Did You Learn On Training Wheels?

[gntlmn]

I remember when I first learned to ride a bike. I was about 4 years old, and my dad brought me out to this huge asphalt playground. He told me to get on the bike and ride. That's what I did. I fell down a couple of times, and then I got the hang of it. I was really starting to ride good and thought I'd see if my dad was watching. I turned my head to see, and he started yelling at me really loud. This made me look at him more in the distance to figure out what he was trying to say or if he was going to give me a hand signal or something. That's when it hit me... or I hit it rather. It was the only object in the whole playground: a fire hydrant. I hit that pretty hard, but I learned a valuable lesson on that one too--better there than with a moving car. I learned how to watch where I'm going foremost.

My question is: did you learn to ride using training wheels, or did you do like I did, quick and dirty, crash and burn method?

 

[Ratface]

I just watched the episode of Frasier last night where he and Niles learn to ride bikes - in their 40's! He has a similar problem where he gets fixated on any available solid object and crashes into it - relentlessly.

My GF and I were in stitches :-D Worth watching if it crops up some time!

 

[lumpy]

I had training wheels. When my dad took them off I crashed until I learned to ride. The problem with training wheels is that you never learn to balance. When you turn the handlebars left - you go left, right - you go right. When you cycle on 2 wheels, you do something called countersteering where you actually minutely shift your weight and turn the wheel opposite of the way you intend to go. Watch a kid when they first get their training wheels removed. They turn the handlebars to the left and surprise they crash on their right side - totally opposite of their experience with the training wheels.

My son started out on a Razor scooter. Once he had the balance down, he tried the 2 wheeler. It took him 10 minutes to learn and then wouldn't get off! This happened before he was 3.5. Now he's 5 and has gone on 15 mile rides with his little 16" wheel bike. And, yeah, I'm proud of him. In his kindergarten class every kid gets driven to school except him 'cause we ride!

Tim

 

[byfred]

Originally posted by lumpy
I had training wheels. When my dad took them off I crashed until I learned to ride. The problem with training wheels is that you never learn to balance. When you turn the handlebars left - you go left, right - you go right. When you cycle on 2 wheels, you do something called countersteering where you actually minutely shift your weight and turn the wheel opposite of the way you intend to go. Watch a kid when they first get their training wheels removed. They turn the handlebars to the left and surprise they crash on their right side - totally opposite of their experience with the training wheels.

My son started out on a Razor scooter. Once he had the balance down, he tried the 2 wheeler. It took him 10 minutes to learn and then wouldn't get off! This happened before he was 3.5. Now he's 5 and has gone on 15 mile rides with his little 16" wheel bike. And, yeah, I'm proud of him. In his kindergarten class every kid gets driven to school except him 'cause we ride!

Tim

I learned to ride a bike on a 27" frame when I was about six years old. To do this, you had to get into a position that was called "under-bar" or, with one leg under the cross-bar. It was impossible to sit on the saddle in that position and had to be most uncomforable. I think back to those days and I don't know how you could ever learn how to ride a bicycle in that position........byfred

 

[Bill Wellborn]

I didn't learn with training wheels and I didn't use them with my kids. I took the pedals off and put them on a slight downward slope and they learned to balance in a very short time, then I put the pedals back on.

 

[stevenaleach]

Wow.. I don't even remember anything about learning to ride.

I think i have vague memories of a tricycle when I must have been very little, but I may just be immagining that.

I do remember having a heavy as hell bright red bike with a coaster brake. Wierd curved tubes and everything. Bright red fenders. Don't remember when I got it though.

When I finally outgrew it, my parents took me to a bike shop in Cincinatti to get a "real" bike. I had a very specific wish list in mind:

light weight... not super light, but just a descent light weight 10-speed.

nice thin high pressure road tires.

nice normal drop bars. No more of this wicked witch of the west north road stuff.

No fancy stuff like an aluminum frame, and certainly not indexed shifting or anything silly like that.

Naturally, they bought me a mountain bike instead. With indexed shifting.

After a few years putting up with the silly thing (I hated that bike with a passion), I started gathering old junk ten speeds and such that people were throwing away and managed to put together a real bike. Chromoly lugged frame, 700x23c slicks that I suspect once had tread, clamp on style downtube shifters, old leather saddle rejuvinated (sortof) with saddle soap, and a set of drop bars that I wrapped with black electrical tape since there was no place to buy cotton tape. I kept that bike tell I got my drivers licence and left for college, then I gave it away... oops.

 

[treebound]

Do you mean I can take them off now????? Really???? Yippee!!!!!
No more teasing about my 4-wheel MasterLight. Now I've just got to figure out how to fill the bolt holes I drilled to mount the training wheel brackets with.

Actually, yep, started with training wheels on a full-size bike when my friends all had small tired Stingrays. Dad would slowly raise the height of the wheels as I progressed. Started off where I could do rooster tails in mud puddles, ended where I could take a corner at a pretty good lean before dragging the inside wheel. Took less than a summer and they were gone. Miss doing those rooster tails in mud puddles sometimes though, but sure made a mess out of my shirt.

