Bicycle Riding School Diary
Leo
Leo was a 6 year old who came to bike school with his mother and brother, who already knew how to ride a bike. They brought Leo’s bike, which was too big for him to learn on. He could just touch the ground on tip toes, if he sat on the seat. I invited them to look at some of my bikes and proposed Blueberry, the longest-term kids bike in my fleet. He hated it immediately. His mom asked him to sit on the seat and he refused. He started making fun of it. With utter contempt he said it was a baby bike and it was dirty and old. He wouldn't get on it to try out the size, so his mom picked him up and put him on, kicking and screaming. I said “Let’s leave your bikes here in the barn and take Blueberry and, just in case he has trouble, Mango, a slightly smaller bike.
He said he did not want his bike in my dirty old barn with all those stupid bikes and mocked the whole idea of a bike school. His mom had taken Blueberry to their car and we had both the boys’ bikes in my barn, but the boys ran back to the car with their bikes. Leo was crying and carrying on. He did not want to be here. He did not care about riding bikes.
His mother was unmoved. She told him we were going. I really wondered if this was going to work out. She helped me get their bikes back in my barn and off we went to the little parking lot by the abandoned auto body business in the neighborhood.
I had brought knee pads, elbow pads and gloves for Leo but he would not put them on. He did not need them and would not wear them. His mom and I decided to pick our battles and let him try it without them, though I was really worried, because falling and skinning a knee is what gets a lot of people turned off to biking for decades at a time. But it seemed as if we would fight over the pads for a long time, so we let him try it without them.
I started out by telling him about the brakes and he said he knew all about the brakes. Then I told him he should push off, when he was ready, and I would push him along while he tried to get his balance. He should turn the handle bars whichever way he was leaning. We started out and he did much better than I thought he would. He said it was very boring, but he was getting some balance. He kept saying how boring it was and asking how much longer he would have to do it. I said we’d just started and that he was doing great.
He did fall a few times, but he always said “I’m okay” and got up and got back on. He stopped saying it was boring after a little while. I explained that, after he’d gone across the yard 5 times with no feet on the ground, he could have his pedals, if he wanted them. He was turning all over the place and getting his balance pretty well. He wasn’t saying anything.
After about 40 minutes, he had gone across the yard 5 times with no feet on the ground. I asked him if he wanted pedals and he said “Yes!” Most people decide to do a few extra runs, for good measure, but not this kid. So we put the pedals on. I told him to start out with his foot on one pedal and to get his balance like that first, before putting his second foot on. We went around like that for a while and before long that second foot went up and he started pedaling. He fell quite a few times, but it didn’t bother him. He jumped up and said he was fine and went right back to it.
When it was time to go, he asked if he could do just one more round and we said “yes,” of course.
When we got back to the house, his mom asked him to say “thank you” to me. With great exasperation, he said “We always have to say thank you for everything!” His mom thanked me very sweetly and they left with their bikes.
One more bicycle rider launched into a life time of biking joy. (S McL, 2017)
Teaching Oliver
Oliver was a 7 year old with special needs. He’d seen an occupational therapist and he was having a hard time adjusting to second grade. He and his 5 year old sister came for bike lessons. The sister was normally cautious plus very attached to her mom, so I let them work together to get her balance and the mother did a good job helping her.
I tried to show Oliver how to balance. He was like a rag doll. He fell more often than I’ve ever seen a kid fall. It wasn’t bothering him, but he was not getting any balance to speak of. When he turned the wheel, he turned it too far and down he would go. He lay on the ground for a long time and seemed to enjoy the drama of it all, but he was not learning to ride.
Most people naturally put their feet down to catch themselves if they start to fall, but that instinct was missing in Oliver. When I first told him to put his feet down he said “You never told me that!” So I suggested we try the harness.
He gladly accepted the offer of a sky hook and we worked with that, with me pulling up gently on his back and then pulling up hard when he started to fall. Now he was using his feet even less to catch himself. He figured “Why bother when Susan’s got me?” A few times he fell and I almost stepped on him or fell on top of him. It was killing my back, but he was getting a little balance, but, with how strong my back is, it wasn’t going to work.
For the next lesson, I called in the big guns, David, my new teacher this year who’s big and strong.
