From: shenry@cs.rice.edu (Sam Henry)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc
Subject: Re: What Age to start riding?
Date: 29 Sep 92 19:28:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: rice.BvCu4A.EI3
Organization: Rice University, Houston

>In the referenced article, jdr40@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (John Ritter)
>writes: 

>>My 8 year old son is really interested in riding.  My qestion is, is
>>8 years old too young? 

In article <BvCMx1.D7D@sunlab1.bath.ac.uk> ccsdhd@sunlab1.bath.ac.uk
(Dennis Davis) bemoans: 

>I'm afraid you may be a little late to turn your child into a champion
>cyclist.  The Jesuits have a saying along the lines of "Give me a child
>until he is seven and he will be mine for life".  ... Early
>influences have a lasting effect.
>
>I always wondered where I went wrong, being no more than an average
>cyclist.  I discovered the reason in a searing flash of insight a few
>years ago.  ...

>What I discovered was in the window of a junk shop.  It was a small
>child's chamber-pot with **bicycles** emblazoned upon it.  And not just
>any old bicycles.  It had the following around the outside:
>[exceptional classics deleted] ...

>I realised when I saw this potty that I'd never seen such a wondrous
>thing before.  Now if *I* had been trained on one as a child, I'd have
>surely grown up to be an Olympic or World champion cyclist.  ...

Awe inspiring!!  Armed with this knowledge, I am now ready to prepare
my son to become the cyclist his dad aspired to much too late, it
seems.  And with a French middle name, he deserves as much an
opportunity as a citizen of the US with only a French-sounding name.

And Jeffrey Lanaux is almost ready for training.  Last weekend, I
stripped and washed the bike, repacked the bearings and replaced a
cable.  As soon as the bike was on the washstand, he held the chain
while I removed it, fingered the unwashed chain rings, and tried to
taste the mettle of the cogs.  His mother was aghast at the sight, but
the boy has a real penchant for the smell and taste of bicycle grease.
And I did bathe the boy-wonder before handing him over to his mother
for lunch.

By the time he was up from his nap, I was in the final throes of
adjusting the derailleurs.  Of course, he had to inspect the soundness
of the bearing job I had done, swinging the front wheel as hard as he
could, sticking his hand into the slowly spinning rear wheel (he had
done the spinning, so there wasn't much velocity), and finally
grabbing the pedals and rocking them in the proper lateral direction.
This last toppled the bike, and he howled in outrage.  All this
increased the difficulty of aligning the pulley and cogs.  Not to be
put off, though, he insisted on assisting with the spinning of the
pedals as I checked and micro-adjusted the shifting.  And I did bathe
the boy-wonder before handing him over to his mother for afternoon tea
(he gets it, but I don't).

But now, I see that there is far more to his mental conditioning and
preparation than I had ever imagined.  He is almost ready for this
step, too.  He leans down from my arms and studies intently those
things associated with his impending rite of passage from nappy to
full-upright position.  In between, I will HAVE to find an appropriate
potty device.

>Armed with this new-found knowledge and the article as evidence, I
>broached the subject with my parents.  Why had I been deprived of the
>use of such a valuable artifact when I was in my most formative years?

Perhaps because they used some other priceless artifact more closely
akin to the goals they had set for you in your most formative years.

>I thought this was quite altruistic of me, passing on priceless
>practical knowledge that would be of benefit to grandchildren.

Grandparents have no aspirations concerning the toilet training of
their grandchildren.  That's one of the things grandparents take joy
in returning a grandchild to the parents for doing.

>The response wasn't quite the adulation I had expected.  I had only
>been home a few minutes and yet my mother made a point of ringing up
>the butcher and cancelling the fatted calf.  ...

Perhaps you should not have so grievously disappointed the
aspirations they had formulated for you in your most formative years.
Doing so, you gave the lie to their artifact designed to condition you
properly.  Perhaps the Jesuits have not passed on all they should
have.  But that is the way of Jesuits.

Nevertheless, I would be most willing to borrow the artifact and put
the Jesuit theory and your corollary to the test.  And I will wash the
pot thorogly before returning it.  Call it an investment in grooming a
TdF (TIOOYK) champion in about 2017.

-- 
sam henry <shenry@rice.edu>
Wanna ride?
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc,rec.bicycles.rides