11 April 2012

Twenty-five screams

After writing the Easter, the long weekend post I realised I hadn't mentioned one thing: namely, my experience on a clown bicycle. At least, that's what I'm calling it -- a spare bicycle that has lived at the coast units "for anyone to use." On the face of it, a noble and good idea. In practice, quite dangerous: after adjusting the seat to maximum height, my legs were still bent like a stork's; and the handlebars had a frightening tendency to swivel downwards at the slightest pressure (for example, while steering, or trying to power up a hill).

The benefit of riding the clown bicycle was that I could accompany Anya while she used every trick in her book to beat me in numerous mini-races. This meant that David could concentrate fully on teaching Callum to ride without training wheels. He really did it tough, jogging alongside while Callum peddled along.  Sometimes Callum forgot to keep his legs moving, thus swerving and wobbling (often right across David's path) and shrieking loudly whenever a wobble started.  Apparently Callum also sang a repetitive song to motivate himself the whole time (when not shrieking).

On the first day of training, Callum achieved a maximum count of 10 seconds on his own. By the end of the weekend, he was up to 25 seconds. And, as he said himself, "25 screams!"

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