Were doing the car free thing and dd (9, 10 this summer) scares me just taking her around the neighborhood to be honest. I'm not about to take her on the roads with traffic (which you have to do to get to any store in town). We keep going out for practice but it seems really slow going getting her ready for real life biking or at least biking without getting ran over. I took her to a bike safety training course yesterday, during that dd rode though the course twice, I missed the 1st run talking to the group leader about city biking but I did see the 2nd and oh boy, its a short course and she ran over a cone and pretty much fell off her bike when trying to take a narrower turn (wasn't that narrow but she's used to taking much much wider turns) and she was unable to do some of the turns at all. It was a very simple set up, follow the curve of the cones then weave in and out of the bigger cones. She didn't do so hot and it made it very clear we have a lot of work to do.
So how can I help her become a better rider? I talk her though every bit of our rides when were out but it doesn't seem to do much good which is why I took her to the course.
ETA: We don't need a lot of cargo ability and putting a basket up front and 2 on the back should work fine for us. I'd LIKE to avoid having to get an Xtracycle to carry dd on the back and tow her bike while in the high traffic areas of the city but I'd rather that $600 stay in my packet you know? But I need to be able to get around and I can't do that until she's safe enough on the bike to take out of our low traffic neighborhood. Other then lusting after the Xtracycle which is a bit more then we need outside of transporting dd would you up grade to it or just wait it out until she's better at riding? I have no idea how long that will take and need to get under our own transporting power ASAP. There really isn't local transportation and nothing is in walking distance.
So how can I help her become a better rider? I talk her though every bit of our rides when were out but it doesn't seem to do much good which is why I took her to the course.
ETA: We don't need a lot of cargo ability and putting a basket up front and 2 on the back should work fine for us. I'd LIKE to avoid having to get an Xtracycle to carry dd on the back and tow her bike while in the high traffic areas of the city but I'd rather that $600 stay in my packet you know? But I need to be able to get around and I can't do that until she's safe enough on the bike to take out of our low traffic neighborhood. Other then lusting after the Xtracycle which is a bit more then we need outside of transporting dd would you up grade to it or just wait it out until she's better at riding? I have no idea how long that will take and need to get under our own transporting power ASAP. There really isn't local transportation and nothing is in walking distance.
