Granddaughter, aged 7, cannot ride a bike.
She has outgrown the bike bought when she was 4/5.
Defies belief that she cannot go on a 2 wheeler.
D-I-L Googled Bike Lessons - spoke to the chap who reckoned anyone can go a bike
in 1 or 2 of his 45 min lessons.
Video received 5 mins ago - 1 lesson & she is cycling - not as good as Chris Hoy but staying upright!
Just shows you that someone can make a living teaching kids (& adults) how to ride a bike.
He is booked up typically 2 to 3 months in advance!
I was 5 & fell off countless times on my battered hand me down bike..
What age were you?
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still remember it well! - I was six, my group of friends all had bikes and could ride them, I couldn't, so I had to run alongside them whenever we went anywhere! One of them got a brand-new bike one Xmas, and gave me his old one, and I started learning on that, after falling off several times I mastered the art of staying upright, but only in a straight line, every time I tried to turn a corner I went over the handlebars, that is until mt friend told me "you only turn the wheel a tiny, tiny bit"! (I was snapping the handlebars 90 degrees in the direction I wanted to go!), after a few tries of tiny tiny bit, I was away! Two afternoons from first getting on one, and next birthday guess what, me got a brand-new bike!! (Hercules Jeep) ! ;-)
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One of my daughters was having trouble learning to ride a bike, one day she tried it on grass and after that did not have a problem. I think she lacked the confidence to go for it on a hard surface. That was my older daughter, she also showed no interest in driving until her younger sister passed her driving test.
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I taught daughter how to fall off (on grass), minimising hurt. After about 5 practice falls and 10 minutes later she was riding.
Probably regarded as child cruelty nowadays.
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Like many things I think it's all in the mind, not really an actual physical skill.
All our three learned very quickly and easily, but looking back I think by chance we hit on the knack. All three learned on successive stays at the same caravan park, which had long open wide tracks and lots of grass, well away from pedestrians, vehicles and other caravans.
We just removed the stabilisers, I ran along behind holding the back of the saddle, and after a few minutes simply let go.
All three picked it up straight away, but one looked back, screamed in alarm, then fell off. Back on again, another push, and she could do it.
I think the holiday atmosphere did it - they had built it up as a "learning to ride is a thing you do on holiday" - so they did.
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There's a lot of things you learn in life, but unless you "keep-on" with them you tend to "forget" how to do them, how come bike-riding (no matter how many decades you never do it) is never one of them?
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Skiing is a skill that is retained.
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Kids have to be ready and, like being ready to read, there's a huge variation within the 'normal' cohort, never mind those who struggle for whatever reason.
My two both managed it at around age 6, as I think I did. My nieces were much older, more like 8. All four are bright kids with no physical impairments. Ok, my two were exposed to my and Mrs B's cycling but I only saw either of my parents on a bike in their forties proving they could still do it om machines belonging to me or my sis.
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Our daughter learnt using steadying wheels for a short time. IIRC she was tearing around he (safe) cul-de-sac in which we lived, aged around 6½.
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It doesn't help FB's GD, but to anyone else in the position of needing to teach a child to ride, get them a balance bike (no pedals, just push it along). They can start at around 18-20 months, and get the balance thing pretty quick. The only limiting factor on a pedal bike then becomes being big enough to turn the pedals. Both my sons went from balance bike to being able to ride a pedal bike at around 3 1/2 - very little stabiliser action required (in fact it's counter productive as by that stage they just get in the way!), just a bit to master the pedalling action. We went out on some family rides last week in Lincolnshire - 3 rides of 10 miles each. No 2 son needed a bit of a push from time to time, but he is only 4.5 and his 14" wheel bike is very low geared!!
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>> There's a lot of things you learn in life, but unless you "keep-on" with them
>> you tend to "forget" how to do them, how come bike-riding (no matter how many
>> decades you never do it) is never one of them?
>>
I had a single 5 min lesson and could basic water ski around the harbour.
One more take off and then no more opportunities to try my skills so 20 min max.
My next attempt was decades later and I could still basic water ski.
It is so so easy IF you listen and obey the simple rules, ( Hint one of them is almost totally against instinct )
I have taught others to water ski too.
Ice skating is another example. Just a few minutes instruction and you will go forwards.
Instincts are for going backwards.
As an adult in my thirties, I tried roller skating for th every first time.
Same action as ice skating worked well.
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It would be interesting to see comparative lists of skills retained/lost.
For retained, off-hand I can think of:
swimming
whistling (?)
yo-yo
double-declutching
making a wine glass sing
tossing a pancake
spinning a drawing pin
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Aren't all physical skills retained as long as they have been learnt to the degree that conscious thought is not required to perform them? Physical deterioration may prevent them from being performed as well but the actual "memory" of the skill is retained. You can still remember how to run in your seventies for example although your arthritic hip may stop you doing so.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Mon 31 Oct 16 at 09:30
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In support of my post above he is an extract from Wikipedia on what ar called "Procedural skills"
Procedural memory (or implicit memory) is not based on the conscious recall of information, but on implicit learning. Procedural memory is primarily employed in learning motor skills and should be considered a subset of implicit memory. It is revealed when one does better in a given task due only to repetition - no new explicit memories have been formed, but one isunconsciously accessing aspects of those previous experiences. Procedural memory involved in motor learning depends on the cerebellum and basal ganglia.
A characteristic of procedural memory is that the things remembered are automatically translated into actions, and thus sometimes difficult to describe. Some examples of procedural memory include the ability to ride a bike or tie shoelaces.
For any more doubts, read the article on memory on Wikipedia.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
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Interesting article- the same must apply to the use of a computer keyboard/mouse for me.
