Mike's Bike Blog

Those were the words I heard coming from behind me yesterday as I took Jack out on Parmer for the first time. We drove out to the Parmer & 3405 intersection and parked. I picked this location to get out of traffic, plus with the wind coming from the South we could ride South towards Hwy 29 into the wind to start and have a tail wind on the way back.

The headwind made it a little rough, I kept telling him to stay as close to me as possible to draft off of me, but he would fall off the back every once in awhile. The place he really excels is on the hills, his light 70 lb. body is made for climbing. I have to keep an eye on him on the hills and counter his attacks. The hill between 3405 & 29 was the longest he's ridden. I could hear him breathing heavy behind me and I asked him 3/4 the way up if he wanted to stop and rest. He just kept going to the top.

At Hwy 29 we stopped again for a quick break, as we were taking in some fluids a group of 4 riders passed us, I heard some comments as they did a double take when they realized a 9 year old was partaking in a Parmer ride. We saddled up and headed North with the wind at our back. The group of 4 were up the road a little bit, I asked Jack if he wanted to go catch em. On cue he said "Yes! Let's go." I picked up the pace to 18mph and I quickly heard "Faster Dad!" coming from behind me. That lasted a few seconds until I heard another "Faster!" so I accelerated again to 20 mph. We were quickly closing the gap and we had them in our crosshairs. However one of the riders in the group had a flat and they pulled over so that took a little wind out of our sails when we caught them. Jack did point out that we would have caught them anyway.

We were passed by a couple riders and once again Jack wanted to chase them down and I was more than happy to oblige. I set the pace at 20 mph and once again I go the "Faster Dad!" comment. It wasn't until I hit the 24 mph mark till I was able to pull away from him.  We gave chase to a few other cyclists not catching any of them, but just like Fishing it's not necessary the joy of catching a fish, but the joy of the experience.