Nursery Trips

I finally got the hang of picking Mike up from Nursery on the bike. The real hurdle had been manoeuvring bike and Mike up and down the stairs at my station. In the end i decided to use a parents oldest trick....looking helpless. Someone always offers to help, someone always grabs the handlebars of the bike to help me onto the train with it, someone always smiles and waves at him on the train or the bike. People are basically nice. Children give them the opportunity to express that. Isn't the world great?

Now I've been waxing lyrical about how wonderful people are , I'll move on to gloat at my proud father one-upmanship moment while picking Mike up from Nursery. The first time i picked him up, he was ever so pleased to see me and the bike (Ah bless him!). We were just getting his stuff together and his helmet on, when a second dad squeezes by in his car and picks up his toddler. CarDad looks at us and the bike with a look that says 'Oh dear is that the best you can do?'
CarDads Toddler looks at the bike all eyes wide and excited, then turns to his dad and gives him a look that clearly says 'Dad that looks fun. Why cant we do that?'.
CarDad looks at me crossly with a look that clearly says 'Damn it! That's not fair, now look what you've done!'. CarDad grabs Toddler and and shoves him in his car. We smuggly mount up and head off.......Weeeeeeeeee!

We're all Coaching Future Gold Medalists!

We spent Sunday Morning rooting for Nicola Cooke in the Olympics road race. Well done Nicola! Lets hope you start to get the recognition you deserve in this country.

Anyway i was reading her write up on BikeRadar and saw this snippet:

"Nicole comes from a cycling family, and says she started when she was four. "My dad would ride to work every day. He got one of his tandems he had left over from his racing days set up so we could go riding on that. I had kiddie cranks on the back. He got another one so my brother could have a tandem so we would go on tandem holidays. It was a real family activity. It was fun, it was a hobby at that stage."

If your a Cyclemum or Cycledad, I bet you had a little rush of emotion on reading that. It gives you some insight on how what we do now affects what our kids can be in the future. Give yourself a pat on the back :-)

PS Congrats to Emma Pooley on her silver as well.