Last week the boys and I had the pleasure of attending an amazing event near Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London with Ridgeback Bikes and the Bicycle Society hosted at the independent bike retailers Pave Velo at their new store.
It’s not very often you know your going to take the kids to a press event and know they are going to love every second of it but I knew this one was organised from start to finish with kids in mind.
If you have been round this neck of the blogosphere a while you will know there are 2 activities that kids should always have the opportunity of doing as I feel they are more of a life skill than anything .. fun ones I grant you but still life skills.
Swimming and cycling.
Joshua was well on the way with swimming but his cycling was still very hit and miss so I was really excited to see how they could help improve this nervous rider.
Once we arrived I was totally smitten with some of the traditional style bikes on the front and think buying a bike myself might be the way to go on my weight loss journey!
We got to chat with Coach Rob about Jacob and how we can start to get him interested in bikes and found out that actually at 18 months we could start now making a difference to his bike riding journey with a Ridgeback Scoot balance bike.
First however both boys had to take care of the basics from getting the correctly fitted helmets sorted to then getting the right type and size of bike. Ridgeback bikes were certainly the folks to do that with over 30 years experience of building high performance bikes so with 2 perfectly fitted helmets and one blue bike and one first balance bike my boys were ready to learn some new life skills.
We headed over to the Olympic Park for some coaching with Rob and this is where the magic happened … Jacob all 18 months of him loved his balance bike so much he had a meltdown when I made him get off to have a drink!
Although he is little Jacob loved having his own bike and more importantly I have now been given the proper advice to be able to help build his confidence and abilities to keep growing at home too!
Joshua on the other hand started fairly apprehensively but soon got into this stride following directions and tasks to get him used to being on a bike safely.
For the rest of this summer the kids will be on their bikes thanks to Ridgeback.
This summer if you wanted to join the Ridgeback Kids Club they have some exclusive benefits for their members:
- Exclusive offers and info on Ridgeback Kids Bikes and products
- 15% off Animal kids clothing Exclusive invite to local events in the area and test rides of all models.
- A free goodie bag of goodies including, reusable bag, water bottle, Hi Vis, stickers, pencils and discount vouchers.
- Birthday treats including updates when we think your kids nearing a new size of bike and give you the best chance to keep it in the Club
Thank you Ridgeback Bikes for allowing Joshua to develop his skills with you and for helping Jacob on the very first steps of his cycling journey.
Disclaimer: We were invited to this complimentary event and were provided with bicycles for the boys cycling adventures. All thoughts and opinions were independently formed by members of The Oliver’s Madhouse.
That sounds like an amazing opportunity for the kids, my daughter is on her stabilisers but definitely time to get out more and practice without them!
This sounds like a really great event. I remember taking part in a bike safety course like this when I was younger!
What a great event! Getting out on your bikes is such a fun activity, and I think it’s a great family thing to do when you’re bored with nowhere special to go. Always good if something like this can help with confidence.