OH is always asking 'how do I?' for things that I regard as 'b***** obvious', but I have to have the mouse to hand to show, rather than explain. Very difficult to sit and watch another persons 'handicapped' actions :)
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>>the ability to
>> ride a bike or tie shoelaces.
Similarly perhaps, to tie a tie.
But I do wonder about that. I wear one so rarely now that it takes me a few seconds to re-aquire the ability. I hold it helplessly in my hands, then sort of close my eyes and go for it, and usually it works, a bit like the Harry Potter brick wall.
On the other hand I have sometimes wondered whether I would ever lose my trick of rotating my hands independently, in opposite directions, different speeds, stopping/starting/reversing, but whenever I have tried it comes straight back to me without any practice.
The children are bored by it now, so it has little use in life.
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>>It would be interesting to see comparative lists of skills retained/lost.
>>For retained, off-hand I can think of:
So many small things gradually come to mind.
Some to " amuse" the children
How to lie motionless on the bottom of a swimming pool and survive.
How to float motionless in a pool for minutes
How to make a blade of grass scream.
Easiest way, for the likes of me to push a car? Put your back into it.
A small "Trick?" I can do is, with my knuckles knock on the top of my head which then " sounds" hollow.
Others, those who do not wince, try it and say it does not work but hurts.
No longer able to make my fingers glow in the dark as matchboxes have changed.
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>>with my knuckles knock on the top of my head which then " sounds" hollow.
Tried to cure a grandson of picking his nose by doing this and telling him I used to pick mine and picked all my brains out.
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>> I used to pick mine and picked all my brains out.
I wondered what had caused it ! :-)
>>
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I learnt to ride a bicycle when I was 30.
Fell down only once. Took me around a week while practicing 45-60 mins per day.
It helps to start on a slight incline and go downward via gravity where you can balance without trying to pedal at same time.
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Learnt when I was 7, shoved down a concrete drive in to a main road so it was ever fall off on to the concrete, fall off in to the road and get run over or balance and steer out of danger!
10 years later I got a moped and came off it on an oil slick. I had it fixed at great expense and the same person who did the shoving unscrewed the gearbox oil plug so that the gears would seize hoping that the moped would be written off and I would find a safer form of transport.
The gearbox did seize, when I was doing 30+ down a 1 in 10 hill. I was thrown off and hit the bonnet of the car following.
Ended up in hospital luckily with no serious injuries but was unconscious for a couple of hours.
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What is really difficult, once you can ride an ordinary bike, is to ride on the back of a tandem, or ride a tricycle.
When I tried to ride a tricycle I kept instinctively trying to turn the handlebars the wrong way and crashed it in the first 10 feet.
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>> When I tried to ride a tricycle I kept instinctively trying to turn the handlebars
>> the wrong way and crashed it in the first 10 feet.
I can't remember that I have ridden a tricycle since I learnt to ride a bike. That must have been interesting. Presumably it's the instinctive, but unconscious, reverse steer that leans the bike over that is the problem. I've tried to analyse it while doing it but it's impossible. A bit like the sensation of trying to watch your own eye movements in a mirror.
Last edited by: Manatee on Tue 1 Nov 16 at 17:53
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I agree. I had a racing tandem for road use. Training a rear rider to not throw their weight around else we both crash was difficult..
In my cycling club we had one member with a lightweight trike.
I warned another member who wanted a try. He ignored instructions, went too quick too soon,it veered the wrong way down a boat access ramp to the Thames and finished up in the drink.
Oh how all of us except the trike owned laughed.
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Try to explain 'reverse steer' to many people and they laugh at you.
Seen a bike with the steering reversed as an 'income source' at Covent Garden. Wondered if you crossed the arms it would compensate (ever tried riding a bike with your arms crossed)?
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>> Seen a bike with the steering reversed as an 'income source' at Covent Garden. Wondered
>> if you crossed the arms it would compensate (ever tried riding a bike with your
>> arms crossed)?
>>
There was one of those at my school open day many decades ago - absolutely impossible. But the boy who had built it could ride it perfectly confidently in traffic.
I'm not sure about the arms crossed idea - you steer a bike by balance as much as by the handlebars, and your brain would have to know to reverse one but not the other.
I seem to remember reading once that a bike balances by a combination of steering/leaning into the falling side so as to pre-empt it, and also the gyroscopic effect of the rotating wheels.
There's an experiment of increasing the latter by filling the tyres with water, but I can't remember what the conclusion was. There's certainly a different balance feel between a bike with thick heavy tyres and a very slim-wheeled racing bike.
Very old bikes have a greatly raked steering column, giving more caster angle and self-steering effect. My father took up cycling again when he retired and found it difficult to ride a modern bike. I built him a hybrid using an old frame.
Bromptonaut's the expert on this sort of stuff I expect.
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I first hopped on a two-wheeler at age 5 or 6 and found I could ride it right away. May be something to do with having had one of those large tricycles you don't see anymore which I used to tilt up sideways and ride two-wheeled in a vain attempt to get my parents to take pity and buy me a two-wheeler. Two wheelers for kids in the early 1960's were much rarer and more expensive than today.
I had a childhood of permanent skinned knees and how my teeth survived trick tricycling I am not quite sure!
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i think that sums things up well.
I did see a pristine Raleigh childs trike the other day, memories.
Today one issues the kids a lightweight two wheeler scooter , sorry now a three wheeled scooter for use on the school run and the supermarket aisle grand prix.
The faithful trike is too expensive, too fast, too bulky, too heavy so that fun is for the past.
Ebay shows one Raleigh type trike for £50+ and one S/H modern equivalent for £180 ouch!!
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How long does it take to ride a bike? - devonite
