Kids Ride Report

Sorry about missing yesterday. After being stuck in meetings all morning for work, I looked up at the time and figured that it was too late to post up anything here. I thought that maybe after checking a few times, y’all would move on. But, here I am today. Yippee.



Saturday was our annual Take A Kid Mountain Biking Day. It was a great event (as usual) and we had an awesome turnout. Just look at all the people out there ready to ride:





The main event sponsors were there, represented by tents from REI, the Tarheel Trailblazers and the Dirt Divas.



Trips For Kids was there too (another event sponsor.)


Paula from Trips For Kids made the announcements to get everything started.



Everyone divided up into groups based on ability and preferred riding distance, and we got ready to go. Lunchbox was the leader of the “blue” group, which took on all the intermediate-type trails.



I decided to ride along with that group as a sweeper, and it turned out to be pretty fun. Lunchbox had a ton of kids following him on the trail.







He was a great leader, and I was pretty proud of him for doing such a good job out there. He was once one of those smaller kids that needed a leader, and now he’s someone they can look up to (at 6'3", I guess that means literally too.)




After a bit of trail riding, we stopped to play on one of the fun spots out there.






Even though our ride was less than six miles, it was one of the best I’ve ever been on. When the kids had enough, it was time to get back to the parking lot for some lunch. People were already chowing down when we got there.







Big thanks to the Trailblazers and Dirt Divas that came out to lead the rides, REI for providing (and cooking) the food, and to Trips for Kids Charlotte for helping to get the whole thing organized (and bringing a ton of kids.) I can’t wait until next year.