Biking

We are still working out some tricks for uploading videos - those referred to here should show up soon!

  This spring Elena and Clara made huge strides in their bike riding.  While they've loved their bikes with training wheels they were really limited by the inherent clumsiness and slowness of a four-wheeled bike! Early this spring Elena made that leap into understanding balance, and biked on two wheels for the very first time.

 Clara was SO close, and we'll show the video here - she got the idea, she ALMOST got the balance.  But she was afraid to just go for it.  It took another month after this before she was able to bike on her own without training wheels.  And at that point we didn't record it (second-child syndrome for a twin - a first for us!).

Anyway, once she got it she really got it, and we had to move her up a size in her bike so that she could go fast the way that she wanted to. From July on we were able to bike together.  Most times this was around the neighborhood - like over to our local brewery, Kettlehouse.

 One evening in late summer we decided to try biking the mile and a half to downtown to get ice cream.  We had to go on big roads, using the bike lanes - nothing like our neighborhood biking.  But with Steve in the lead and Christina as caboose it went without a hitch.

 A rainbow even greeted us at our destination!  So great to be able to go out all together and get exercise and fun at the same time.

That's not the only biking we do, though.  Another local brewery we like, Draughtworks, has an event each year where you can ride this bike that is attached to a mill.  It grinds the hops that will be used in a seasonal brew, Chain Reaction.  This year all four of us biked for it - Clara and Elena are behind the little boy in the background looking to see how many hops Steve can grind.

 

Biking - so versatile!