08/23/2026
The most addictive machine in your house doesn't have wheels.
It's the phone in your kid's pocket. And unlike the bike out in the garage, it was built by a room full of engineers whose whole job is to keep a kid sitting still and staring.
That's not me being dramatic. The Surgeon General now calls social media a serious risk to kids — and it's not just the boys. About a third of girls 11 to 15 say they feel straight-up addicted. It's designed that way — the little hit off every like, the feed that never ends, the reward that drops right when the kid's about to put it down. A Stanford doctor calls the smartphone the modern-day hypodermic needle.
Here's what I keep coming back to as a RiderCoach.
That feeling the phone is selling? It's the same one your daughter gets pedaling up the hill she always used to walk, or your son gets holding a wheelie for the first time, or either of them riding a whole trail without putting a foot down. Same chemistry. A kid's gonna chase it either way.
The phone hands it over for free, for doing nothing.
A bike makes them earn it — balance, focus, a body actually moving — and then makes them earn it again, a little better next time.
Same wiring. Opposite lesson. One teaches a kid that good feelings come from getting good at something. The other teaches them they come from a thumb.
And you don't have to buy a dirt bike to start. It starts with a bicycle — every kid can have one, and it's the first machine that lets a kid go somewhere on their own. From there it's a minibike, then a dirt bike if they catch the bug. Any rung beats the couch.
So roll a bike out this weekend. The thing in their pocket had a room full of engineers. The one in your garage just needs you to hand over the keys.
Keep the dirty side down.
