Monthly Archives: October 2015

It was the last weekend in September that Bea “sussed” cycling on her first attempt without stabilisers; was interested if she could do it again, and hopefully with less crashing.

On Saturday we went back to the same car park and concentrated on her starting off without any assistance. Noticed that she was more confident – not overly so – and was able to “save” several crashes. Unfortunately she did eventually crash, and tears flowed once more. I convinced her that the “saves” were really important and showed her she was getting better and was learning really well!

We did upload a video from this Saturday session, but knowing it ended with a rather nasty crash have decided not to share it.

What was lovely about Saturday is I took my bike and we were riding around together – our first bike ride, even if it was a little broken up.

On Sunday the weather remained amazing (11th Oct) so found another car park on an industrial estate that had no traffic. Also it was paved rather than tarmac. Potentially offering a slightly more uneven surface. Found a little “sub” car park that had kerbs all round giving Bea a little boundary, which we eventually played with… more on that shortly.

We had been trying to have Bea push off by putting the leading pedal in the “go position”. On Saturday I had explained to her that a bicycle could ride itself if you could trick it into speeding along. I was wondering if she could paddle herself along, gather some speed and then put her feet on the pedals. Never worked on Saturday, but made a sideways comment about that on Sunday and she rather impressively took to it on her own with almost zero extra coaching. You can see a couple of videos below of her using this technique.

Sunday’s session was impressive for a few reasons:

1. Only ONE crash – she looked down to ring the bell!
2. Rings the bell merrily whilst racing around giggling!
3. Starts entirely on her own with no outside assistance.
4. Accurate pavement riding (eventually!)
5. Did her first trick!!

The pavement riding was interesting because she asked to ride up on there and I explained she would have to be really accurate to avoid some metal bicycle racks on one side, a lamppost on the other and the kerb drop-off – that’s before we get to the bend and the slope back down into the car park.

She of course managed this easily. She then wanted to do this in reverse. I explained the only way to do that was ride really fast up the slope onto the pavement, carefully around the bend and then do a “trick” by riding off of the pavement. Dutifully and with no drama she did it. And did it again. And again. Had to catch her a couple of times as she turned into the corner too early – on the second go she asked why that was happening – I explained it was because she had ridden up the slope too slowly so was a little wobbly. She soon fixed that!

Anyway, summary is I cannot believe she is barely 3yrs and 8months old and has such confidence on a bicycle. She needs to improve her stopping ability, and of course accuracy, but these are things that will come. She is realising the importance of both on her own, so I think we will increase the complexity (she’s not really done hills – up or down – both bring challenges of their own), and we will eventually go out for a proper bike ride!

Here she is demonstrating her confidence:

Here she nearly crashes into me (you can see the pavement and bicycle racks in the background):

Properly in control here of both the start and the stop: