Learning to ride a bicycle

"Graham Bowers" wrote in message
"Sue" wrote in message
I have an
adult friend who'd like to ride but is deterred by the learning stage,
especially the possibility of falls.
How should he go about learning to ride in a few minutes?
Take the pedals off the bike, lower the seat so his feet easily reach the
ground and ride it like a dandy bike, walking it along and then raising the
feet and coasting when confident.
Add pedals and raise seat as confidence increases.
Cheers
Graham

As you know what I was getting at is not the total time taken to learn to
ride a bike but the elapsed time between the last instance of not being
able to do it and the time at which it is achieved. IIRC in my own case
it was just an instant transformation.

Anyway.
For what it's worth ... I agree. I have seen this method in action,
in the case of a 6 year old, and it seemed to work very well.

I first heard about the method from a book on cycling. It is big and fat
with many pictures and is called something simple like "The Bicycle"
"The Bicycle Encyclopaedia". It is an encyclopaedic decsription of
all things cycling.

Any literate cycling enthusiast will have heard of it. I have had a
quick look on the web and can't identify it sorry.

What would do is:

Assuming that he/she/it was not one of these go-for-it sorts in
which case I guess that you will not be able to do anything but
buy bandages and watch.

Try to make sure that he/she/it is not expecting excessivly
quick progress.

Try to explain that it is not that easy, but that it is achievable.

Consider selecting an area with a soft landing but NOT slippy.

I would start on the flat and aim to quickly progress to gentle
hills.

Start to practice as others have described.

Make sure that they learn to use the brakes at an early stage.
(That's is ONE advantage of stabilisers, you can learn to use the brakes.)


At low speed at least, a bicycle is inherently unstable
and needs to be kept upright with constant corrections. It is a very
similar problem to balancing a pencil on the end of your finger and
I find that impossible.

To offer encouragement I have heard of someone who, as an 18 year
old, got on a bicycle for the first time ever and rode off. He was a
physicist and apparently understood how the bicycle worked, decided what
was needed and.....

As an example of the unconcious nature of the process, when I was about 15
having cycled for a number of years, I decided (no I don't know why) to
try crossing over my hands, i.e. Left hand on right handlebar and right
hand on left. Instant headache caused by intimate contact with road.
It turned out that I didn't 'know' how to cycle with my hands crossed over.

On 17 Nov 2003 06:04:33 -0800, (AnyBody43)
wrote:
As an example of the unconcious nature of the process, when I was about 15
having cycled for a number of years, I decided (no I don't know why) to
try crossing over my hands, i.e. Left hand on right handlebar and right
hand on left. Instant headache caused by intimate contact with road.
It turned out that I didn't 'know' how to cycle with my hands crossed over.

This reminds me of one of my skiing holidays. For a 10FF entry fee you
had the opportunity of winning 100FF as long as you were able to ride
a bike for 10 metres. The problem: both the steering and the pedals
worked back to front - the icy pavement didn't help either. And no, I
didn't manage to ride a successful 10m even when I tried the scoot and
freewheel mothod.

James

--
"Sorry mate, I didn't see you" is not a satisfactory excuse.

James Hodson wrote:

This reminds me of one of my skiing holidays. For a 10FF entry fee you
had the opportunity of winning 100FF as long as you were able to ride
a bike for 10 metres. The problem: both the steering and the pedals
worked back to front - the icy pavement didn't help either. And no, I
didn't manage to ride a successful 10m even when I tried the scoot and
freewheel mothod.

These are a lot easier to do if you remember to cross your hands over (i.e.
operate right bar with left hand and vice-versa) first, but the operators
tend to get a bit mardy if they spot you doing it...

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
================================================== =========
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
================================================== =========

James Hodson wrote:

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 16:53:31 -0000, "Dave Larrington"
wrote:

These are a lot easier to do if you remember to cross your hands
over (i.e. operate right bar with left hand and vice-versa) first,
but the operators tend to get a bit mardy if they spot you doing
it...


So now you tell me, Danny. Where was your help outside Play Bach (or
whatever it was called) circa 1990? You should not let the little fact
that I didn't start reading urc until 1996ish let you believe you have
a good excuse.

'ere, who are you calling "Danny"?

[Takes ball, goes home]

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
================================================== =========
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
================================================== =========

In article , Pete Biggs wrote:
Despite grass being softer to land on, it's relatively difficult to ride
on. Bike will practically roll along by itself on road or pavement -
which is what you want.

With the right slope and fat tyres it will roll along by itself on short
grass too, but suitable tarmac might be easier to find.

Alan Braggins wrote:

Despite grass being softer to land on, it's relatively difficult to
ride on. Bike will practically roll along by itself on road or
pavement - which is what you want.

With the right slope and fat tyres it will roll along by itself on
short grass too, but suitable tarmac might be easier to find.

That's true - although the slope would have to be steeper.... could be
alarming for the newbie when the speed picks up :-) I still think a
very slight gradiant on tarmac would be better.

~PB

In article , Pete Biggs wrote:
Alan Braggins wrote:

Despite grass being softer to land on, it's relatively difficult to
ride on. Bike will practically roll along by itself on road or
pavement - which is what you want.

With the right slope and fat tyres it will roll along by itself on
short grass too, but suitable tarmac might be easier to find.

That's true - although the slope would have to be steeper.... could be
alarming for the newbie when the speed picks up :-)

But if you pick a slope where the bike just about rolls along by itself,
the speed won't pick up till they pedal. That will take a steeper slope on
grass, but not alarmingly steep.


I still think a
very slight gradiant on tarmac would be better.

Yes, worked for my younger son this summer at the campsite, and his new bike
for Christmas is out in the shed at the moment as a result (though I think
he's since forgotten I promised him a new bike if he stopped using the
stabilisers).

(AnyBody43) wrote in message . com...

As an example of the unconcious nature of the process, when I was about 15
having cycled for a number of years, I decided (no I don't know why) to
try crossing over my hands, i.e. Left hand on right handlebar and right
hand on left. Instant headache caused by intimate contact with road.
It turned out that I didn't 'know' how to cycle with my hands crossed over.

When I was a junior I was out training one day with two others.
Fancying ourselves as 6-day track stars we decided to practice Madison
style hand slings. Suffice to say that if Post and Sercu were secretly
observing us they would not have felt unduly threatened. We eventually
worked out that you were less likely to crash if you placed your
steering hand in the centre of the bars.

With this principle firmly established, someone then volunteered the
useful information that it was impossible to ride with your hands
crossed on the bars. On the face of it this seemed unlikely, and we
demanded some proof. Being both co-operative and immensely stupid he
duly crossed his hands for us and, sure enough, down he went. Shortly
after we had dusted him off and resumed our ride my other companion,
being no brighter, decided to have a go himself with remarkably
similar results.

Now you might think that in any sample of three juniors you would find
at least one with a modicum of common sense. Not in our group. As soon
as we got going again I immediately demonstrated that my own stupidity
was at least a match for theirs. I'm still not convinced it's actually
impossible, but it's certainly not easy. However, I have never been
tempted to repeat the experiment.

--
Dave...

In the Days of my Youth I taught myself to ride a bike with hands crossed.

I really should have got out more.

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
================================================== =========
Editor - British Human Power Club Newsletter
http://www.bhpc.org.uk/
================================================== =========

Dave Larrington wrote:
In the Days of my Youth I taught myself to ride a bike with hands crossed.

I really should have got out more.

This reminds me of a cycling entry in one of the Colemanballs
collections, where some cycling luminary said of cycling's benefits to
yoof that "it keeps them off the streets"...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/