The nut don't fall far from the tree...

The youngest decided to broadslide the scooter down the driveway.

Nice pic, good to see her wearing all the right safety gear.

She turned in and when it broke loose, she planted her left foot and pinned it! Dad was proud.

Just love those Japanese flying boots.

We had a tragedy here a while back. There was a guy in a dysfunctional family situation who was making a little girl try to ride a small motorcycle. She fell and was killed. When I first started road racing, my two sons aged about 8 and 10 were watching at the end of the front straight on Calder Raceway when I locked the front brake and slid on my back down the bitumen at about 90 MPH into the escape road. I was unhurt. - The good thing was I never had to watch my kids riding motorcycles. One of them recently married and he has chided me for racing when I had young kids. As far as I am concerned, it is one of the best things I ever did in my first marriage.

My little girl is 22. And if I took every horror story to heart, I wouldn't even ride. Life is terminal.

Be careful with your kids. I have a friend who was an A grade rider in the 60s. He was in Europe with Kim Newcombe when he was killed. He was at our local race circuit when his son was racing and had terrible anxiety. I told him you cannot be like that. Later on I asked him how his son was getting along. He told me the young bloke had hit a car while riding on the public road - arm went through the window and he lost the muscle out of his arm. I said to my friend 'and you were worried about him racing ?' - He said 'Yes, I know'.
Motorcycles are good things as long as you manage the risk appropriately. Road racing is inherently safe as long as you recognise your duty of care. With kids in the back yard, the controls are often not there.

You might do better to buy your daughter an MX bike and join her up with a motorcycle club. Get involved yourself and make sure the practice sessions are well-regulated. When I first came to our town, I started the motorcycle club in conjunction with our local raceway. We run practice sessions on the second Sunday of every month, and most of the participants are young kids - boys AND girls. We always have an ambulance on stand-by and have never needed to use it.

As a youth, many of my friends rode dirtbikes, in both organized events and for recreation. Most were scared shitless of street riding, having heard all the horror stories and seen firsthand how many brain-dead morons were allowed to drive multi-ton battering rams. I, on the other hand, could only afford a bike if it had a plate on it and could be used for transportation. Now, 40+ years later, most of them walk with permanent limps and don't even ride anymore due to the adverse experiences they had on their "much safer" off-road motorcycles. Although I took a 15-year hiatus to concentrate on raising children and paying the bills, I ride around 10,000 miles per year, all on public roads, and, despite a couple of accidents/injuries, walk better than any of my ex- dirtbike riding friends. If I had known a silly picture would have elicited so much hand-wringing and sage advice, I probably wouldn't even have posted it. Lighten up, gentlemen. Nobody gets out of here alive.

If she decides to actually take up motorcycles, she'll have all the gear and training she needs.

Yup, she could have done the same manoeuvre on a BMX bike. Who would have said anything then?
Proper assessment and management of risk is a learnable skill. If you don't get to practice it then you don't get better at it and need a check list to tell sense from nonsense.

I learned to road race by doing it the wrong way and I can still feel the pain. I started our local motorcycle club when I first moved into our town. We have built a national class MX circuit and we employ the Honda training people to teach the kids to ride on that circuit. When the kids begin, they usually approach the jumps and shut off. At the end of the day most of them can completely clear the top of the biggest jump and land on the down-slope. It is something I would not even attempt, myself and I've ridden a few MX bikes. With riding on bitumen, MX riding is a good place to start. However when I first started road racing an older rider said to me 'the bike has to do something for you and you need a lot of racing miles under your belt'. On public roads the risks are at their greatest - you need ALL the skills to stay alive and you can still get taken out by a drunk.
It can be no fun being dead, and motorcycling is about having fun.

And how much fun is being a sophist?

I have several family members who have died in the past few years. Some were motorcyclist and some were not.
They died of cancer. I think I will take my chances.

My oldest daughter just bought a PW50 for her three kids to learn on. 6 to 8 years old.

I'm glad- it's better to learn to handle a bike then than to learn later on a bigger bike when the parents can no longer say "no". Jim

I suggest that riding motorcycles is similar to going to war. It is better to get in early and learn as much as possible. My sons were never much interested in motorcycles after they watched me crash at high speed when they were still very young. However if they had wanted to ride, I would have taken the time to train them how to do it properly. I think the kids joining the MX club and receiving training from experts is a much better way to go than paddock-bashing. I suggest the worst way to learn is for a kid to buy a small bike and start wobbling along public roads.

My original plan for the Spree was to get the wife riding it and get her over her acquired fear of riding with me. The fact that the youngest likes it (as well as the middle daughter, whose fiancee was a bicycle stunter about to go pro when he had a career-ending injury) is just icing on a cake I didn't get. So far, the wife has shown little interest. Right now, I have my eye on a 2000 Kaw ZGST 1000, so the Honda may have to e sacrificed to make some room. Anybody need a pit bike? No interest in the dirt bike thing. Too many limping friends.