This may sound weird. It sounds weird to me. But here goes. I wish we had more concrete at home. Or even blacktop. You see, right now our street is gravel. Before it was gravel it was blacktop covered in potholes, ruts, and grooves.
Not very good for learning to ride a bike. With the old blacktop, the kids basically got their wheels stuck in all the uneven spots and constantly needed to be pushed out. Now, with the gravel, it's too hard for Nate to pedal (at least that's what he tells me) so he won't ride on it.
Yesterday Nile and I found a new place to ride bikes: the parking lot at the park at Richmond Hill. This parking lot is not very commonly used, and there is no through traffic - so it's perfect for bike riding. No cars, and no potholes. So today we packed up Nate's and Nile's bikes and headed to the park to play. I was amazed how well they did when they had a smooth surface.
Nile's biking skills have been helped greatly by the fact that yesterday my dad realized that the tires on his little bike were both flat and needed air (as in they had no pressure - didn't even register on the tire gauge!). Dad aired them up, and he took off and hasn't looked back - before he could hardly pedal the bike and I thought he was just having a hard time. I really should check Nate's tires too. I'll probably find out that his are incredibly low too, since we haven't ever aired them up.
The boys rode around for over a half hour. Nile kept telling me that he was on the "Number 5 Bike" and Nate had the "Number 1 Bike" - in fact, once he asked me if I could see the number 5 on his back...I'm not sure where that came from. Then Nile told me that his bike was from Chicago, and it was really fast. And Nate's bike was from Iowa. Hmmm.
