But he found that cumbersome tricycles and training wheels limited the things he loved about riding-going off-road, adventuring, sending sweet jumps. The origin story goes like this: McFarland, who hales from South Dakota’s Black Hills, was an avid mountain biker who wanted to share his passion for riding with his then two-year-old son, Bode. Modern balance bikes for kids, as we know them, were invented by a man named Ryan McFarland, the founder of Strider. But there were other elements that I worried about, too: that I was pushing August into something that was my thing, not his that he might become overwhelmed by the immensity of the event, and permanently scarred by bike racing that he might fail.Īs we traveled to Fort Worth, I’d never been more nervous. I knew I’d need to shelve my desire to win so that August could develop his own. I recruited my parents as support staff, August’s Grandpa (photography) and his Nana (team snack dispenser), and on a sunny weekend in early May, we headed up to the big race. Still, the siren song of such a high-caliber event was too good to pass up. His record is impeccable: out of a half dozen or so kids races started, he has finished last in every one. But when the announcer shouts, “Go!” he’s quickly left behind, more intent on stopping to push over all the orange cones than on beating his competitors. At a Thursday-night criterium race where we live in Austin, August eagerly awaits the kids' race, then hurries to the start line ahead of everyone else. I’ve been an avid bike racer for more than 20 years, but August has yet to inherit any of my competitive instinct or passion for unadulterated speed. Yet, the thought of my own son lining up against Strider prodigies from Japan (who swept Worlds in 2016) made my palms sweat. Strider bills its race series as an all-inclusive event, a festival that exposes your child to the positive aspects of competition at an early age. A national series of four races, the Strider Cup is organized by the Strider balance-bike company and culminates in September with the World Championships in Salt Lake City. When I first learned of the Strider Cup balance bike race in Fort Worth, Texas, and considered taking my own three-year-old son, August, to the event, this was the gulp-inducing scene I envisioned.
And then, there’s one kid, coming from behind, who executes a perfect pass on his recently potty-trained competitors and crosses the line first, his chest forward in an elated victory celebration.
They splay out across the track in a pile of elbow and kneepads and full-face helmets. The kids kick their bikes up to speeds that would make most adults uncomfortable, and carve through the course’s maze of sharp corners with tenacity and grace.Ī few kids don’t make it. A long row of pre-school-aged kids, aboard low-slung bikes with no brakes or pedals, takes off from a start ramp like a pack of greyhounds. There’s a video going around the Internet of a balance-bike race in Japan.
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