What we pass on

 I was fortunate enough to meet some friends for a Valmont riding session the other day. I've known Jesse since the pre-child days and now both of us are fathers. My girls are both skilled bike riders but they really accell at the sportsball activities. They have inherited the gene for team ball sports from their mother. Jesse's son on the other hand is a cycling prodigy. He flows with incredible style over the biggest jump lines or across the finish line.

At one point Jesse and another dad split for the slopestyle line and I went with the boys over to the trick jump. I may have mentioned before that I believe tricks are an important aspect of jumping bikes. I just think if you're going to jump bikes, why not do some tricks? The alternative route for progression is to just keep jumping bigger and bigger jumps and this can lead to a plateau with severe consequences. To me a cool trick on a medium size jump is more impressive than a dead sailor over a massive jump.

Basically, I'm always pushing people to try tricks and the kids knew that about me. We warmed up some jumps and Jesse's son asked me how to do one-footers. He explained the concern that hinders lots of people, if he takes  one foot off the pedal his other foot will rotate down. I said, I'm not going to teach you one-footers, because then you'll be stuck with one-footers, you need to do no-footers.

He looked at me with doubt, but I could see him pondering my advice. Then I said, besides, no-footers are a foundational trick you need in order to do more advanced tricks like supermans, no-cans and tail whips. This was the logic that clicked in his thirteen year-old brain. We discussed lifting both feet off the pedals at the same time and kicking them straight out to the side. I dropped in and demonstrated. Then he dropped in and did a great no-footer. I made him do five more to lock it in. After that I said he could try one-footers. He did some experimenting and learned he could take his foot off either side easily. Then he started doing nacnacs.

This got me thinking about my legacy and the mark I will leave on this earth. I can't teach my girls to deliver a perfect tennis serve or set a volleyball. I can encourage them to keep practicing, but I can't give specific advice about something that I can't do myself. We can only truly teach the skills that we have personal knowledge about. And I can teach bike tricks.

Later that day I met my oldest Aunt for dinner. She was the first child on my father's side and I hadn't seen her since his funeral. She was born in 1941 and told us about the world she grew up in. Their house in rural Connecticut had no indoor plumbing. The kids carried water from a hand pump that had to be wrapped in tarpaper and wool at night to keep it from freezing. If they wanted a hot bath they had to heat the water and carry it to the tub.

She told us about one time that my father came around the corner and bumped into his older sister carrying a pot of boiling water. He received scalding burns across his shoulder and back. She had vivid memories of receiving wartime margarine that was a disgusting white block with a red dot in the middle. It was her task to mix the red dye into the margarine to give it a slightly yellow color. 

She remembered that her father would pick of wood scraps from the local mill to heat the house and fire the kitchen cooking stove. The mill was a relic from the previous century that still used a water wheel to power the saws. Imagine a water powered mill in a time when atomic energy had already been harnessed?

Her family used an outhouse but she could go to a friend's house and watch Howdy Doody on television. It's hard to imagine such differences between households. I'm sure my children have out dated iphones compared to their wealthier schoolmates, but they all have phones. I showed my Aunt how to increase the font size on her phone and it was the greatest gift I could have given.

I really don't know where this one is going, let's just agree to be good to our kids and teach them useful skills...like tire grabs.