When and where did you learn to ride a bike?

[Cavendash]

They say that once you know you never forget ... But can you remember learning to ride a bike?
I remember I was about 4 or 5. We had visitors staying, my parents old friends. They had a teenage daughter, Elizabeth. It was perfect timing - she spent hours, if not days running after me, steadying the back rack of my bike, keeping me upright so I didn't fall off.

Then within a couple of days I got the hang of it, and was off! She couldn't keep up with me any more!
I'll never forget that magical feeling of freedom, unequalled, perhaps, until I passed my driving test at 17.
I never did a pilot's licence ...

 

[ianrauk]

I can't remember, but I was very young. I was cycling to and from school at the age of 9. This was in the mid 70's. The school was about a mile and a half away.

Jnr #2 was riding a bike (toddle bike) before he could even walk.

 

[jefmcg]

I wasn't allowed a bicycle as a kid, so I spent one afternoon (probably aged 8 or 9) on a cousin's bike going up and down a sloped driveway learning the balance. A little while later I was at another cousins house, and my uncle had me riding back and forth along his flat driveway, improving my skills. I finally got my own bike in my twenties, and started commuting on it. For the first few weeks I rode on the pavement as every time I tried to signal a turn, I'd lose my balance.

Honestly, I'm still not that good at it

Notes

1. My mum was the youngest of 8. I had a lot of cousins and aunts and uncles to chose from
2. I'd completely forgotten about the lessons from my uncle. My cousin reminded me recently, as she had noticed my long rides on facebook.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

I lived in Bramley Grove in Bluntisham from 2-9 years old so it will be there and on the little bit of grass that was at the side of our neighbours house, My first bike was a little red and white universal from Cedar Cycles, I don't remember having stabilisers on for too long and was riding to school before too long.

I also did my cycling proficiency down there.

 

[Brandane]

1966, aged 4. There was some sort of mickey mouse football competition on the TV (can't for the life of me remember who won it and the media never mention it ) so I spent the time far from the TV, learning to ride a bike. I distinctly remember having stabilisers fitted to begin with, and the bike had solid (non pneumatic) tyres. Where? Rothesay, Isle of Bute.

 

[HertzvanRental]

My aunt, Priory Park, Hornsey, N. London circa 1948 / 9.

 

[accountantpete]

1962 outside our house. My Dad tried to explain the theory of how the bike stays upright but ended up giving me and the bike a good shove downhill and I somehow survived without falling off.

 

[Katherine]

Yes, I remember going down the sloping drive, out of control, and crashing at the bottom by the pavement, scaring a passing car. I still have the scars on my knees. I was probably about 5. It was an old second hand red and white bike, solid tyres, that was also the first bike for three more siblings after me. We always said that having learnt to ride on it, that we could ride anything!

 

[Cavendash]

I don't remember having stabilisers at all, but I know my kids did.

We used to take one stabiliser off and bend the other one up so they could get the feeling of balance, and for months after they could ride freely that one stabiliser stayed on for them to use as a bike stand, so the bike wasn't just chucked on the ground!

 

[Andy_R]

RSM's wife in Bulford Camp, aged about 4 1/2. She was a mad keen cyclist and had about 6 or 7 of us learning to ride (the bikes were all sorts of trash made usable by my dad and other dads in the Regt.) The roads in the camp were dead during the day, so they were our runways (c1974 ish)

 

[Gasman]

I must have been about 5, so 1969 ish.

One of these,

a Raleigh Kite, had been dumped near our house and my dad rescued it and got it going for me.

We lived here and I spent pretty much an entire day in this road trying to teach myself to ride it, dashing into the house to tell my mum every time I managed to stay upright for more than half a pedal rev. The way I remember it, I spent hours getting nowhere (literally) but everything suddenly clicked late in the afternoon and I spent the last hour or so hurtling up and down the road at high speed with an ecstatic grin on my face. (I still get that on the recumbent!)

 

[mustang1]

I must have been about 5, so 1969 ish.

One of these,

a Raleigh Kite, had been dumped near our house and my dad rescued it and got it going for me.

We lived here and I spent pretty much an entire day in this road trying to teach myself to ride it, dashing into the house to tell my mum every time I managed to stay upright for more than half a pedal rev. The way I remember it, I spent hours getting nowhere (literally) but everything suddenly clicked late in the afternoon and I spent the last hour or so hurtling up and down the road at high speed with an ecstatic grin on my face. (I still get that on the recumbent!)

Wow that's one of the nicest looking kids bikes I've seen.

I started age about 5 on a Raleigh budgie. My dad took the atabilizers off and told me if i fal left then turn left (and vice versa). We went around the block and then I was riding on my own ever since. I never thanked my dad for that, I should have. Maybe I will next time I see him.

 

[Accy cyclist]

I must've been about 7 or 8 when my dad did the running alongside then letting go and leaving me to find my balance thing. The young bloke across the road is into downhill mountain biking. His two boys have have gone from kiddie bikes with stabilizers to riding two wheeled junior bikes in about 3 years, They must've been riding bikes from 2 years old. They always have helmets on and in the correct position but that's another subject.

 

[speccy1]

Remember as a little `un riding with stabilizers and my dad promising me a new bike if I could ride without them. Then one day outside the house I tried it and he said he was holding me - little did I know he wasn`t and I`d been riding solo without them, as soon as I realised I fell off!!

 

[Fnaar]

About 5 I think. I had a yellow trike with solid tyres till then. Then when my elder brother needed a bigger bike, I got his old one. Had mastered it in an afternoon out on the street, without the parental holding thing. Just trial and error.