Wednesday’s New York Times carried a page 3 “Here to Help” feature on “how to use the balance bike method to teach your child to ride” (normally I would provide a link but The Times did not provide one on its web site).
I can personally attest that learning the old fashioned way—with an adult running beside/behind you while holding the bike—is vastly inferior to the balance bike method.
I never learned to ride a bicycle as a child, a deprivation of youth I attributed to my father (why blame myself when an adult authority figure is readily available and central to the story?).
Like any good father, my father was teaching me to ride without training wheels, a feat he had accomplished with my brother and sister. Behind our home in Brooklyn, we shared a T-shaped common driveway leading to the garages tucked into the back of each row house. The long portion of the paved driveway was at least the length of two to three football fields and was commonly used for many of the games we played such as ringolevio, punchball and blind man’s bluff. It was a perfect place to learn to ride a bike.
My father dutifully ran alongside the bike holding it steady as I attempted to maintain balance. All was going well. I turned my head to tell him something, but he wasn’t there. I must have been at least 10 yards past him, cycling on my own. But I panicked. I crashed down to the hard pavement. I ran back home, crying to my mother, “Daddy let go.” I was inconsolable, determined never again to trust him to hold me steady, resolute in my opinion that my large tricycle was just as good as a two-wheeler. All my friends pedaled circles around me on their two-wheelers. I countered I could run just as fast as they could bike.
No amount of coaxing could change my mind. It stayed closed-minded for the next three decades. Our daughter Ellie had just learned to ride. Gilda threatened to go on biking vacations with Dan and Ellie without me. So I learned to ride a bike after decades of disdain for the two-wheeled conveyance. I learned via the Amanda Steinberg system, as taught to Ellie and passed on to her father. Ellie was all of 7 when Amanda took her under her slightly older wing to teach the finer points of balance and pedaling. I was 40.
The Times article conveyed the approach Amanda taught. It works for young and old alike.
First, make sure your bike has no training wheels. For adult men, I recommend an old-style woman’s bicycle because there is no center bar to, shall we say, challenge your manhood. The bike seat should be low enough to enable your feet to fully touch the ground so if you ever feel yourself tipping over you can comfortably and without panic steady yourself without falling.
While balancing yourself on the bike, with your legs dangling at the sides, not on the pedals, paddle forward with your feet. After moving a few yards, lift your feet onto the pedals and try to turn them. Don’t be discouraged if you lose your balance. Try again. Sooner, rather than later, hopefully, your balance will become second nature and you’ll be able to continuously pedal.
There. You’ve just learned to ride a bike.
I won’t pretend it’s easy, especially when you’re older and fear consumes you, memories of prior falls and failures freeze you and embarrassment haunts your every attempt. What will the neighbors think?, is constantly going through your mind.
If you’re lucky (I use that word advisedly), as I was, you’ll have a life-partner who will shove you outside the moment you come home from work. Your spouse will exhort you to “man up” and do it before dinner is ready. Don’t go inside unless you’re bicycle-trained. If you do, it’s back outside after dinner, old man. Learn, or be forever left alone while the rest of the family pedals off on wonderful eco-friendly rides.
Futility engulfed my first attempt. I gave up when it became too dark even on our protected cul-de-sac. The next day I was sent out again before dinner. No luck. I moaned over meat loaf I’d never be able to learn. I just couldn’t coordinate more than two turns of the pedals before losing my balance. Ten-year-old Dan volunteered to observe and correct my faulty approach.
We marched out after dinner, I climbed onto Gilda’s old bike, and as I proceeded to explain to Dan how I couldn’t pedal more than two revolutions...I was halfway down the block, the wind in my exhilarated face, tension turning my smile into a grimace as I realized I had no idea how to stop or turn. While Dan called for Gilda to come outside, quick, I figured the only way to stop was to plow into a curb. I got back on the bike. Lo and behold, I was able to pedal again. I was riding a bicycle. Far from laughing at me, neighbors came out and applauded.
Oh, the joy of conquering a childhood phantom.
Truth be told, I hated biking. My ass hurt after a short spin. My neck hurt from looking up with my back bent over the handlebars. My hands and wrists hurt from holding the handlebars too tightly. And I didn’t like falling, which I did repeatedly, so much so that after several years of biking mishaps, with occasional injury, I chose safety over accomplishment. I haven’t ridden a bike in close to three decades.
But at least I learned to ride. I hope it’s true what they say about never forgetting how to ride a bicycle, just in case I find myself in a desperate situation, as Carl Reiner’s character did in “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming.” You never know when knowing how to ride a bike can help you save the world.
