Just curious. I mean, HAS anyone ever forgotten how to do this? What makes the ability to ride a bike so damn memorable?
Thanks
Probably because it’s has a lot to do with Muscle memory or something like that. When learning to ride, it’s pretty much learning to use your muscles in a certain way in a certain sequence. Kind of like swimming. Once you learn to synchonize it properly, you simply remember how to bring your muscles into that pattern again and keep a cycle of motion going.
I could be wrong through.
I would also imagine it has something to do with that ‘leap of faith’ you have to take the first time yo do it (without falling). Once you get over that, and get used to the feeling, you don’t have to go through it again (does that make sense).
I’m with Joey. When you learn what makes a bike stay upright (search in Cecil’s columns for the answer) you learn that a bike is a remarkably clever self correcting balancing system. A bike will stay upright when pedalled all by itself, which is why (if you have the confidence to do it) you can ride “no hands” so easily.
The really hard thing when learning to ride a bike is to just find out that you actually can ride a bike, that it actually will stay upright if you just start pedalling and relax enough for it to find its own head.
So if you’ve ridden a bike before and believe you will not have forgotten how to ride a bike, you won’t have.
There’s nothing special about riding a bike, it’s just an example that many people can identify with. I don’t want to discount the “leap of faith” contribution, but HPL is right that it’s mostly a matter of muscle memory. There’s a lot of subtle balancing in riding a bike which is hard when you have to think about it but quickly becomes reflex once you’ve done it a bit. You see the same effect in any physical activity you do repetitively. Touch typing is one example. You also see this effect in martial arts. I’ve learned a variety of martial arts over the years and know a lot of forms and kata. Some I’ve just let slip away but there are others that I’ll never lose. The ones I took the time to learn properly and repeated over and over in practice I can still do years later even when I haven’t done them or thought about them in months or even years.
Once you’ve practiced something enough, the patterns become ingrained and do not require conscious thought. I don’t know the psychology of this, but I’m sure it’s happening in the brain, not the muscles, despite the term “muscle memory”. In any case, I don’t have to conciously think about hitting specific keys when I type, pushing the pedals in alternating sequence when I ride, or moving through a sequence of techniques when I do kata. The only reason you hear this applied to riding a bike so often is that it’s a ubiquitous example; most people wouldn’t identify with “you can’t forget how to do first kata” or “you never forget how to type the top row”.
Adults learn and remember to ride bikes efficiently because adults have better coordination, and can provide the necessary power to make the stabilizing effects and gyroscopic balance of the wheels mean something…all lending to better balance.
When kids learn to ride bikes, they lack adult coordination, and thye lack power. Sans power, you don’t get the gyrscopic balancing effect from the wheels.
As an adult, there is much to learn…so there isn’t much to forget.
I’ve got to disagree with this. A bicycle without a human on board will fall over almost instantly. The human provides all the correction - the bike is inherently unstable. The spinning wheels do provide some gyroscopic help, but it’s not nearly enough to keep the machine upright.
As far as riding “no hands” goes, that requires the rider to shift his weight constantly (in small increments) to keep on the straight and narrow. Trust me, as you get older, and your sense of balance deteriorates somewhat, you’ll suddenly discover that you’re no longer able to ride “no hands.” I’m only 51, and I can’t do it anymore.
An updated Staff Report provides the proof that, in fact, the gyroscopic effect of the wheels is irrelevant!
Perhaps the same reason you don’t forget how to walk.
But you get practice walking pretty much every day. A few months ago, I got on a bike for the first time in ten years, and had absolutely no problems riding it.
Now, I did completely forget how the gears worked…
Some people apparently can forget to ride a bike. My brother’s gf hadn’t ridden in years, rented a bike, couldn’t ride worth a damn. If another rider came within 6 feet of her she’d fall over.
Wonder if it has to do with the fact that the vast majority of people learn to ride a bike when young. It’s widely known that skills are learned much easier and more permanently at a young age.
I wonder if someone who first learned to ride a bike at, say, age 25 or 30 would be able to drop it for 10 years and then get right back on. Anyone know of someone who learned to ride a bike later in life?
I don’t know anyone who learned to ride later in life, but I think my analogy earlier to martial arts is valid, and I know lots of people who have learned martial arts late in life and have built strong muscle memory. As Early Out said earlier, there may be some things that older people physically cannot do, but if they can do it, they can learn it so it becomes reflexive.
Actually, this is the most correct answer so far.
Despite the speculation and bullshitting that’s been carried on so far in this thread, there is no such thing as “muscle memory.” There are no memories stored in muscles. (Other than bruises.) Nor does the stability or instability of the bike have anything to do with it. (And this is GQ, where I thought we were supposed to refrain from guessing and speculation…)
The reason why “it’s like riding a bike” means something is all due to a part of your brain called the [cerebellum](www.mult-sclerosis.org/ cerebellum.htm). The cerebellum hardwires the coordination between sensory input and muscle outputs to and from the brain. The cerebellum is why you don’t have to think about walking, or riding a bike, or even typing once you learn them and master the actions. All kinds of athletic and dexterous activities are “learned” here.
How many of you have mastered bowling or billiards? Or even darts or golf or tennis? Remember learning the motions, and about how many different things at once you had to pay attention to – and get right – in order to make a strike or cut a ball into a side pocket, or sink a putt? Now that you’ve mastered the sport, though, you don’t have to think about all those things anymore. Your brain just does them. The techniques have been “hardwired” by the cerebellum. And “unlearning” them will be next to impossible.
Which is the point… on the African Savannah, it’d sure help if you didn’t forget how to climb a tree and brachiate under severe stress… like immediate threats from predators.
Thank your cerebellum. Without it, you’d always throw like a girl, and walk like a gimp. Or be cheetah chow.
Because I practice every day.
Two of the three posts which mention muscle memory were mine, and I specifically said the effect is in the brain, not the muscles. I used the term because it is the common name for this effect. I appreciate your elaboration on this mechanism, but if you’re going to call my posts bullshit I could use more specific complaints since you seem to have restated my exact position with additional detail.
Ok, lets’ say the gyroscop effect is now considered untrue. We’ll settle for inertia.
Adults can create alot more power and inertia than kids, so it’s easier to ride as an adult, and adults have better coordination. You don’t forget how to ride a bike, because most adults don’t have to know the tircks to overcoming the inherent disadvantages a small child faces.
No it won’t. Or at least not all of them would.
I remember as a child, my friends and I would go to a large parking lot and get our bikes up to speed and jump off to see who could get theirs to go the farthest. They would go a very long way without a rider, in a long sweeping turn.
Granted, I overstated my case for emphasis. The fact remains that there’s nothing inherently stable about a bicycle. By way of analogy, let’s just say that, while you may be able to throw a brick twenty feet, that doesn’t mean that a brick is capable of flight. 
Do kids learn to ride bikes inasmuch as they build up the strength to keep the darn thing going forward?