My daughter Rhyley told me at the beginning of the school year that she wants to ride her bike to school every day this year. She is only 5 and probably doesn’t realize how hard this might be through the winter, but who
am I to argue, let’s do it!
So between Chenoa and I, we get organized every morning with bikes and gear and off we go to school. As the weather turned uglier I expected Rhyley to
complain, but she just asked for rain pants and warmer gloves. No problem, a few days later we had better gear and never missed a ride.
A week or two after that the weather got worse again, but rather than complain she just added a toque under her helmet, did her jacket up a bit higher and toughed it out. There is still some complaining about the rain, but that’s me and Chenoa.
When we woke up Tuesday morning we didn’t even look out the window, just got our gear on and left the house. We manoeuvred through the waterfall
coming off our gutters and ducked into the wind, which was blowing sideways rain straight into Rhyley’s face. To me it felt like a sand blaster. By the time we reached the end of our street her glasses were soaked and she was
riding all but blind. At the half way point to school we had to stop and put on her hood because her ears were freezing, and that’s when it happened, I
heard a shivering little voice say “Dad,I just want to be at school, I don’t want to ride anymore.”
I couldn’t blame her, I was pretty cold at this
point too.
I did her hood up tight around her little face and coaxed her into continuing by turning her commute into a hunt for Halloween decorations. We soon forgot about the horrible weather. Rhyley was looking a bit worse for wear when we arrived, but ran into school with a smile and when one of the
other parents congratulated her for riding in such bad weather, I think I saw a spark of pride in her eye.
We got pretty close to Rhyley’s limit today, but it turns out she might be just as stubborn as her Dad, which in this one case, is actually a good thing.
I’m James Durand and I’m Goin’ Ridin’
