Bikes are Bikes

Bicycles are bicycles and learning to ride any bike better and faster will help you ride another type of bicycle better and faster. This is especially true at a young age (but is still important at ANY age).

I was lucky enough to get to ride with some of the SMBA kids last week in Nederland, Colorado. SMBA stands for Singletrack Mountain Bike Adventures and it is a really great program. These kids know how to ride their bike and they know how to do it well. Most of their skills are better than mine and I was truly privileged to ride with them.

Here's a picture of the group doing the standard "bike check" that they do before every ride. They not only know the name of every part of their bike, they can diagnose a problem BEFORE they start riding.

After a brief time at home, it's back to racing my bicycle. Maybe I'll be a more balanced rider after spending some time getting beat up by kids on my mtn bike.

©Brian Hodes/VeloImages