Bike, Mastered

Have not taken many photos recently so had not done a post in a while. In the meantime Rylan has been steadily improving his bike riding skills. By weekend 3 he was riding non-stop for as long as he wanted, not falling over unless he ran out of energy. I would set up cones for him to navigate and he quickly was doing the slalom courses I set up. But that was all on flat ground. It seems after all that time of steady peddling he forgot how to use his brake; so the first time we lead him down a hill of any magnitude it was not pretty. The first time he picked up speed down a hill he didn’t know what to do and just ramped off the sidewalk into the grass and went over the handlebars – no big damage thanks to the fact he had his helmet on correctly (if it had been further back on his head like many people wear their helmets his face would have been messed up). It has taken some time to get him over that first downhill experience, but he seems to have it figured out now. Now all I have to do is find more suitable hills for him to practice on. In the search for good hills we have gone to UH, first on Saturday morning and then Monday afternoon. Have a few videos of him practicing Monday afternoon below. The videos show him weaving his way through a loop where he goes down a ramp (hill) into the art building, meanders through the various columns and such, then peddles up the hill on the ewa side of the building to do it all again. He does use his brakes well now as he goes down the ramp. The longer video shows the entire loop, starting at the bottom of the hill.

On Sunday we did this circuit probably 15 times and on Monday we did it another 15 or so. Sunday we continued down to HIG and Sakamoto and did more hills and various routes. That area is perfect when there is no one around, like on a Saturday or Sunday morning. On Saturday he rode essentially non-stop for 1.5 hours, at which point he crashed due to exhaustion and got a good scrap on his elbow, but that was quickly forgotten.

We will keep working on the bike riding and razor-scooter riding and try to get him back to swimming again soon.