The Glade 4.0

I was a reasonably active and sporty kid, but when I was 4 years old, I was still tottering back and forth on my training wheels. This kid (and his dad) are amazing!

LOL @ "No I don't need to pee"

I am completely torn between feeling that this is proof of awesome parenting or child negligence. If the kid is four years old, that seems a little young. And the problem with trails like that is that they typically reside on some very steep slopes, and one wrong flick of the wrist (or badly placed rock) sends you right down the side of the mountain.

I've taken some mean spills at slickrock in Moab, I know what it can be like. And they were mild as to the potential dangers that could happen.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I definitely wouldn't have felt comfortable letting the 4 year-old ride behind me. I'd want to have eyes on him at the very least.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Yeah, tho the other part of that might be setting the pace for him.

Considering that there are plenty of people who take their kids motocross riding that young (and motorcycles built for kids that young) I don't see anything wrong with what the dad did there, and if what he was wearing was any indication the kid was decked out with all the right protective gear.

You don't see the dad pushing the kid at all, so the impression I get is that the kid is good enough to ride that trail. It's also blatantly obvious that he's having a complete blast.

Yeah, pace setting is definitely reasonable, and I could also see the benefit of having somebody experienced in front of him to pick a good line for the kid to follow, but I'd want to have somebody following, as well, rather than ride for 45 seconds or a minute before realizing the kid took a spill behind me.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Yup. Tho really that kid is in completely control the whole ride. Even when he has a wardrobe malfunction (glove) he keeps his cool, stops fixes his glove and moves on.

I definitely had mixed feelings about allowing the kid to ride a trail like that, even though his skill level is apparently up to it. The dad seems engaged and attentive rather than reckless, though, so I'm inclined to defer to his judgment regarding his kid's abilities and just applaud the encouragement of challenge and adventure. That said, no way in hell I'd let my own (hypothetical) kids do it.

If I had kids and their level of skill was such that they could handle this, I'd totally let them do it.

Can't protect them their entire lives. And the "Aww yeah! I did it!" is awesome.

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Holy shitsnacks!

because 4 year olds have a good sense of risk assessment???????

Wait what?

Has anyone advocated that the 4yo be allowed to do this thing absent parental supervision?

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Holy shitsnacks!

Agreed, though I think there's a lot of grey area between "their entire lives" and 4 years old! Anyway, I'm sure some of my discomfort just stems from my own inability to judge the risk of a mountain biking trail, since I don't really ride. I'd be much more sanguine about sending my kid bombing down a mountain strapped to a set of skis.

While it's tough to say for sure given the quality of the footage (kid doesn't have suspension yet, I think, hah!), very little of that trail looked particularly technical. It was solidly constructed and well maintained, but from where I'm sitting, the majority of the challenge in that ride was keeping a good pace to handle the elevation. The banked turns had cut-throughs to fall back on when you didn't have the speed to ride the curves high, at least some of the built hills had bypasses, and I didn't see a lot of technical natural hazards like roots or dense rocky sections that would've required a lot of judgement to navigate successfully without catching/turning a wheel.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I'm fairly certain based on the conversation, that the kid has ridden that trail with Dad before, maybe quite a few times, and had skipped over (walked the bike?) through the scarier parts. It obviously wasn't his first time down the hill. maybe not even the first time that day...

I base this on his sense of achievement for the 'drop in' or whatever it was he was so excited about. Dad never got very far ahead. He would have heard something if he fell, and he stopped several times along the way.

I would be concerned if the kid wasn't wearing a helmet or gloves. He was obviously pretty good at handling the bike. The times when he stopped to crest a hill, he didn't seem to have any trouble hopping off and getting back on.

Kids fall off bikes all the time. Even 'big' kids (DAMHIKT!).

Anyone who would call this 'Child Abuse' should run for King of the Nanny State.

Kids are made of rubber.

Falling down and getting hurt is part of growing up. You have to do it. You have to let your kids do it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

This.

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Raell Kromwell

Father was there, making sure his son was okay. Where's the problem? Kids need to learn how to fall and get up and start over. Stop the coddling and let them be kids, within boundaries.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

I've been avoiding this topic, but I guess I'll chime in. On the one hand - it's great that the kid can ride that and that his dad encourages him. I'm sure my wife thinks that I let our kids take way too many risks, so from one perspective I'm with the "pro" camp.

That being said, mountain biking can be pretty gnarly. The trail doesn't look too bad, and the kid looks well protected, etc., but it would still be pretty easy to pack it in and hurt himself. The big reservation I have about that is that the kid can pretty easily screw himself up for life at this age. My daughter took a spill (off of her bike, come to think of it) when she was 8 or 9, I think, and sprained her wrist. We had to do x-rays and so on to make sure that she hadn't cracked or damaged her growth plate. If that happens, it can really mess up the development of the arm.

Then again, I let my seven-year old use an axe to chop wood while camping, mind you. I had visions of him losing a toe, honestly.

And, I dunno, dad seemed kind of far ahead a few times. Also, it's hard to tell with the perspective of the first-person camera, but he didn't seem to be going too fast and did seem to stay in control.

I remain ambivalent, I guess.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

I'd just like to point out that it's not uncommon at all to see 4 year-olds skiing down mountains at ski resorts. That's the age I learned to ski and no one even wore helmets back then. I think the danger is comparable to the mountain biking seen in this video.

I think in situations like this you have to trust the expertise of the parent. This isn't some dad handing his son a bike, dropping him off at the top of a mountain and saying "have at it." He looks like he knows what he's doing and has been teaching his son as well. Who are we to judge?

Also, there's so many ways parents can screw up there kids. There's so much emotional abuse and neglect out there that just goes unnoticed because there are no physical symptoms of it. I know many people who had parents that were emotionally abusive or just plain mean and they're still trying to recover from that 25 years later. This kid has a dad who seems to genuinely care for his son and is spending the time to teach him his passion for mountain biking. I think he's very fortunate to have a father like that. Broken bones will heal.

Anyway, I think this is a really cool video. Thanks for posting it.

how bout this trail...

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