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Well not really but sort of.
Had a great day with the kids yesterday on the Glentress skills loop followed by the blue from Buzzards down to the main car park.
They loved the fact that they got lots of cycling down lovely singletrack with minimal uphill work. As they weren't so knackered from pedalling they got to do more skills stuff with what little energy they had left.
So whilst I'm not looking for a chairlift or cattle truck uplift I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations on interesting routes that have more down than up?
In the past I've chucked them and the bikes on the bike trailer and done Llandegla but their total weight is around 70kg these days and I don't think the axle can cope with that.
If you had two cars, I bet you could come up with something.
Though at 5 years old most green and blues at trail centres should be doable, with a couple of sweetie stops on the big climbs.
The extra car is not too much of a problem, I can just cycle the shuttle section twice instead of once, the problem is finding somewhere with road access to the top and the bottom. Glentress is pretty unusual in that respect I think.
Yep, they both did some fairly solid blue routes when they were four years old but I can't kid myself that they particularly really enjoyed them. The Llandegla blue in particular put the older one off cycling for a while, so I'm keen to keep the interest factor high and the effort factor low for a while. Especially through winter when stopping for a sweet and a rest can result in very cold unhappy offspring.
Talking of which, I had a potentially nasty experience at the start of the green when we discovered that the wean couldn't brake with his skiing mits on. I had to accelerate past him, dump the bike in the ditch and grab hold of him as he flew past 🙂 Good job I asked him to check his brakes at the top of the hill, but would have been better to do it before we started.
Any recommendations on warm but dexterous cycle gloves for someone who is less than 110cm tall?
GT is good for this, done it many times - and ridden back up for the car..., better when the wife also comes 🙂
Just had a look, Llandegla, Penmachno aren't particlularly car accessible. Possibly bits of CyB though I don't know it that well.
The blue at Whinlatter climbs steadily in bits iirc.
Delamere is good for winter riding if it hasn't rained too much.
Gloves, my 7yo is currently sporting Chiba Technic gloves size large, so the smaller sizes should suit your kids.
I quite often do the first section of Whinlatter blue with my 4 year old. Pretty much all downhill (gently) until the climb from the forest road back to cross the main road to continue at Masmill carpark. If you stay on the forest road it brings you to a layby on the road, where we get picked up by MrsB. Starting to work on cycling uphill now!