Sort of inspired by the concurrent ocean thread, I thought I’d ask – is there anyone here who never learned to ride a bike? I have a daughter who’s pushing 12 who doesn’t know how to ride a bike. She was never into it and refused to learn. Is she, like, a total freak?
Raises hand
Even though all three of my older siblings always had bikes and always knew how, I was never taught and never had much desire to do so. I have wanted to learn as an adult, but thanks to a broken (and floating) tailbone, bike seats hurt like hell, so I have simply never learned. Neither of my kids have learned either – mostly because they had no one to teach them.
Mr. Neville doesn’t know how to ride a bike. He says he was never able to get the hang of the balancing that is required.
I never got past the training wheels, and was more of a reader than a outdoorsy type, so I never learned (plus, we were in the suburbs and my friends lived really far away, so I had nowhere I wanted to go anyway).
My wife has promised me that she’ll teach me how to bike and I’ll teach her how to swim. Of course, I think the latter’s more important to know (there are rarely any situations where your life will depend on knowing how to pedal).
I never learned how to ride a bike. I never could get it to balance for more than a few feet before it fell down. I tried to get the hang of it for a period of time (Days? Weeks? It was so long ago that I have forgotten how much time that I put in!) before giving up, since it was not that important to me anyway. I guess I just had really bad coordination. I never was a very “physically-oriented” type of person. I was one of the kids who was just about the last to be picked for teams in Phys. Ed. class, etc., so it did not surprise me that I could not master bike-riding!
My mother could never manage to ride a bike. She just kept falling off. There wasn’t anything diagnosably wrong with her, nor was it for lack of effort - she just never could get the balance. She’d go with her sister and some friends for long rides in the country, but they got fed up of having to stop and wait every time Mum took another tumble, so in the end she just gave up.
In later years, she developed vertigo, and had awful dizzy spells, sometimes for days at a time (and still does occasionally) - maybe that’s a connection.
I didn’t learn until I was about 12, but I had a really shitty bike where pedaling was extremely difficult. When I got a Schwinn Stingray with the shifter on the top tube and the 3-speed hub, all was bliss.
So does the dotter have a good bike for learning?
My brother in law didn’t learn until he was in his teens. He lived on a farm with rutted gravel roads and they simply didn’t own a bike.
He was ashamed of this through his early schooling.
Another who always had trouble with keeping my balance. (There are people who say I’ve always been unbalanced.) I remember spending a long time riding a bike with only one training wheel and kind of leaning to that side.
Now I kind of wish I could ride a bike; as a non-driver it would be nice to have another option to the local bus service. I have been considering getting one of those adult tricycles…
Like this?
Actually, I was thinking of something with a basket for m groceries…
I’m 46YO, and have never learned to ride a bike. My sense of balance sucks. My kids have all three successfully taught themselves to ride, though of the three of them, only the youngest (8YO) really enjoys it.
In a recent thread on over-portective parents, I menioned that I dated a girl who was forbidden to ride a bike and neve learned. She is 34 or 35 now.
My seventy four year old father never learned how to ride a bike. He was apparently a pretty sickly child (asthma) and so never got to do a lot of active things the other kids did. Kind of sad really.
It made it tough for me to learn with no one around to really teach me but eventually me and my three siblings all learned how.
Riding a bike has very little to do with balance. Once you have enough speed, which you can get by just pushing off with your feet, you’ll stay upright. I think it’s mostly a confidence issue. If you think you’ll fall down, you probably will. That’s why there’s the classic image of a parent pushing and holding the kid upright on the bike until he gets fast enough, then lets go. The kid doesn’t think he can stay upright on his own, but then find out he can just fine if he just doesn’t think about it.
I know how to now, but I’m still pretty bad at it. My husband bought me a bike for my 23rd birthday and taught me how to do it (one day at the parking lot we were using an old man and his little grandson showed up trying to learn too!). I still have to concentrate very hard the whole time I’m riding, so I don’t do it very much, but I’m glad I did learn finally. Now to work on learning how to swim. <sigh>
Never did. My older sister did, no problem. But when the time came to take off training wheels, I didn’t want to. It was partly my excessive independence, partly my hating anything I couldn’t be instantly good at, and partly my general physical caution. And after several years of putting it off, I felt like I was too old–I would have been embarrassed to be seen trying to learn as, say, a 12 year old.
There were times when it was really awkward that I didn’t know, because I was embarrassed to tell other kids. When someone suggested a bike ride, I’d be searching for some excuse.
What worries me now is that my son isn’t interested in learning. He has all my worst personality traits so I know where he’s coming from. But I’d rather he not miss out on it.
I learned sort of late, like 10 years old. I was never really that good at it; I would walk it on a steep hill, and I wouldn’t ride off of curbs like other people would. I haven’t ridden in a long time now.
I do know how, but I was late in learning. I was 12 before I learned to ride a bike. I guess the opportunity just never presented itself before then. By then of course, it was even harder to learn, as I was embarassed since everyone else my age already knew how to ride.
I never learned as a kid. At the age of 26 I decided it was silly not to know and sort of learned…could make a circle around an empty parking lot. I am not comfortable with the idea of riding in or next to traffic, or anywhere where other people might see me so I don’t really count myself as knowing how to ride.
If there were an emergency and a bicycle was the only menas to get help I believe I could rise to the occasion.