Re: My 11 year old surprises me again

#99940
"longboarderj" wrote

My son Jake has been riding for about two months now and can already rip, beats me up hills, has taken 17th out of 30 in an xc race, and has apparently become a riding instructor to other beginners.
I rode with a buddy today and he told me a little story that happened on our Sunday group ride (set up through our local mtb website) last week, it was the first I have heard about it.
Last week on our weekly group ride we had some new faces (as we usually do) and 2 of them were a married couple who had bought their bikes the night before. The bike were so new that the first time they had rode them was in the parking lot at the trail head. Neither of them had ever rode off the pavement before. The Sunday group has several regular riders who are there every week and many who show up occasionally, but we also get a lot of newbies so there is usually a big gap in skill level. This is always ok because it is a very casual ride and is there to teach the new people. The trail is somewhat odd in that there are several ways around any obstacle so you can make your ride as easy or as technical as you want, the only exception to this is one down hill that while it is not very long (maybe 200′ in length) it is very steep and turns sharply at the bottom but it looks harder than it is.
The wife from this couple was having a hard time with any hill up to this point and her husband was getting frustrated, the rest of us all men and all fairly experienced were firing off advice but she was intimidated. I led the charge on the downhill so I was not at the top with her,but my buddy said she was refusing to go down it and her husband was even more frustrated. This is where Jake stepped in he came up next to her and apparently explained like a pro how to feather her front brake and lightly use the rear brake to control her decent. The guys were blown away. He then told her watch me and showed her then climbed back up and rode it down with her. This was the last hill she had a problem with. Some times he can really surprise me, he is only 11.
The moral of the story is if you are a beginner ride with groups because you never know who can help you.

Neat story–I can see why you are proud of him 😃