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I Want to Ride my Bicycle! [Teaching Oneself to Ride]
Zomro
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've bought myself a bicycle. The practical reason being for exercise. The main reason, however, is that I want to learn how to ride a bike. For whatever reason, I never learned as a kid. My Dad was always busy with work and I didn't want to bother him when he was tired. My brother tried to help me once, but the other kids in the neighborhood teased me so much I gave up. Not learning to ride has been one of my biggest regrets and I aim to fix that. So, not only am I doing this for the health benefits, but I think learning to ride will be good for me.
So, I'm looking for tips for how to teach myself to ride a bike. So far, I'm having the same difficulties as I did as a kid. It's difficult for me to push off and get going without losing balance. I've been told that once you get going, the momentum helps you keep your balance. I was thinking of maybe getting some training wheels, but I'd rather not spend the money on something that may not be necessary.
So, I'm looking for tips for how to teach myself to ride a bike. So far, I'm having the same difficulties as I did as a kid. It's difficult for me to push off and get going without losing balance. I've been told that once you get going, the momentum helps you keep your balance. I was thinking of maybe getting some training wheels, but I'd rather not spend the money on something that may not be necessary.
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You might want to try an empty parking lot or other large, level smooth surface to start on if you've got any nearby. Fewer obstacles/curbs to worry about mean you can pay more attention to getting yourself moving and balanced, and once you're moving it's pretty easy to stay moving.
If your biggest problem is getting some initial speed, then maybe try starting at the top of a gentle hill or drive way. You'll be able to get a little bit of speed to help you balance while not having to pedal.
Also, what kind of bike are you using? Is it a single gear or multispeed? Starting in a middle gear may be easier, since fewer turns of the pedals will get you moving as opposed to a lower gear where you would need to pedal like a madman to get up any speed, or at a higher gear where you have to really push to move forward.
It's possible to turn a normal bike into a run bike, but the effort and tools required are not trivial -- but you could still try just lowering the saddle all the way down until both your feet are on the ground and pushing around a parking lot like that, it depends on how much the pedals get in the way. That'll get you up to speed a little bit, and from there you can hopefully get going.
The bike is multispeed, so I'll give it a try in a middle gear and see if that might help me get going. I was going to try and get to a parking lot on my next day off for a lot of flat space to work with. My old high school is near and it'd be Saturday so no one would be there. I'll probably have to call and make sure it's okay, though.
Do you have someone that can help out? Someone walking alongside and helping to avoid tipping over at first can be good.
As already stated, gliding to get the balance down is a good start. Straight lines at first, then add turns one direction and the other. Once you feel you have that down, add in resting your feet on the pedals.
Learning to balance is key, so I'd go with pushing the bike on the flat with a lowered saddle until you're confident coasting with your feet off the ground until you run out of momentum, then find somewhere with a (gentle!) slope and try rolling down it until you're confident sitting on the saddle and lifting your feet onto the pedals and keeping them there, then maybe try the same thing but standing on the pedals, and/or laying down some markers (something flat that won't cause you to fall off if you ride over it) in a gentle slalom that you'll have to steer/brake around.
If you can master that then you should be able to go back to the flat and have the confidence to set off and start pedalling around. Then you can raise the saddle to its proper position, and that's pretty much it. All you need to is keep riding to get better at it.
EDIT: the early stages would probably be easier if you took the pedals off, which is easy to do. You usually only need a 15mm spanner or a big allen key. Remember that the left hand pedal is reverse threaded! (It unscrews the opposite way to a normal bolt or screw so that it can't unscrew itself as you pedal)
The first thing to note is that riding a bike isn't particularly difficult. It can seem like a daunting task, but with proper instruction at least, I learned the basics in a day, along with the rest of my class.
What we did:
1. Go to an empty parking lot somewhere with a bit of a slope to it.
2. Take the pedals off the bike.
3. Lower the seat just enough so you get get your toes to the ground if you start to tip.
4. Take the bike to the top of the hill and practice coasting until you get your balance. Get used to braking (primarily the rear brake when starting out).
5. When you feel comfortable balancing, put the pedals back, raise the seat to a proper height, and do the same thing with the pedals.
6. Start working in some turns gradually. (Remember you turn more by shifting your weight than actual rotation of the handlebars)
As I said, I took a class (through REI if you are curious and have one. It was very good), but it would've been reasonably doable solo.
The bold part seems wrong. Most people will tell you for regular riding that you should be breaking mostly with your front brake.
Winner. The two most importat aspects are to keep up your speed and to keep your adjustments small. These are unnatural, but essential. Once it becomes natural to control balance by moving your body instead of steering, you've got it.