The lesson didn’t start out well. Oliver was in a bad mood and he was talking about wanting to ride down the ramp toward the sidewalk and street. I said “No way!” He went off on his own and his mom suggested we leave him to himself for a while. When she talked to him in a few minutes, it turned out that he was bound and determined to ride down that ramp and he promised that, if he were allowed to try that, he’d get to work with David and the harness. I decided “Whatever works...” and we stationed all 3 grown-ups at the bottom of the ramp and let him try it out. He didn’t get to the bottom and to us before he fell, but he was gratified because that was what he’d been wanting to do.
So then he put the harness on and David started pushing him around, holding him up pretty firmly and, when he started to fall, not letting him. He started to get the hang of it. Gradually David pulled up less and less and Oliver was balancing more. On their long stretches of part balance and part being held up, they saw the world, as together they gave names to all the regions of the schoolyard where Oliver was learning to ride. They visited the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Canyon and had a really fun time together. Oliver was smiling a lot. David made what had been a dreaded task into a fun time and I knew that Oliver would get riding before too long.
I’m so glad I have the harness and someone strong and sensitive to use it in just the right way with really challenging kids.
Oliver did get riding after about five more lessons. He was very proud of himself and he put his feet down when he was starting to fall. (S McL)
Citizen Diplomacy
Kids' bike camp became inter-generational today when the aunt of our one student who was enrolled said that she didn't know how to ride either. She was a boat person from Vietnam who spend 2 years in a refugee camp in Malaysia. I was happy to have the chance to apologize for all the damage that our country did to her country, much of it ongoing, because of all the Agent Orange that was dropped, which is still causing birth defects and cancer. She and her niece both got their balance and learned to pedal during the class and feel very accomplished. (S McL)
Mariposa
One of our students took a little while to get biking and to get comfortable. So we did quite a few classes at the school yard before she was ready to tackle the bike path. We did a couple of times there and, on one of them, we had another student who was struggling even more who rode her same bike, so we asked her to take another one. At first it wasn't that comfortable for her, but she adapted. It was a new one in the fleet and I told her that she could name it, if anything occurred to her. When she got back from the lesson, she had a name for it: Mariposa, butterfly in Spanish, which she said stood for endurance, change, hope and life. (S McL)
Bike school in the rain
Everybody learns to ride at their own pace. I have a student from Ethiopia these days who's having a little bit of a harder time picking it up than some people. She started in a class that went off to the path, but she wasn't ready to join them. Plus her schedule is pretty full. We've been struggling to find times when she could come in to get some extra time at the schoolyard. The other day we made an appointment in the evening, after work, and it rained. We were both disappointed, but she came. She was a little cold when she got here so I gave her some snow pants and a heavy jacket that warmed her right up. We thought about it for a few minutes and then decided to see what we could do. It was raining pretty hard, but we were both warm. She made really good progress, getting a stronger push-off and going around in circles many times. It was the first time she'd gone long stretches and we were both very happy. When we got home, I gave her some dry socks and sent her off, feeling very accomplished. She's coming again tonight and it's supposed to rain!
I can remember another student, years ago, whose class was canceled because of rain, but she wanted to get some extra practice in, so she came anyway. That was the day she caught up with her class. (S McL)
"Follow your dream"
I taught two brothers recently, 6 years old. One, especially, had a hard time getting his balance and was very nervous. I used the harness, so I could convince him he wouldn't fall. It's not great for my back, but it's great for kids who are really scared, having a gentle pull up and then, if they start to fall, a serious pull up. Their mom mostly helped the brother who wasn't quite as scared and they both got a little balance, but both the mother and I thought it might be a long process. But on the second lesson, right from the start, the kid who had had the most trouble and fear the first time, all of a sudden had some more balance. He could go a few feet with no feet on the ground. Then he could go a few more. It was getting really exciting. I switched off with the mother and both kids earned their pedals by the end of the class and they were all so happy. The mother couldn't believe it. They wanted to help me name everything. When they heard that most of the bikes already had names, they thought "We could name the bells and the helmets!" But the most fun thing for me was when one of them asked me what I had wanted to be when I grew up, when I was little. I told them I wanted to be a lion tamer. He said to me, "You can still follow your dream. It's not too late." Sweet kid, wanting me to be happy. I told him I had a new dream and I was doing it, running my bike school. (S McL)
Teaching a Reluctant Riding Student
The girl of 8 didn’t speak. She didn’t smile even when invited to ring all the different bells and horns of the dozen bikes in the Bicycle Barn. I chose a bike for her so that she could sit with her feet flat on the ground and her knees a little bit bent. I asked if she liked it and she said nothing. She was willing to take it over to the school yard so we put Nightshade in the back of her mother’s car and went over to our usual spot.
