As a new parent, one of the hardest things to accept is that the life you knew pre-baby is over. This is an especially hard thing to accept if you’re a mountain biker, which is not merely your sport, but your way of life.
Parental responsibilities and guilt, combined with the inevitable compromises with your partner, can lead to a drastic reduction in riding time. Over the years I’ve seen most of my friends go through the post-baby blues, and now, I’ve been through it myself: it’s not only the end of carefree riding time, but you also miss out on the social rides/weekends away/dusty trails/daylight/exploring and worse still, you suddenly have more time on social media to see all your friends uploading riding posts about how they are enjoying what you are not. You can’t do group rides at 6 pm as that’s when you do bath and bed; you can’t do early morning, as that’s breakfast and when your partner catches up on sleep. Then in between you go to work….
However, you can only be the best parent that you can be when you’re fit, relaxed, and happy, so you owe it to your child and yourself to get back on the saddle and ride your bike as often as possible. How to maximise your riding time as a new parent:
1.
Ride mellow trails with your spawn; get yourself a cutting-edge, steerer-mounted child seat or a tow-along kiddie trailer – it’s a great way of racking up time on the bike. However, although this is fulfilling as a parent, it will leave you needing more as a rider.
2.
Get on your E-MTB. Simply put, an E-MTB is a time machine for chronologically challenged mountain bikers, as it will compresses time and distance! You can easily cover 25k in ninety minutes or 20k if you only have an hour for lunch; this is nearly twice the distance you’d expect on your old bike. Riding an E-MTB will take you back to a riding nirvana that you’d begun to give up hope of ever finding again.
Choose life, get an E-MTB
In order to ride an E-MTB, you first need to buy one, which is not always so simple when combined with the added costs and decreased income that comes with bringing new life into the world… so first you need to put in some groundwork with your better half (if he or she is a non-mountain biker). The best justification for buying an E-MTB is that it will keep you fighting fit, so you’re better able to cope with the physical rigours of raising Cain. The next excuse ‒ sorry, ‘reason’ ‒ for buying an E-MTB is to get back in shape and banish the ‘Dad Bod’ that you have now acquired through months of sleep deprivation, no exercise, and snatched fast food. Once you have even the slightest of positive responses from your partner you need to drop the hints hard: “You know what I saw the other day…” or, “You know what may be a good idea…” are good starters. Then pick a destination that also sports an E-bike shop as a family day out and book in for a demo ride or two…. boom!
Congratulations, you have fully engaged with the process that will hopefully result in a shiny, new E-MTB. Or divorce.
Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life
If your partner already rides (lucky you!), justifying an E-MTB should be a whole lot easier. If the response is still less than positive, suggest sharing it: this simple (should you both be of similar size) solution will get you your bike and both of you back riding and feeling good as soon as possible. Of course, once the bug bites you can always plump for a bike each at a later date.
Now take your E-MTB and family to the trails: not only will this help you rack up time on your bike, but it will also be an activity compromise that is win-win (time on your bike as well as time with your bambino). E-MTB technology really helps with hauling your child up and over bigger terrain, as it’s difficult to get up out of the saddle for climbs with a toddler on your handlebars! You can also handicap the stronger rider so that you can more effectively and enjoyably ride as a family. Don’t worry about running on turbo for the whole ride, as your tiny tyke will only want to be on the bike for an hour or so anyway before they need to stop and walk/crawl/eat/drink/poo etc… so you will have no battery life issues.
Top tips for riding with kids
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Don’t ride for more than thirty minutes without a break. Give them a run around and a play before riding on so they don’t get restless.
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Keep them fed and watered. Take plenty of snacks and water, and top them up often.
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Wrap them up! Don’t underestimate how cold they will get. Sitting on the front of your bike doing nothing, even in the summer, can get chilly!
For mums recovering from the rigors of childbirth, an E-MTB will enable you to ride like you used to and extract the maximum miles from the small and infrequent opportunities that you will (hopefully) get. We wouldn’t go so far as to suggest an E-MTB as a “Push” present, but it will add more to your quality of life than another ring or a Pandora Pendant.
One door closes, another opens
You used to enjoy a day exploring new trails, but now the thought of an hour plus driving with your screaming baby/toddler brings you both out in a cold sweat and removes all motivation for traveling anywhere. However, fear not! An E-MTB will open up the riding straight out of your front door, turn flat singletrack into an enduro stage, and long bridleway drags into high-speed motorways! This means that 100% of your fun pass is spent riding, not driving, and you’re back playing/feeding/changing nappies/giving your partner a break with no wasted drive time.
Finally, convince your mountainbiker parent friends to join in too, and you will find that you all have the same free time (or lack thereof…after 8pm or when the ankle biter is in nursery) and they are just as time- and energy-strapped as you are! You need friends in the same boat to offload to, and E-MTBers need fellow E-MTBers so you can all ride at the same pace. Plus, it’s more riders pushing you out the door and another excuse to ride: “I said I’d take… (insert friend’s name) for a spin, he’s not been out of the house in ages.”
Although a joy… starting a family will change your life and, inevitably, some of those changes will feel negative. Accepting and adapting is the only way to keep sane, and part of managing this is finding new ways for you to enjoy the time that you have. So don’t fall into the ‘Parent Trap’ and become one of those glum guys who used to ride “but I just don’t have the time anymore.” Overcome, adapt, and survive by hitting the trails on your time machine.
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Words: Tom Corfield Photos: Trev Worsey