Panic grabbing the front brake will probably cause you to fall off, the rear not so much. If you're still at the stage of learning to balance at low speed it isn't a terrible idea to leave the front brake alone until you're going fast enough to need it.
But otherwise yes, the front brake does most of the braking.
To clarify, we started with the rear brake primarily because it has less stopping power. When you are first starting out and coasting down a hill just trying to keep balanced, it helps to have your stops be a little less jarring. Long term however, I would agree with you.
Pick a day when you don't have anything else to do, and commit to just messing around on your bike. You'll learn in a couple hours, tops, by just fooling around on the thing. In this post I'll walk you through the process I used to learn, but at the end of the day I can't actually tell you, intellectually, how to bike. And that's sort of the beauty of it: it's just muscle memory, and whether or not you believe this, your body is really really good at figuring stuff out.
So, like I said. You'll probably have it down pat in two hours.
I live at the end of a cul-de-sac, that's where I practiced, and that's probably the ideal environment for learning--flat, low-traffic, and relatively secluded if you're worried about people giving you funny looks.
To start, just walk around and guide the bike with your hands on the handlebars. Get a feel for how the bike is oriented as you walk it forward. Notice how the bike reacts when you turn the handlebars. Just observe how it moves. If you start feeling comfortable, take it a little faster. Heck, try jogging with it for a bit.
Next, try sitting on the bike and making it go in a straight line. Put one foot on a pedal and the other on the ground (pick whichever is most comfortable--as a righty, I like to kick off with my right foot). As you move, keep your pedal foot stationary and your kicking foot slightly above the ground. At first you should keep your weight on the side of your kicking foot, so if you start to fall you can catch yourself. I probably did this for a good half hour when I learned, and by the end it was pretty easy to keep the bike balanced. After you can go straight, try some VERY MILD turns and gradually increase the angle. Now play with the brakes. As with turns, don't overdo it--start by just barely squeezing the brake and pay attention to the amount of "give" it has before triggering.
Third step is picking up your kicking foot and putting it on the other pedal. This will be second nature after a couple attempts. Just bring your foot up to the pedal after you kick.
Now you're basically set, you just need to start pedaling. It won't be comfortable at first--you'll feel like you don't have complete control of the bike--but this is where that walking/jogging practice comes in. Resist the temptation to strongarm the handlebars and start by making small, deliberate adjustments at low speeds. The faster you're going, the smaller the adjustments you'll need to make to the handlebars.
And you're set! Once you get to the point where you can pedal, you've got it. It's clicked. Your body will take care of the rest. Now get out there and have fun!
- steer into the lean
In other words as the bike starts to lean/fall to the left, turn the handlebars to the left to counteract it. When you lean/fall to the right, turn the bars to the right. This produces a counter force that pushes you back towards an upright position.
I practiced this initially while completely stationary on the bike, with my feet able to reach the ground to keep from really falling. Just practice that left/right turning reaction until it becomes less consciously controlled and more instinctive, and until you've sussed how much turn of the bar is necessary to offset the lean, i.e. a small lean caught early needs less of a turn compared to a more pronounced lean. Then introduce a bit of motion, just slowly gliding along using one foot for a little propulsion. As soon as you can glide, start trying to pedal while still turning the handlebars to keep you from falling. Then work on holding a straight line, turning corners and all the rest of it.
As that boyfriend who was taught how to ride a bike (or at least learn the basics on a residential neighborhood street with little to no car traffic - we didn't have the time/inclination to practice actually traveling on bike, or things that are advanced, to me, like gear switching) over a couple of days at the end of this summer, tell him to man up (as reluctant as I am to use such a hamfisted phrase like that) and learn with you. Yeah he's going to feel a little silly looking like he's 5/6 years old again, but the satisfaction of being able to get it far outweighs that.
Now I look forward to the next big chunk of time my g/f and I will have to cover more stuff - of course I'll need my own bike to do that!
Also lotsa good advice here.
Don't hit the brakes while turning. If you must, use the front brake. If you need a tighter turn, you're better off leaning harder, and if you need to avoid hitting something, straighten up and brake.
Advanced tip: When moving at any decent speed, bicycles countersteer. Most riders will say turning is all about leaning, and you CAN turn a bike via lean somewhat, but to really turn a bike above ~15mph, you need to steer the opposite the way you want to go. I think of it more as pushing forward on the side I want to go towards. I was riding for 15 years before I learned this, so it's not going to wreck you, but if you can get it down, you'll handle at higher speed a lot easier.