Kids and motorcycles

[SigepKat]

My oldest (11) has decided he wants to start riding with me. We've done a couple of trips around the neighborhood and he seems to enjoy himself. I'm an ATGATT rider and would like him to be...He's got dirt bike upper body armor (which I assume would be sufficient), but I can't find any armored pants that would fit him. Can anyone point me in a direction?

Oh, and what do y'all do about the passenger dozing off? He hasn't done it yet, but it's gotten close...One of those things that you strap the kid to you???

CM

 

[jhansen]

Gear? Calling Tourmeister as his three kiddos all got gear.

Dozing off is a problem. My daughter fell asleep once and it scared me more than her. Felt her helmet hit my back and realized what happened. Slowly got off the road and woke her up. Ice cream stop shortly after. My advice is to start with short rides to get him used to riding. Get him a cheap camera so he can take pictures to keep his attention focused.

Have fun !


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[Tourmeister]

When they were too small for actual motorcycle pants with armor, we used dirt bike pants over football pants from Academy. Then they were dirt bike boots, so most of the leg was pretty well protected. They used dirt bike gloves as those were about the best we could find before they were big enough to wear leather gloves. They started with dirt bike helmets and goggles, but quickly graduated to small street helmets. For the jackets, we used those armored dirt bike jackets. They were mesh though so if it got cold or wet, Frogg Toggs went on over those. It wasn't long though before they were all able to wear real gear. Just check the small women's pants, jackets, and gloves. They will wear the dirt bike boots, but that is because of the kind of riding we generally do.

Probably the best money spent was on getting a set of SENA 20S communicators so I could talk with them. That also helped with the getting sleepy thing. Also, we tended to ride a lot of forest/county roads around here that are dirt... and sometimes bumpy... which also helped with them not getting sleepy I would also recommend breaks about every 30-45 minutes at most just because younger kids will get bored faster if you are just cruising for a long time. When I took my oldest on a big adventure trip through NM, Az, Ut, and Co, we were doing some big miles on a few days. She was 11 at the time. I bought her a little $90 Nikon point and shoot with a 32GB card (and a spare). She took a LOT of pictures. None of them were amazing and I don't think she ever even went through them to pick out good ones. She just had fun taking the pictures She REALLY liked having the communicators though, as did I. I bought them just before that trip. We use them on every ride now.