Big Wheels are cool

Amara finally seems to have mastered the art of biking. We've had a hard time finding a great place to let her practice, since our neighborhood in Tennessee is full of hills, and is lacking sidewalks in a lot of places. Problematic for a cautious little girl...

Anyways, while we've been here in California, she's acquired a trusty Big Wheel, and we've spent a few evenings at a park near my parents' house with lots of flat areas to ride. At first, Amara took it pretty slow, and did a lot of stopping, standing, and scooting the bike around to turn it in the right direction. After just a couple more nights, however, she's turning and chasing Grandpa on his bike. Wow! What an improvement. She also really likes to ride to different areas of the playground, park her bike, and play awhile. An excursion to the neighboring play structure is a rather lengthy ride.

I'm certainly partial to the Big Wheel name and design, since I spent a lot of my youth heavily involved with our local bike gang. There were 6-10 of us on a regular basis, riding in a line between our houses, using the driveway to flip a U turn. According to my mom, I actually wore out the tires on my first Big Wheel, and I was pretty little at the time. The size that Amara's riding is about the size of my second Big Wheel.

Back home, Amara does have a great tricycle. Its metal instead of plastic, and seems high quality, but the Big Wheel still wins my vote. Probably because it just reminds me of such fun and craziness. And a Big Wheel is near impossible to tip - a definite bonus for crazy kids flying down hills while trying to figure out how to turn....