Joy: A Boy and His Bike

We went shopping for a new bike for the Young Master yesterday.

Up until now, he’s been blasting around the ‘hood on one of these little bad boys:

Yessir, that’s a Skuut balance bike right there. He got one as a gift from his grandparents, and it didn’t take him long to scoot hither and yon on the thing, running and gliding and having a grand ol’ time.

The Young Master still loves his Skuut, but he’s older now — a “big boy,” as he is keen to remind us — and so it was time for a new bike. A real bike. Pedals and all.

We’d shopped unsuccessfully from one end of town to the other by the time we walked into the Mount Pleasant K-Mart (or BigK or whatever they call themselves these days). The bikes were in back. To reach it we had to walk past the electronics department, which had some two dozen televisions kicking electrons, and all of them (yahtzee!) were playing an ESPN special remembrance of The Drive.

If you don’t know what “The Drive” is, well, you need to learn. Check the Wikipedia article. Or, if you’ve got 10 minutes, watch this:

Anyway, the lad and I stopped to admire. I tried to explain to him that this, this right here, was why the number 7 is retired in Colorado.

He did not understand.

So we continued on to the bike zone. And despite the day’s failures, I just knew we were going to be successful now. The Elway had blessed this store.

And find something we did: a shiny orange-and-green beauty slathered over with “Go Diego Go” stickers. The Young Master could not have been happier.

This afternoon, he got a chance to ride it:

Yep, I think he likes it. (I believe his stuffed dog enjoyed it, as well, perched from atop his helmet.)

I’m also pleased to report that the balance bike did its job admirably: the Young Master’s big boy bike has no training wheels.

He can’t get started on his own yet — no shame, since he’s been riding a bike for all of an hour so far in his life — but once he gets going he’s really incredible.

At least until it comes time to stop, that is. The picture above was taken a half second before the lad crashed into me.

But there’s time. He’s learning. He’s having a blast.

Me, too.