I told her in the car that 2,800 people had already learned how to ride there and she didn’t respond. I said I liked kids who were a little quiet or maybe scared. It made it all the more exciting when they started riding and grinning ear to ear.
I took the pedals off and she sat on the bike but insisted that her mother be right by her. In fact, she didn’t want me to teach her. I tried to show her mother how to push her, but she didn’t get the right speed. We compromised by having both of our hands on her back. I told her to turn the front wheel whichever way she started to lean, but she was basically just walking with the bike under her. I said “Have a seat and see if you can lift your legs a little bit, for just a moment.” She kept walking and I kept saying the same thing, “Sit down. You have to be sitting. Move that wheel a bit.” She was just walking. After 40 minutes or so, she got about a second of balance where her feet were off the ground and she was moving the handle bars to stay up. I said “That’s great! Did you feel it?”
After another 5 minutes of walking around, she did it again. “That’s what we’re talking about! Yea! You’re doing it!” She asked her mother every few minutes how much longer we were going to to do. Her mother said “A little more time. You’re getting it.” She kept thinking that a little more time had gone by, but we tried to keep her at it.
An hour or so into the lesson, she started going a few feet at a time. “Is that enough to get the pedals?” she asked. I said “No. You have to go all the way across the school yard and do it 3 times.” “That’s impossible! It’ll never happen!” she said. “If I put the pedals on now, it’ll be frustrating for you,” I answered.
Her mother said she did well with a specific goal. So that became our focus: earning the pedals. She still wasn’t smiling, but she stopped asking how much longer we were going to do. Now the focus was on getting the pedals on. Her stretches got longer and longer and she did one all the way across the yard about an hour and 20 minutes into the lesson. Her mother whispered to me “Your method is impeccable!” We got another 2 long stretches before the end of the hour and a half long lesson, so she was ready for pedals. Now she started talking. I heard all about her favorite books and things to do. My back was hurting from all the leaning over and pushing, but my soul was happy.
The next lesson I made her repeat the 3 long stretches and earn her pedals anew, but it wasn’t long before she got the pedals on and she pedaled right off, smiling all the way. (S McL)
Leo was a 6 year old who came to bike school with his mother and brother, who already knew how to ride a bike. They brought Leo’s bike, which was too big for him to learn on. He could just touch the ground on tip toes, if he sat on the seat. I invited them to look at some of my bikes and proposed Blueberry, the longest-term kids bike in my fleet. He hated it immediately. His mom asked him to sit on the seat and he refused. He started making fun of it. With utter contempt he said it was a baby bike and it was dirty and old. He wouldn't get on it to try out the size, so his mom picked him up and put him on, kicking and screaming. I said “Let’s leave your bikes here in the barn and take Blueberry and, just in case he has trouble, Mango, a slightly smaller bike.
He said he did not want his bike in my dirty old barn with all those stupid bikes and mocked the whole idea of a bike school. His mom had taken Blueberry to their car and we had both the boys’ bikes in my barn, but the boys ran back to the car with their bikes. Leo was crying and carrying on. He did not want to be here. He did not care about riding bikes.
His mother was unmoved. She told him we were going. I really wondered if this was going to work out. She helped me get their bikes back in my barn and off we went to the little parking lot by the abandoned auto body business in the neighborhood.
I had brought knee pads, elbow pads and gloves for Leo but he would not put them on. He did not need them and would not wear them. His mom and I decided to pick our battles and let him try it without them, though I was really worried, because falling and skinning a knee is what gets a lot of people turned off to biking for decades at a time. But it seemed as if we would fight over the pads for a long time, so we let him try it without them.
I started out by telling him about the brakes and he said he knew all about the brakes. Then I told him he should push off, when he was ready, and I would push him along while he tried to get his balance. He should turn the handle bars whichever way he was leaning. We started out and he did much better than I thought he would. He said it was very boring, but he was getting some balance. He kept saying how boring it was and asking how much longer he would have to do it. I said we’d just started and that he was doing great.
