So how did you learn to ride a bike?

[mimitabby]

I wasn't sure where to put this, in the "new riders" in the "adventure stories" or.. well, I decided open topic.

I bet that some of you have some really exciting stories about learning to ride a bike. and learning early, too.
I'll start with my story; it's not amazing, but it's mine.

I was a great bike rider on my trike. I remember being invincible.

Then my father got me a bike (PINK) with training wheels when I was about 7. It was okay until they started trying to teach me to ride with only 2 wheels. I have vivid memories of adult men pushing me (screaming) at top speed down the sidewalk. After long minutes of serious trauma, I gave up. (it was worse than being a tandem stoker!!!)

So now i am 9 years old. My father bought me a new bike. It's a blue beautiful grown up looking bike..it looks too big but it's not. He takes me to a vacant lot and gets on the bike. he says "this is all you have to do" and he takes it for a spin.
My turn. I get on the bike... and i'm off!! it felt so wonderful. no fear, no
falling, no pressure. just the wonderful feeling of bike wheels spinning.
My father gave me some magic, I'm sure..
and here i am 54 years old and I still love the way it feels to float down the road on bike tires.

Your story?

[Dianyla]

I honestly don't remember.

[pikato]

I always had the trike's and bikes with training wheels. I remember being 8 when my cousins(we are all like sisters, really) decided it was time for the training wheels to come off. I kept riding & falling & was crying & everything because they were forcing me to learn.

Finally, my cousing Jenny came up to me & told me "ok, they all tried to teach me that way too, what works is pretending you are the Little Engine that Could, just keep saying "I think I can, I think I can" and pedal. Funniest thing is that it actually worked & by that afternoon we were biking to the local convenience store for ice cream.

[fatbottomedgurl]

I'm the youngest of nine so no one bothered to teach me. My first garage sale bike was immediately stripped by my brothers for parts. When I was eight I got a new maroon bike with a banana seat and hi-rise handle bars. I took it out on the street and taught myself to ride. My first real success ended up with me hitting the curb and going over the handlebars. I had a dream back then that I could fly over the neighborhood on that bike looking down into backyards, a la Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

[spazzdog]

I think my dad taught me on my cousins PeeWee Herman boys bike... but I'm not sure. I don't actually remember learning.

I'll have to ask him next time we chat.

[Brandi]

I learned when I was about 7 in my back yard. I had never had training wheels. So I was out there, kept trying over and over. Finally I did it! But I could only go in a circle and one way when I tried to turn I would fall again. Luckly it was all dirt in the yard. My dog Sugar was there the whole time with me. Pretty soon me and my orange and purple bike were on our way to bigger and brighter days together. Loved the big banana seat too. Remembering this makes me miss my dog. She was great a real kids dog you know. I used to sneak her in my room at night from outside cause I didn't want her to get cold.

[Brandi]

I'm the youngest of nine so no one bothered to teach me. My first garage sale bike was immediately stripped by my brothers for parts. When I was eight I got a new maroon bike with a banana seat and hi-rise handle bars. I took it out on the street and taught myself to ride. My first real success ended up with me hitting the curb and going over the handlebars. I had a dream back then that I could fly over the neighborhood on that bike looking down into backyards, a la Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Or ET depending on how old you are.

[caligurl]

I honestly don't remember.

what she said!

i do remember it was blue.... and i had training wheels... i believe my dad took one off first... then after a while the other one.. but i don't remember!

i do remember what happened to that bike though! my grandfather backed over it... cuz i left it in his driveway behind his truck!

[Duck on Wheels]

My older brother taught me. Or tried. We had a long, shale driveway that sloped down from the farm to the road. First he had me stand on the left pedal and coast down. Then he insisted that I swing my right foot over the seat like a boy, "the real way". (He's less of a male chauvinist now, but at 9 he was as bad as all his buddies. ) We kept trying that until I crashed on the shale and turned one knee and shin into a bloody mess. I think my Dad took over the lessons the next weekend. This was a time when he was working in Oakland and only really home on weekends, which meant Mom had all the farm chores to do all week. But finally Dad had time and taught me the way he'd taught my brother, by holding on to the seat and running along behind until I took off and hardly noticed I'd left him behind. Dad also said it was ok for me to step through the frame, that it was a privilege of girlhood to have a bike that allowed that.

Did Dad also teach you to ride, Trek420? Or did Joel? I know I did a rescue once when you got a cramp in a lake, but I can't recall being involved when you learned to ride a bike. Maybe I was already away at college ...? Næh. You had a bike before you were 10, I'm pretty sure.

