Sonic Boom kids' bike race...

This is a fun event that Gavin and Gage have done for two years in a row now.  The course this year was to do an entire lap of the normal race course at the Sonic Boom Criterium in Louisville, CO.  This race was actually way better than last year where they just did 3 blocks of the course.

Here are all the U-6 (under 6) riders lined up with their game faces on.  Gage and Gavin are both on the left side of the picture.  Gage is in the front row and Gavin is behind a few other kids in the second row.  Once they said "Go!" it was on though.  Gavin took off and raced his heart out.  While I turned around and saw him making the first turn, Gage apparently had run into to some other kids (or they ran into him) and had crashed.  He was crying about 15 yards after the start line.  I ran over to try to help him and just barely had time to look up and see Gavin come across the finish line first out of his race!  He had passed the 2nd place rider with about 10 meters to go and the crowd was going wild.  Unfortunately, I missed the picture opportunity as I was caring for Gage.

Gage was fairly distraught, but didn't seem to be injured.  Perhaps, just his pride was hurt by crashing in front of all the people.  He was pretty sure he just wanted to call it quits right there but I (Brent) felt strongly about helping him try to finish.  One helpful piece of motivation was that each kid finisher received a ribbon and a cup of ice cream.  Although it is a bit harsh, I wasn't going to let him have ice cream without him finishing the race.  After about 10 minutes of convincing him that he was fine physically, he finally decided he wanted to give it another try.  He took off and never looked back.  I did catch a picture of him finishing above and by the time he finished he was finishing with the last of the next race group which was the 8-10 year old's.  I am very proud of his willingness to get up and try even after something unexpected happens like a crash.  It seems like a larger life message to learn than just a single bike race.

Here are Gavin and Gage with their ribbons and Gavin celebrating his first victory on the bike.  He was so excited and we were so proud of him!

Here is one last picture of both of the kids with their ribbons and even Gage seems to be happy and recovered from his earlier crash in the picture.  The kids actually had a more enjoyable experience than I had, as it was my first race of the year and I started off strong but got dropped about 30 minutes into the race.  That first race is always tough, and this race is one of the hardest on the calendar each year so it wasn't totally unexpected.