Faster Daddy, faster Daddy!
Monday, April 12th, 2010
Last Sunday was a beautiful day, and we went for a bike ride down to Kamakura beach. This was Linc’s very first bike riding experience, and of course he is still too small to peddle so he had his dad do that part. All Linc did was just to sit in this green child seat for bike called iBert we got last week. In spite of the advantage of being too small for peddling, Linc refused to sit in the seat at first. UltraBob had to struggle through the massive tantrum Linc threw; trying to have Linc just sit in the seat and get the safety belt adjusted. After managing to put him in the seat (we don’t remember how we succeeded with that!), we rode around the park near our house to make him comfortable in the seat without a helmet. We know it is the law that children must wear a helmet but Linc just tried to throw it off his head every time UB put it on. We kinda expected this might happen, especially since Linc does not like wearing any kind of hat/cap. After a while, UB asked me to talk to Linc about the helmet. We pulled over and I looked in Linc’s eyes and said something like “Linc, I am sorry to tell you this, but you have to wear a helmet when you go biking with Mommy and Daddy. I know you don’t like it but we all will be in trouble if you don’t do it. I think you are smart enough to understand this”. And I just kept telling him he is a good boy. Then UB softly put the helmet on his little head and … no reaction!! No throwing off the helmet, kicking Daddy’s bike, or anything. Linc just understood what I said and accepted it. We told him thank you and took off to Kamakura. It was good exercise to bike, and it seemed like Linc enjoyed riding as well. The beach was beautiful and we enjoyed walking on the sand. We plan to go for bike rides as much as the weather (and Linc) cooperate!!
Tantrum
Got settled
Got to the beach
Running on the sand is fun!
That car seen in the first picture was hurled to the ground in anger as soon as we pushed off to begin our warm up laps of the park near our house. Boy has a temper like his mother!
Can UGirl come reason with Rowan? It looks like great, great fun.
I’m really interested in the IBert. I’ve never seen a product like that before. I don’t think our bikes allow for a child seat mounted in the back so this may be a solution for taking Rowan on bike rides. Did you hit your legs on the seat?
We both have mountain bikes, and it was hard to find a seat for our bikes. We did find two solutions for the back, and iBert for the front. The ones in the back, seemed a bit involved, and while I’m sure they were fine, the methods for mounting them seemed a smidgen iffy to me. That combined with it being nicer to have Linc in front of me, and the way the seat is positioned meaning it doesn’t throw off your balance like a seat on the back might, made the iBert a good choice for us especially since it was cheaper than the others.
My knees went naturally up by the sides of the iBert, and I had no difficulty there. Linc sometimes rested his arms on my knees but that wasn’t a problem either. I don’t think I would wear my mini skirt while riding with the iBert attached though unless I was feeling particularly daring.
The iBert we got appeared to have had a simple mod added by the Japanese retailer that I think was a large improvement. The English language manual said that the seat would be a bit wobbly and that was ok. The Japanese included a note that said customers have complained to us that the seats are wobbly so we’ve added a tightening screw to hold it together. The tightening screw works great, and would probably be a somewhat trivial mod to make oneself given the proper tools. That being said, if you were planning to take the seat on and off a lot, the tightening screw would just get in the way.
I’m sure Tomoko would be happy to point out the back mounting solutions too if you’d like to know about them.
Oh, and you have a deal, send the plane ticket, provide room, board, and a small stipend for Tomoko and her supervisor Linc; and Tomoko would be more than happy to come reason with Rowan around the time of Heather’s wedding.
That is so cool that you were able to reason with Linc and he accepted it! What a smart little boy:) I know my poodles LOVE riding in their basket on front of my bike. They hardly ever try to jump out any more since the time Rowdy nearly hanged himself. You will have lots of fun being able to take him on bike rides to the beach. Great post, UltraGirl! THanks for keeping us up to date.
Great post!!! That looks like a lot of fun. I also think it is very cool that Linc was smart and listened to you after you told him the situation.