When and where did you learn to ride a bike?

[Nigel-YZ1]

4 years old in 1972. Raleigh Cheetah in yellow I think. Up and down the garden path in Kilnhurst.

 

[raleighnut]

I learnt on a tricycle, I could ride it for ages with one rear wheel up in the air.
I daren't on the new one.

 

[summerdays]

I can't remember the bike or age, what I do remember is I learnt in our back garden which had an ok sized lawn, BUT it was edged with roses! I made quite a few mistakes in the process and I'm surprised I stuck with it long enough to learn!

 

[EltonFrog]

My mum bought me my first bike for my 7th birthday (I might have had a trike before that I can't remember) it was second hand bought from Petticoat Lane Market, and she pushed me along the path in the back alley behind granddad's house down Old Oak Lane in Willesden a couple of times and that was it I was off. I've rarely been without a bike since then . 51 years ago tomorrow!

 

[biggs682]

i am still learning

 

[Tin Pot]

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 ...

I have always remembered the trauma of being pushed off down a hill by my dad when I was young on a solid rubber wheeled silver bike, with a dark blue and orange stripe on the frame.

I went back to that hill decades later. It's about chest high(!)

 

[slowwww]

About 5 years old in the garden of my beloved Grandfather's house, criss-crossing the lawn for hours with him holding the back of the saddle to keep me upright.

Here I am, 51 year old man sitting at my desk at work, welling-up at the memory!

 

[Levo-Lon]

I had the usual stabilizers etc.
my first venture on 2 wheels was my older sister giving me a push and me pedalling like crazy and running straight into a tree...gashing my knee..think i was around 4.
never looked back after that.

my 17mth old grandson has a balance bike which he is already enjoying..there a great idea.

 

[gavroche]

1955. My dad took me out on my blue bike . Half an hour later we came back and he said to my mum: "he can ride his bike now" . I wish I was just as fast a learner for other things!

 

[numbnuts]

Round about 9 or 10

 

[steve50]

My older brother taught me to ride, he is five years older than me and had a drop handle bike. I could just about reach the pedals when sat on the saddle and I learned to ride it in the school playground at weekends. My brother decided one day that it would be "cool" to rotate the handle bars so they faced uphill and the brake levers were facing you and had to be operated by using your thumbs. I was hurtling across the school playground heading for the wall and unable to reach the brakes (too scared to move my hands) I collided with the wall which resulted in me being ejected from the saddle and I came down hard onto the crossbar, to say it brought tears to my eyes would be a gross understatement, I think I might have been about eight year old at the time and we lived in Irvine, ayrshire.

 

[rdfcyclist]

I remember that I started with a yellow/orange tricycle with big blue wheels when I was very young but soon I had upgraded to an off-white bicycle with training wheels. On that bicycle I'm told that I went head first through the tail light of a parked car and soon gave up the idea of riding altogether. I think it was a year after that accident that I decided to start riding again after my dad 'lost' my training wheels and I've been confident ever since.

 

[Keith Oates]

I had my first bike when I was 4 years old. We lived on a farm and at the back of our house was a sloping grass field and so I learned by pushing the bike up the field and then free wheeling down the field. I took a while but in the end all was well.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[MontyVeda]

Can't remember either. One of my earliest cycling memories was putting the stabilisers back on and quickly realising how much of a hindrance they were.

 

[RedRider]

I remember my first ride without stabilisers. It lasted about ten metres before I hit a kerb and fell off.
I don't remember anything after that. All I know is I'm 45 years old, sat outside a cafe and finishing up a coffee. Apparently I have to be getting back to work in ten minutes.