 

[Duckwah]

I don't think you ever really learn to ride a bike when its got training wheels

i had training wheels for a while but i really learned how to ride when my dad took them off and pointed me down a hill!!

its the same way my uncle taught me to ride a motor bike when i was 6, he pointed me up a hill said "turn the throttle" and off i went.....

Straight into a wooden fence.... (he forgot the turning part)

I've never seen my mother move so fast in her life!!

 

[rollers]

No training wheels here. I remember my dad running along behind me holding the seat to keep me from falling. (It was a seat, not a saddle. It had springs.) Up and down the street we went. I would look back to make sure he was there to keep me from falling.

I still remember the feeling of looking back at him standing in the street and nearly losing it.

 

[rollers]

Originally posted by rollers
No training wheels here. I remember my dad running along behind me holding the seat to keep me from falling. (It was a seat, not a saddle. It had springs.) Up and down the street we went. I would look back to make sure he was there to keep me from falling.

I still remember the feeling of looking back at him standing in the street and nearly losing it.

He can't keep up with me any more though.

 

[gntlmn]

Originally posted by rollers
No training wheels here. I remember my dad running along behind me holding the seat to keep me from falling. (It was a seat, not a saddle. It had springs.) Up and down the street we went. I would look back to make sure he was there to keep me from falling.

I still remember the feeling of looking back at him standing in the street and nearly losing it.

This sounds like about the most humane approach yet. lol.

 

[RalleighOke]

Took me half a day to get off the training wheels, thank to a lot of rose bushes ..... (you get rather sick riding into them, so you have to learn to turn)

 

[mango]

Trainin wheels have to be the stupidest things ever invented. I have three sons who all learned to ride without them. All it takes is to hold the back of the bike seat and run behind for 10 or so seconds until they are balanced. This way they get the true feel of the bike. With trainer wheels, once the rider gets confidence and the trainers are taken off, the rider has to learn all over again.

My first lesson was on a friends bike. We were at a park, he just pushed me off at the top of a hill and I was off. I looked ahead and the only thing I could see in my blind panic was a large gorse bush (a very thorny weed here in New Zealand). I promptly steered straight in to it, drawn like a moth to a flame. Still a vivid memory even though it was about 45 years ago.

 

[gntlmn]

I'm beginning to think the lesson on this thread is that it is very easy to learn and safe if the teacher holds the seat and runs. That's what I'll do when I train little kids to ride.

 

[vonteity]

Originally posted by gntlmn
My question is: did you learn to ride using training wheels, or did you do like I did, quick and dirty, crash and burn method?

Crash and burn all the way. I don't think training wheels actually train you to do anything. Being whipped down the street by your father on your brand-spankin' new red-and-white Schwinn, however, does... Whatever you do, head for your neighbor's yard when you crash!

I was really mad when I found out my mom sold that bike at a tag sale years later. That was a great bike!

 

[swimmeronwheels]

Originally posted by gntlmn
I'm beginning to think the lesson on this thread is that it is very easy to learn and safe if the teacher holds the seat and runs. That's what I'll do when I train little kids to ride.

I learned that way ... my dad running alongside (first in the back yard ... how I got going in the grass I'll never know) ... and then I was off. We had a gravel road in front of our house, so I recall alot of embedded matter in my knees. But I loved to ride.

My daughter just learned this past summer at age 5/6. I just couldn't get her interested until I secured the training wheels firmly on the pavement and took her for several longish (almost a mile) rides ... then she got interested and wanted me to take the training wheels off. She wouldn't let me run along ... she wanted to do it herself and she spent about 3 hours one Sunday afternoon, learning to start herself from a dead stop, balance and go and stop smoothly. More power to her ... I just had to sit and watch ... the last thing she wanted was for me to add speed to the equation which I thought would help.

You won't know how you will teach a kid until you meet the kid!!!

 

[gntlmn]

Originally posted by swimmeronwheels

You won't know how you will teach a kid until you meet the kid!!!

Good point!

 

[Chuckrossin]

I learned without wheels. Coasting down a hill in front of my house when I was 6 or 7 on a bike that was too big for me. For some reason, I could only reach the pedals by sitting on the "flat thing on top of the rear fender" behind the seat.

Had to turn into a semi-circular driveway at the bottom of the hill just past a T-intersection to slow down properly on my coaster brakes. I don't know how I avoided getting smacked by a car. Once, though, I missed the drive, hit the high curb, sailed in the air holding on to the bars and came right down on the cross bar. Writhed in pain on the ground for 5 minutes, got up and walked the bike home. Took two days off practice.

 

[gntlmn]

Originally posted by Chuckrossin
Writhed in pain on the ground for 5 minutes, got up and walked the bike home. Took two days off practice.

It's amazing how kids can bounce back.

 

[funknuggets]

Taking off the training wheels... what a day of newfound freedom.

I remember it well, some strange orange bike with hard rubber tires being pushed down the road and all of a sudden dad wasnt there pushing.... I was free and on my own, then turned to see where he went and veered wildly and crashed... Ahhh. I can hardly wait till my 2 year old can reach the pedals....

Happy new year all.

Chris