The Bike Blues

For Sleeping Beauty and Snow White's birthday, we almost got them bikes. But, it was the middle of winter, and who wants a bike when it's too cold to ride it?  So, we opted for more practical gifts and figured they could live with their slightly too small bikes another year.

And then summer came.  And they started riding their bikes to the pool. And then they started dropping hints...

"You know, Mom, our bikes came with training wheels.  Training wheels.  Do you realize what that means?  They are TINY."

"If it weren't so hot, I think I would walk instead of ride my bike to the pool.  I might get there faster walking anyway, my bike is so tiny and slow."

"I'm pretty sure I'm too old to have flowers and sparkles on my bike."

"It's so embarrassing when we ride up to the pool on our bikes and kids half as tall as we are jump off their bikes that are way bigger than ours."

Being a mother who likes to find ways to build character in her children, these hints didn't bother me all that much.  I mean, at least they have bikes.  And a pool to swim in.  Right?  But then I looked out the window at them riding one day and noticed that their knees nearly touched their chins when they peddled. And I realized that not only were their bikes incredibly tiny and probably embarrassing to them, they probably weren't all that safe or efficient, either.  So, I determined to find them affordable bikes.

We scoured the stores for bikes that were inexpensive, yet functional.  The heart of the matter is, these bikes need to make it to the pool and back, and on an occasional bike trail ride, but don't need to be durable enough to make it off-road or on a ten-mile ride or anything.  Just run-of-the-mill bikes.  We couldn't find any used ones, but, thankfully, they both found and liked bikes at the bottom of the price range I gave them. All in all, it was a fairly painless process.

That is, until it was time for the three of us to put them in the back of our van.  Let's just say, I hope no one robbed the store we were at last night, because if anyone reviews the surveillance videos of the parking lot between eight and nine p.m., there's a chance the hilarity could go viral.  Sheesh.