It was awesome to be around kids so freakin excited to be getting out and riding bikes... something that we do all the time and probably take for granted.  Probably 2/3 of the kids came as a group from their school, the other 1/3 being parents who brought their kids.

TheMutt (green Trailblazers jersey to the right of the guy in white w/ the camelbak) telling the little ones that one day they too will be the size of lunchbox (black Trailblazers jersey to the left of the guy in the white w/ the camelbak).

The original plan was that TheMutt and I were going to take a bunch of intermediate kids out, but there just weren't that many intermediate kids - so we opened up another beginner group and joined forces with TomTom and Lunchbox.  Lunchbox and I swept.  I'll sum up our ride by quoting kids.

Little girl, as I'm talking to her father "How big is that bike??"
I finish saying whatever it was I was saying to her father and notice she is looking at my wheels "I have 29" wheels."
girl: "Oh wow, mine are only 24""
me: pointing to her Dad's bike "He has 26" wheels, and there are even wheels that are 650b or 27.5""
girl: had a look of astonishment and confusion on her face
me: "Yeah, I know.  It gets confusing."

girl to father: "Can we come back here and ride again sometime?"

boy: "I can't wait until next year, I'm doing this again!"

girl: "It's so beautiful.  And fun!"

And, this kid almost had me spit out my coleslaw as I was waiting eating in line for my hamburger:

"Oh they got hotdogs!? This is the best day of my life!!"

I don't have kids - they would severely cut into my ability to buy bikes - but it sure was fun riding with them for a day.

Big downers for the day though... those riders trying to do hot laps out there while we had close to 100 kids/parents out on the trails.  One rider did redeem himself... he came up fast but did respond to my warning that we had a lot of beginners out there, and carefully passed kids when it was safe.  When we reached a road crossing I noticed he had given up the bike for trail running.  Good choice.

Another rider, not so much.  He had ear buds in and didn't register any reaction to my two yells to him that we had kids up ahead... and instead went on around me as I was behind a kid who had fallen off his bike and was now getting up to push uphill... thanks buddy.  Apparently this Asshole later threatened a runner because they didn't completely clear the trail for him.  Awesome.  I'm glad that other trail users don't slow you down when you are out there winning.

I had a lot of fun out there, and the actions of one asshole couldn't compare to the power of the smiling faces I saw when I looked at the kids we had out on the trail.  Definitely a great day out there.  Big thanks go out to Trips for Kids and REI for organizing the ride, bikes, and food.  I'm glad that the Trailblazers could help out.   

Sunday was a bit of "selfish" fun, but I'll get into that tomorrow.