Ride to Live, Live to Ride

"Look out!"
One proud lad.
"Hey, what's the big deal? This bike thing's piece of cake!"
A day on the rocks with dad.

Ethan recently reached a milestone in boyhood yesterday – he learned how to ride his bike sans training wheels. Some may ask "what's the big deal?" but believe me, for us it's like the parting of the Red Sea…a miracle.

We bought him new bike for his 5th birthday in May and since then he has kept his training wheels on. I took them off on a couple of occasions. But to no avail. He grew frustrated and didn't want anything to do with the bike without the training wheels on. So back on they'd go. His reliance on those damn wheels was getting to the point that there were actually hampering any progress, and making him a bit embarrassed around other kids. He would lean so hard to the right that we had to repeatedly bend the arm back into position on the right sided training wheel. He had a serious gangsta-lean going on.

As the weeks passed it became obvious that it was time to try it again. So he and I went over to the elementary school to practice on the pathway that circles the school grounds and from the first go he got it. I'm glad I donned the running shoes because man, he was bookin'! To make an already long story longer, he was so stoked. He only went down twice, but that's because he didn't know how to stop properly. Plus, you got to have a few spills in the beginning right? Afterward, it was awesome to see him beam as he rode past his buddies in the neighborhood who just the other day were asking him why he still had his training wheels on. Yup, pretty cool.

Now it's just getting him to "look for cars!" when he launches out of the driveway on that thing.