How I learned to ride a bike in my 20s
May. 5th, 2011 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
untonuggan posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
bicyclingI thought I'd break the ice by sharing my first biking experiences. I should mention that I (1) have fibromyalgia, and (2) didn't learn to ride until I was in my 20s. If I can do it, I'm sure a lot of other folks can, too! Also, I only fell once, and I only got a couple of bruises from it.
I never learned as a kid. I had a bicycle for awhile, a pink and white Hello Kitty one with a horn and a sweet basket. I rode it around with training wheels for awhile. I pestered my dad to teach me how to ride, but he kept saying that there weren't good places for me to learn how to ride that were safe...or that he didn't want me to ride on the streets....this compounded my own fear of falling off the bike, so eventually I stopped pestering him and the training wheels rusted onto the bike and then I outgrew the bike.
I carried a lot of shame for quite awhile about not being able to do this thing that apparently everyone else knew how to do.I carried vague hopes of someday learning coupled with fears of broken bones and blood and bruising. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia when I was 20, and at that point I pretty much gave up hope of ever learning. I mean, if trying to put on a shirt can cause me to twist my shoulder and be in pain for three days, what's falling off a bike going to do to me? And everyone knows you fall a lot when you learn.
There was a great program on NPR a couple years back about an adult biking school. Because apparently there's a lot of people who don't know how to ride, we're just all in the closet about it. They use a method there that ensures little, if any falling. There's a whole video on it that REI, which explains how to do it pretty well. Basically, you remove the pedals and lower the seat all the way down so that you can be on the bike and have your feet touch the ground. Then you practice walking the bike around, removing your feet periodically so you can coast. It helps to do it on an incline so that you get some momentum going. (Faster bike = better balance) You also practice how to use the brakes, primarily the rear brakes at first.
The idea is to learn how to balance the bike separately from how to pedal and steer. I practiced several times with my partner, and got the hang of the balancing thing. Then I took a "How to Ride a Bike" class at REI and learned how to pedal. It was hard for me to do on my "learner bike", because we had to get a kid's bike so that I could reach the ground, but then I was like a circus clown if we added the pedals. And woooo, I learned! After a few false starts. It was so exhilarating to ride around that parking lot. I felt like the Champion of the World.
So - what bicycle did I choose for myself? Fibromyalgia and chronic neck pain complicated things a bit, because some bikes like road bikes make you kind of hunch over the handlebars. Plus, I have a long upper body and short legs, so I kept feeling scrunched on many of the bikes anyway.
I finally settled on an Electra Townie (also debated a Trek Pure Low-Step), which is a bike that lets you have your feet on the ground if you want to. More importantly, it has a very upright riding posture because the pedals are slightly in front of you - almost like it's starting to become a recumbent, but you're not like 1 foot from the ground. Tiger Pumpkin (my bike) is not the best going uphill, because you can't really stand on the pedals very easily. But she's a really fun ride, and I don't hurt when I ride her.
The crowning glory was when I went on my first bike ride this weekend. In Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC they block off the main roadway to motor vehicles on the weekends. It's a really pretty ride, even if the hordes of bikers on road bikes can be a little intimidating. It was amazing. Perhaps I am overusing that word, I don't know. I just loved the feel of the wind in my face, the lactic acid burn in my muscles, and the bird song echoing through the green canopy of the woods.
(cross-posted to my personal journal)
I never learned as a kid. I had a bicycle for awhile, a pink and white Hello Kitty one with a horn and a sweet basket. I rode it around with training wheels for awhile. I pestered my dad to teach me how to ride, but he kept saying that there weren't good places for me to learn how to ride that were safe...or that he didn't want me to ride on the streets....this compounded my own fear of falling off the bike, so eventually I stopped pestering him and the training wheels rusted onto the bike and then I outgrew the bike.
I carried a lot of shame for quite awhile about not being able to do this thing that apparently everyone else knew how to do.I carried vague hopes of someday learning coupled with fears of broken bones and blood and bruising. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia when I was 20, and at that point I pretty much gave up hope of ever learning. I mean, if trying to put on a shirt can cause me to twist my shoulder and be in pain for three days, what's falling off a bike going to do to me? And everyone knows you fall a lot when you learn.
There was a great program on NPR a couple years back about an adult biking school. Because apparently there's a lot of people who don't know how to ride, we're just all in the closet about it. They use a method there that ensures little, if any falling. There's a whole video on it that REI, which explains how to do it pretty well. Basically, you remove the pedals and lower the seat all the way down so that you can be on the bike and have your feet touch the ground. Then you practice walking the bike around, removing your feet periodically so you can coast. It helps to do it on an incline so that you get some momentum going. (Faster bike = better balance) You also practice how to use the brakes, primarily the rear brakes at first.
The idea is to learn how to balance the bike separately from how to pedal and steer. I practiced several times with my partner, and got the hang of the balancing thing. Then I took a "How to Ride a Bike" class at REI and learned how to pedal. It was hard for me to do on my "learner bike", because we had to get a kid's bike so that I could reach the ground, but then I was like a circus clown if we added the pedals. And woooo, I learned! After a few false starts. It was so exhilarating to ride around that parking lot. I felt like the Champion of the World.
So - what bicycle did I choose for myself? Fibromyalgia and chronic neck pain complicated things a bit, because some bikes like road bikes make you kind of hunch over the handlebars. Plus, I have a long upper body and short legs, so I kept feeling scrunched on many of the bikes anyway.
I finally settled on an Electra Townie (also debated a Trek Pure Low-Step), which is a bike that lets you have your feet on the ground if you want to. More importantly, it has a very upright riding posture because the pedals are slightly in front of you - almost like it's starting to become a recumbent, but you're not like 1 foot from the ground. Tiger Pumpkin (my bike) is not the best going uphill, because you can't really stand on the pedals very easily. But she's a really fun ride, and I don't hurt when I ride her.
The crowning glory was when I went on my first bike ride this weekend. In Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC they block off the main roadway to motor vehicles on the weekends. It's a really pretty ride, even if the hordes of bikers on road bikes can be a little intimidating. It was amazing. Perhaps I am overusing that word, I don't know. I just loved the feel of the wind in my face, the lactic acid burn in my muscles, and the bird song echoing through the green canopy of the woods.
(cross-posted to my personal journal)
