Riding With (Adult) Friends.
The ‘penguin dance’ is one part making yourself smile, and one part warming up your body, and one part giving your friends something to laugh about. It looks how it sounds, and it works, sort of. Sometimes when your clothes are drenched and you’ve already put on your last pair of gloves, and it’s colder outside than you thought it would be, laughter is the only thing left to burn. Penny, Jac, Claire, and I were so damn wet and cold. We’d done the gravel grind up Old Buck and the Baden Powell and we were now shivering our way down a trail called John Deer.
John Deer was Claire’s first pedal-and-plunge trail. Usually, we access it by climbing single track, Penny Lane and GSM, but our climbing goal today was twofold. Get it done, and catch up. It’s always easier to chat on double-track.
Claire learned to ride John Deer on her 20″ wheeled bike. And then learned to ride it on her 24″ wheeled bike. Now, like many of the blue trails she’s been navigating for a few years, she’s confidently experimenting with speed and form. Lifting her front wheel off of bumps and pushing her tires into corners.
What’s been very neat about this late-stage 24″ riding is that a few of our adult friends have started joining us for rides more frequently. Everyone’s busy but with how well Claire’s climbing and descending it’s much less of an extra time investment to join her for a ride than it used to be.
It’s great for Claire to see other adults riding. Different line choices, different trail preferences. And it’s easy to pick up a pointer or two from a faster rider that’s just rolling through your orbit. It’s also nice to have folks acknowledge your progression who aren’t your mom and dad.
It’s not a one-way street. Claire’s reintroduced a few adults to night riding and she can hold her own in a conversation on several subjects. She’s a wheel size and a couple or a few years away from just being able to come on some rides, instead of folks coming on Claire rides and that’s earned.
The Long & Short Of It.
In the past couple of years, I’ve ridden mountain bikes with Reach measurements that ranged from 450mm to just over 500mm, and chainstay lengths as short as 425mm and as rangy as 465mm. What does that have to do with riding with Claire? I’m claiming to have a decent amount of insight into her transition from a bike that was clearly much too big, to a bike that is Goldilocks-ed, and what the future holds as that same bike continues to shrink under her.
I’m always thinking about Claire’s next mountain bike (I did write a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 part series about her last-next rig) because the kid just keeps growing and, having introduced her to mountain biking and supported her progression thusly, and being a nerd, I’m trying to optimize that curve to essentially catch her when she’s ready.
Today, her SQ24″ fits her perfectly and the combination of that and her experience on the bike has her exploring speed, cornering, braking, and lifting her front wheel with more smiles per hour than any point in our time riding together before now. She’s even pulled away from me a couple of times on Dreamweaver, a trail she knows very well when I made a poor line choice and she ripped a good one.
I’ve always been stoked to ride with her, but right now, these days, are the payoff for us. Hard work, on her part, and patience by both parties. An investment in equipment, particularly good protection that’s comfortable to pedal in and comfortable contact points. And good tires. And getting her fork regularly serviced. And did she just grow out of her shoes again?! And…
I’m still carefully choosing trails and loops to be sure that Claire will have fun. Using my parental judgment to know when it’s time to introduce a new and more difficult trail or a longer, more taxing, ride. The hardest ascent she’s done is the full 5km No Quarter Climb on Fromme and the hardest descent is 7th Secret to Lower Oil Can after that. She rode an admirable portion of all of them but most importantly her attitude was amazing.
I keep circling back to this as it wasn’t a ‘goal’ but something that’s evolved from just progressing along as Claire’s been ready. Even a couple of years ago I would never have bet she’d have ridden what she has at nine years old.
It’s also a reminder for a fair few folks I know who are out of shape and considering a motor-assist-ized solution. Buy some lights, get out a couple times a week, be patient with yourself, and you’ll be able to pedal yourself up to Ned’s or 7th Secret, or whatever the trail is that you’re lamenting you can no longer make it to. Just ride your bike and let it happen.
The “I Don’t Want To Ride This” Reminder.
There’s a steep rock-armoured corner on a trail called Crinkum Crankum that represents the first time Claire blew my mind on her bike and also spent a year as my regular reminder that mountain biking is first and foremost done in our heads. The first time she rode it, sliding her rear tire around on a properly greasy day, she was so stoked. She knew that it was a massive moment of progression in her confidence and she absolutely carried it to other features she had been on the cusp of riding.
The second time we returned to Crinkum she stopped and looked at the feature. I smiled and reminded her that she had nailed it the last time and she said “Yes, I know, I’m just not sure.” She rolled in a couple of times and then on her third go she railed through it with a huge grin at the bottom.
The third time, fourth time, fifth time, I don’t even know how many, she would say she wasn’t sure, then roll in a few times, and then look at me and say “I don’t want to ride this.” I would do my best to just remind her once that she had owned it in the past, sometimes I’d encourage her to go back up and try one more time, I wish I could say that it was always a positive ‘next time’ experience. But then I would help carry her bike down and we’d get on with having a great time. Kids are amazing, and two corners later she’d be back ripping.
We arrived at a point, and we have this feature on many more advanced trails, where this particular section just became a pass. Ride to it, skip over it, keep riding. I have the same thing personally with one rock roll on Boundary Trail, and it doesn’t phase me for a moment. Mountain biking is for fun.
Then one day, Nina, Claire and myself were riding through and there was a whole pack of kids Claire’s age hanging around there as part of a riding camp. I rode through and went to hike back for Claire’s rig, but she was there eyeing the corner. She had said she was going to try it today, but now there was an audience, many of whom had clearly walked this particular feature themselves. She started to roll in and the kid standing nearest to me said “Wow, she’s going to do it!” And, she did. The kids all spontaneously celebrated for her, because kids are rad, and she positively beamed.
