Just Keep Pedaling

Newsletter 2018-06-04

I taught my 8-year-old to ride a bike without training wheels this weekend. I know, I know, I’m a terrible parent for waiting this long. But in fairness, kids today don’t ride bikes like they used to. I could ride a bike without training wheels by the time I was in kindergarten for the same reason people in the Wild West rode horses straight out of the womb: It’s just how people got around back then. Seriously, look it up. There were no strollers in the Wild West, just a bunch of infants on stallions. Just give me a minute to vandalize Wikipedia.

But kids no longer roam neighborhoods on bikes looking for other kids on bikes so they can hunt down small-town monsters during 80s-music montages. These days, kids can’t legally be out of a parent’s sight or someone will turn them in to child protective services, so there are no more casual solo bike rides in search of fun. Any time my kids ride bikes, it means I have take them outside specifically to ride bikes. And if one of my kids goes, t…