Bikes

Tyler LOVES bikes. When I say he loves bikes, I mean he is obsessed with them. He knows the difference between a road bike and a time trial bike by looking at the handlebars and the wheels. He knows that time trial bikes have aero bars and racing wheels. I didn't even know the difference until a few months ago.

Anytime Tim is working on his bike, Tyler is right there helping by holding tools and telling Nathan to stay back. ("No, Nathan. You can't touch Daddy's bike!")

He constantly talks about how Daddy's going to give him his time trial bike when he gets bigger. For Christmas he wants "a big boy 3-year-old's bike".

Last week I heard him singing, "I want to ride my time trial bike, I want to ride my time trial bike!" The actual lyrics to Queen's song titled "Bicycle Race" are, "I want to ride my bicycle..." I guess Tyler felt the need to change the song to reflect the fact that TT bikes are cooler than plain old bicycles.

During the Tour de France in July, he preferred to watch Lance Armstrong ("Yance Ahmstont"), rather than his regular rotation of Nick Jr. shows. One night during dinner he said, "Yet's call Yance Ahmstont." We explained that 1) Lance was pretty busy at the moment racing in the Tour, and 2) we don't have his phone number.

We often find him thumbing through one of Tim's triathlon magazines, studying all the different racing wheels, helmets, and of course, bikes. If he happens across a picture of Tim's bike or his Zipp wheels, Tyler is quick to point them out.

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A couple weeks ago I heard Tyler talking in his room as I was getting ready.

Tyler: Bikes are reedy awesome. I yike bikes and I three-years-old. I not four and I not ten yet.

Me: Tyler, who are you talking to? Are you talking to yourself?

Tyler (lookin a little shy): Yeah, I talking to myself.

Me: Okay.

Tyler: No. I talking to Jesus. (Pause) I yike bikes, Jesus.

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Here are some post-race photos at a local sprint triathlon that Tim won at the end of June.

Tyler loves wearing Daddy's helmet ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tim was changing one of his tires a couple weeks ago, so Tyler thought his trike needed fixing, too.

Nathan assisted as Tyler pretended to air up his tires.

Tyler flipped his bike upside-down just like Daddy did so he could do some more fixing.

When Nathan wasn't helping fix everyone's bikes, he was busy eating sidewalk chalk. He disappeared behind the garage for about 30 seconds, and when I caught up to him, he had turquoise chalk smeared all around his mouth. Tyler immediately said, "Mommy, Nathan wooks yike the master of disguise!" (yet another Backyardigans reference) I wiped off a little of the chalk before I ran inside to get the camera.

After all that chalk-eating and bike fixing, Nathan was so tired he kept lying on the ground.