There are plenty of features, for example, a certain rock-roll on Lorax, that The Clairebarian has ridden once beautifully and then taken many rides to hit again. Or, hasn’t yet ridden again. That’s okay, just like it’s okay for any of us to walk something we’ve ridden a hundred times before. Mountain biking is for fun.
Cumberlandworx.
This summer will be our fourth annual trip to Cumberland as a family. One on Claire’s rigid 20″ bike where we explored lower trails and climbed up to do a couple of higher blue options, like Vanilla. The last two on Claire’s SQ24″, where the range and difficulty of trails, and the speed of climbs and descents has evolved steadily. This year I expect she’ll also be on the SQ24″, though it will certainly be her last, and we’ll ride many of the same trails, only faster.
We make choices through the year to make Cumberlandworx possible, but we’re also very privileged to be able to go away to ride mountain bicycles. We enjoy making the odd day trip from North Vancouver to ride other adjacent areas – Claire’s been to Burke, Bear, Thornhill, Woodlot, and Eagle – but those zones are all Shore-adjacent in their flavour. Cumberland is something entirely different and going and pedaling for hours at a time for a week has made for a mental endurance boost for Claire each year when we’ve come home.
That is to say, she was already physically capable of doing longer rides but the Cumberland trail network is mentally much more conducive to making it happen. Again bias noted because I love going there, for folks who live in the Vancouver area and want to get their kids, or partner, into mountain biking, Cumberland is the place to visit.
When To Rigid; When To Hardtail.
The question I’ve been asked most often since this series started is about the rigid vs. hardtail transition. I should declare my bias since I’m extolling what we did, but the rigid fork makes complete sense with the 20″ setup. It’s much lighter weight, which significantly increases the terrain that a kid can hike-a-bike their own rig through. At the same time, it’s not giving up a great deal in terms of traction and comfort at the speed 20″ wheels want to roll on technical terrain.
Another issue with suspension forks and 20″ wheels is that they’re either cheap, meaning they don’t perform well and weigh a ton, or they’re quite expensive small-batch versions of performance forks. For example, Manitou’s excellent Junit lineup. Price can be less of an issue with 24″ wheels is it becomes possible to purchase a 26″ fork and lower it enough to work with the frame geometry, or in the case of Claire’s Marin, the SQ24″ is designed around a 26″ fork.
The 24″ wheels are a different story. Better tires are available – Maxxis Minion DHF EXO MaxxTerra, for example – and the wheels are capable of carrying much more speed so adding a suspension fork is the right choice.
Here is where kids benefit from having a mountain-biking parent who is either a bike nerd or bike nerd adjacent. There’s a whole world of take-off and used 26″ forks and there are amazing deals to be had if you know what you’re looking for. Claire is far from the only kid I’ve seen riding around on a 12-year-old Fox 32 Factory, and I’ve seen plenty of older forks too.
The Case For Hardtails Going Forward.
Her next bike will be heavier. More frame, bigger wheels, and much more fork. Why much more fork? Buying a fork with a long travel chassis, which will weigh more than an XC fork like she has now, I get some room to play with optimizing fork travel as well as some future proofing for her next-next bike. Under a rider Claire’s size, with regular routine maintenance, a fork should effectively last forever, so I’m looking to amortize it over a decade.
Used vs. new will depend on your budget and availability. There are some amazing clear-out deals right now, but most of the bargains I’ve come across have been 29’er forks. In my case, buying a used fork that’s in good condition and still supported but with a higher-level model with a more sophisticated damper means the ability to have it custom-tuned for her weight and riding. I’m informed by the difference in performance after SuspensionWerx serviced her current Fox 32 RLC with her weight in mind.
What her next bike won’t be is a full suspension rig. Again, I should note my bias, or rather our bias, since our whole family is currently happily riding hardtails, but for kids, it’s deeper than that. For Claire’s next size of bike, there are actually many more good full-suspension options. They’re heavier, more expensive to buy, and more expensive to maintain but most notably less conducive to a rider standing on their pedals and reefing back and forth on their bar to will their bike uphill. Claire’s rig isn’t a tank but it’s still the rough equivalent of me riding a 70lbs rig and I’m positive that the hardtail has lent itself to bigger climbs and longer rides.
I actually started down the sag-wagon rabbit hole to specifically point out that I don’t claim skills develop faster or better on a hardtail vs. a full-suspension bike. I’ve listened to folks much more experienced with coaching than myself make solid explanations for one choice or the other.
Back From Gear.
Okay, so apologies for the gear-centric sojourn. I guess I’d say again that riding with kids is an investment in time, patience, and equipment. Having fun off-road, even on the North Shore, even with the goal being to progress doesn’t have to be anywhere near as expensive as some folks make it out to be but for the gear-nerd parents on a budget, there is always the option to ride your current bike for a few more years.
We’ve had a lot of fun, but we’re having more fun now than ever, and that’s down to the time investment paying us back. I keep coming back to this. I know a lot of folks who thought riding with their kids would come naturally, who spent a lot of money on that goal, and who don’t seem to ever be getting out there, because it’s work. All relationships are and sadly, there is a decent-sized pile of dusty Reapers, Spawns, and etc. here on the North Shore to prove it.
I have lots more kids’ content in the works from building bikes to Claire’s plan to write about some of her favourite trails. I was going to say that the end goal is to inspire folks who love to mountain bike to share it with their kids but I feel that’s a natural instinct. So, maybe, it’s more to remind you to be patient and have fun. And sometimes mountain biking hurts in a good way, and sometimes it hurts in a bad way, but it’s in the forest playing bicycles and how awesome is that?
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