[Faust]

My first bike was lavender with a banana seat and high handle bars. I paid 15 dollars for it of my own money (I am pretty sure it was birthday money or something) I was 8 years old. I was sooo happy. I rode that bike from sunup to sundown. We had this big neighborhood being built across the street from my house all the roads were dug out nice smooth dirt no traffic.
My friends and I built ramps from the left over wood and dirt it was the greatest.We would compete to see who could jump the farthest or go the highest. I had a crush on one the little boys and would chase him down on that bike at least until he got a 10 speed. I remember how effortless those big hills were then. Flying down them No HANDS! I used to pretend I was Wonder Woman in my invisible plane. There were gosh may be six or seven of that always were together ages 7 to 12. We would ride around the neighborhood sometimes pretty far. Whenever we came across this one group of kids they would yell "You can"t ride on this street this is where we ride!" We would of course nanner back and forth at each other. "Oh yea well blah blah blah!" The funny thing is we would all end up riding together and hanging out.

[Trek420]

bikeless in WI "Did Dad also teach you to ride, Trek420? Or did Joel? I know I did a rescue once when you got a cramp in a lake, but I can't recall being involved when you learned to ride a bike. Maybe I was already away at college ...? Næh. You had a bike before you were 10, I'm pretty sure."

Nope!

Mom taught me how. Yep, the same Mom who never rode herself. We come from a line of good teachers

I think I had a blue Schwinn. Mom was teaching at Mark West school and would spend days preparing the class room before school began. I remember helping her string crepe paper and with bulletin boards.

But that only held my attention so long and once I'd read every book in sight she thought to bring the bike.

At the school entrance was a long gentle ramp. She showed me how to coast with one foot on the pedal. I'd do that over and over.....coast, walk the bike up, coast, walk repeat.

Then she showed me I could sit on the bike and coast and when it slowed enough just step down, still wasn't pedaling yet.

I still remeber the feeling of starting to pedal and realizing I could go anywhere around the playground! Like flying! Still feels like that.

[DrBee]

I honestly don't remember.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that doesn't remember. I remember getting my first bike. I remember driving it in circles at the top of my grandparents' driveway, but that's it.

My daughter (4) is trying the bike without training wheels now (at her own desire)! She gets too nervous if I try to help her, so her friend sits on the back of the seat and acts like training wheels. She puts her feet down to keep balance and then lifts them up when FishJr isn't looking. FishJr has made it as far as a whole house length on her own! Now, if only she would pedal faster!

[Tater]

All I remember is after the training wheels were taken off, my dad hanging on to the back of the banana seat for a few trips down the driveway. Then we started off down the driveway again, only he wasn't hanging on to the seat anymore!

[DirtDiva]

My daughter (4) is trying the bike without training wheels now (at her own desire)! She gets too nervous if I try to help her, so her friend sits on the back of the seat and acts like training wheels. She puts her feet down to keep balance and then lifts them up when FishJr isn't looking. FishJr has made it as far as a whole house length on her own! Now, if only she would pedal faster!

OMG! That's so cute - hope you got a picture.



We had one of those trikes with the pedals attached to the front wheel and one of those totally wicked chain trikes with big (to a preschooler, at least) wheels that I started riding probably as soon as I was big enough to reach the pedals.

When I was three, I saw this bike in the toyshop and fell in love at once. She was pink with blue wheels and bars and white tyres, seat, grips and basket. There were plastic flowers attached to the basket and pink and blue streamers coming out of the ends of the handlebars. (I'll dig up a photo for y'al one day, promise!) It was a bike made for a girl, not something she'd have to share with her older brother and not something that had been handed down from him. Every time we went to the mall I'd want to go to the toyshop and then just stand there gaping at that bike; I think I was too starstruck to even beg for it. I was absolutely smitten, and absolutely gobsmacked to find it in the front room on my fourth birthday.

I think I pretty much just got on and rode - not that different from the trikes with the training wheels on. I used to go up and down the drive. I didn't really like turning with the training wheels, yet I was a bit scared of going without , so it took a while for them to come off. Finally, after three or four months I plucked up the courage to have them off and I remember various family members giving me a wee push across the grass and I'd coast then put my feet down. I remember that the time I "got it" my grandfather had given me the push. I think I made him do it a couple more times, just because it was fun, and then I was off!

I went through three (I think) second hand bikes before I got another new one for my thirteenth birthday. I wanted the purple and black "boys" mountain bike (It was fully rigid, but that's what they were called), but my mother did that "what do you want *that* for? It's a boy's bike" thing. Perhaps she still had some vague hope that I was going to grow up into a girly-girl (I was a wannabe tomboy - neither co-ordinated nor cool enough to be the real thing ). Anyway, I ended up with a purple girl's bike, which served me well as a get-about bike for a good 10/11 years until I replaced it with something with a suspension fork...

[mimitabby]

OMG! That's so cute - hope you got a picture.

I wanted the purple and black "boys" mountain bike (It was fully rigid, but that's what they were called), but my mother did that "what do you want *that* for? It's a boy's bike" thing. Perhaps she still had some vague hope that I was going to grow up into a girly-girl (I was a wannabe tomboy - neither co-ordinated nor cool enough to be the real thing ). Anyway, I ended up with a purple girl's bike, which served me well as a get-about bike for a good 10/11 years until I replaced it with something with a suspension fork...

Hey TLKiwi
there's no rule that says tomboys have to be coordinated OR cool. I was one too, and i'm still not coordinated or cool and i'm 54.