A THRILLING RIDE

With encouragement from her five-year-old son, Dee Featherstone, 35, took up an unusual new hobby

- MISHAAL KHAN

Straddling the bike, I firmly placed my hands on the bars and my feet on the pedals and stood, leaning forward, ready to go. Behind me, my husband Chris, 34, held the back of the seat. ‘Ready?’ he asked. I gave him the thumbs up and he let go as I whizzed down the slope, half in trepidation, half in excitement. Then, towards the bottom, I spotted my five-year-old son Alfie jumping up and down, waving his arms in the air. ‘You’re doing great, Mummy!’ he cheered as I completed the full circuit. It was January this year and only three months since my first attempt on a BMX bike – an unexpected hobby that I’ve come to love and one I only started up because of my son.

Chris was an avid BMX rider in his teens and when we had Alfie, in 2018, he couldn’t wait to introduce him to the sport. We got him his first set of wheels, a balance bike, when he was two years old and by August 2022, four-year-old Alfie was on a bicycle and didn’t need his stabilisers for very long.

GETTING INVOLVED