“Riding bicycles will not only benefit the individual doing it, but the world at large.”

I am loving this bike building with Seth at the moment, the pedals we ordered arrived yesterday and the look on his face when he opened the package was priceless. Seeing the boys get excited about things they are creating is really moreish. His new bike (for when he's that little bit taller) is really starting to come together now and it's making me want to build one for myself.

Since starting the build Seth mentioned that he would love his own tools for tinkering with his bike so he was really chuffed when we received a package from Rex London after being included in their 12 dynamite daddy blogs. that included a bike multi-tool and a puncture repair kit. It is always lovely to hear what people have to say about the blog and I'm touched to come in their top 12. Thanks to the great package all Seth needs now is his own mini tool box.

Again Seth did a great job of attaching the pedals himself and they look great. We've also now ordered brake pads and some skyway handlebar grip's to go with his swanky wheels. All that's left on Seth's BMX list is brake levers, calipers and a saddle and then we can concentrate on designing decals, which I think he is excited about the most.

We had talked about replacing the brake cables with something a little more colourful, but then Seth came up with the idea of making use of the remaining patterned duck tape from our Pedalflow. While he played with his friends outside a few days ago I sat in the garden and wrapped his cables, it was a really nice touch and a great idea by Seth.

This bike is all Seth and I'm really proud of how interested he has been during this build so far. It's important to have hobbies and as I've said many times before it's great to have a couple of projects on the go with your kids. These are experiences that they will remember forever.

"The secret of life? Just enjoy the ride."

The weather in Shropshire this week has been all over the place, with strong winds, torrential rain, hail, snow, and the occasional bright sunshine breaking through. We've not really known what to do with ourselves. Today was one of those days, so... me and Seth decided to continue building our bike. 

After some good behaviour and him clearing out some unwanted toys to make some money for parts, myself and Mrs. M decided to put the rest towards the wheels he had his eye on and surprised him with them. So that afternoon we put some sheets down in his room and started to assemble the bike with the parts that we had.

Seth attached the wheels and we put the crank back after taking it all apart to clean up. It's great doing this kind of thing with Seth as he asks lots of questions about what the use is for each part. He is clearly getting a lot out of building his bike from scratch and I'm really loving the father/son bonding. I do a lot with Opeie throughout the week so this has become mine and Seth's special thing.

After sorting the crank out, Seth fitted his stripy chain that he had sat and made himself and he was looking pretty pleased with what he had achieved. I loved doing things like this when I was younger and having that pride in what you are doing is really important. The plan was to use the 2 left over pedals from the custom Pedalflow job I had recently done but it didn't cross my mind to check the thread size on the pedals and they were, unfortunately, the wrong size. Seth was a little disappointed (I've ordered some more though so he will have those this weekend to tinker with, shhh!).

 
Seth's BMX is really starting to come together which is great but more importantly Seth is really getting to know the ins and outs of his bike and how everything works which if you really enjoy riding, is a great thing to know.