Ride of the Week - Father/son ride on Coyote Song Trail 04/17/11

One of greatest things I get to do as a father is share my hobbies with my kids.  I take each of my on a Daddy Date each week.  This time it was my youngest son’s turn.  He wanted to go to the skate park, but I convinced him to go on a bike ride.  I didn’t want to discourage his interest in skateboarding but I don’t really like just watching my kids have fun.  I want to be with them having fun as well.  

 My youngest son is a good rider.  I had taken him on a long ride earlier in March.  I thought a good introduction would be a local trail called Coyote Song.  It is a easy trail so I expected he wouldn’t have much trouble with it.  

When we arrived we gave the bikes a final check then it was off to the trail.  We hit a long climb right at the beginning.  It was not a really steep climb but my son’s bike is basically a single speed.  That’s great when he’s riding to school but on the climb he had to really work.  He tried to climb the trail but we ended up walking up to the top.  We then coasted down the other side.  And that was pattern that we repeated over each hill along the trail.

The climbs weren’t terrible at any time.  My son really liked the down hill coasting though.  We stopped off at some of the placards along the trail that explained the geological history of the area.  I took some pictures of the surrounding rock formations.  

We got about three quarters of the way to the end of the trail when we decided to turn back.  The way back was not as steep as it was coming.  My son began to pick up some speed right away.  We reached the final down hill toward my car.  My son was flying down  the hill.  I was yelling at him to slow down.  He tried his coaster brake, but as soon as he braked a little his rear tire fish tailed out from underneath him and he fell.  I got to him quickly and lucky he wasn’t that scrapped up.  We rode back to the car.  We then finished the day with some ice cream cones from Mcdonalds which made up for my son’s scrapped knee.

Happy Trail!!