He did fall a few times, but he always said “I’m okay” and got up and got back on. He stopped saying it was boring after a little while. I explained that, after he’d gone across the yard 5 times with no feet on the ground, he could have his pedals, if he wanted them. He was turning all over the place and getting his balance pretty well. He wasn’t saying anything.
After about 40 minutes, he had gone across the yard 5 times with no feet on the ground. I asked him if he wanted pedals and he said “Yes!” Most people decide to do a few extra runs, for good measure, but not this kid. So we put the pedals on. I told him to start out with his foot on one pedal and to get his balance like that first, before putting his second foot on. We went around like that for a while and before long that second foot went up and he started pedaling. He fell quite a few times, but it didn’t bother him. He jumped up and said he was fine and went right back to it.
When it was time to go, he asked if he could do just one more round and we said “yes,” of course.
When we got back to the house, his mom asked him to say “thank you” to me. With great exasperation, he said “We always have to say thank you for everything!” His mom thanked me very sweetly and they left with their bikes.
One more bicycle rider launched into a life time of biking joy. (S McL, 2017)
Teaching Oliver
Oliver was a 7 year old with special needs. He’d seen an occupational therapist and he was having a hard time adjusting to second grade. He and his 5 year old sister came for bike lessons. The sister was normally cautious plus very attached to her mom, so I let them work together to get her balance and the mother did a good job helping her.
I tried to show Oliver how to balance. He was like a rag doll. He fell more often than I’ve ever seen a kid fall. It wasn’t bothering him, but he was not getting any balance to speak of. When he turned the wheel, he turned it too far and down he would go. He lay on the ground for a long time and seemed to enjoy the drama of it all, but he was not learning to ride.
Most people naturally put their feet down to catch themselves if they start to fall, but that instinct was missing in Oliver. When I first told him to put his feet down he said “You never told me that!” So I suggested we try the harness.
He gladly accepted the offer of a sky hook and we worked with that, with me pulling up gently on his back and then pulling up hard when he started to fall. Now he was using his feet even less to catch himself. He figured “Why bother when Susan’s got me?” A few times he fell and I almost stepped on him or fell on top of him. It was killing my back, but he was getting a little balance, but, with how strong my back is, it wasn’t going to work.
For the next lesson, I called in the big guns, David, my new teacher this year who’s big and strong.
The lesson didn’t start out well. Oliver was in a bad mood and he was talking about wanting to ride down the ramp toward the sidewalk and street. I said “No way!” He went off on his own and his mom suggested we leave him to himself for a while. When she talked to him in a few minutes, it turned out that he was bound and determined to ride down that ramp and he promised that, if he were allowed to try that, he’d get to work with David and the harness. I decided “Whatever works...” and we stationed all 3 grown-ups at the bottom of the ramp and let him try it out. He didn’t get to the bottom and to us before he fell, but he was gratified because that was what he’d been wanting to do.
So then he put the harness on and David started pushing him around, holding him up pretty firmly and, when he started to fall, not letting him. He started to get the hang of it. Gradually David pulled up less and less and Oliver was balancing more. On their long stretches of part balance and part being held up, they saw the world, as together they gave names to all the regions of the schoolyard where Oliver was learning to ride. They visited the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Canyon and had a really fun time together. Oliver was smiling a lot. David made what had been a dreaded task into a fun time and I knew that Oliver would get riding before too long.
I’m so glad I have the harness and someone strong and sensitive to use it in just the right way with really challenging kids.
Oliver did get riding after about five more lessons. He was very proud of himself and he put his feet down when he was starting to fall. (S McL)
Citizen Diplomacy
Kids' bike camp became inter-generational today when the aunt of our one student who was enrolled said that she didn't know how to ride either. She was a boat person from Vietnam who spend 2 years in a refugee camp in Malaysia. I was happy to have the chance to apologize for all the damage that our country did to her country, much of it ongoing, because of all the Agent Orange that was dropped, which is still causing birth defects and cancer. She and her niece both got their balance and learned to pedal during the class and feel very accomplished. (S McL)
Mariposa
One of our students took a little while to get biking and to get comfortable. So we did quite a few classes at the school yard before she was ready to tackle the bike path. We did a couple of times there and, on one of them, we had another student who was struggling even more who rode her same bike, so we asked her to take another one. At first it wasn't that comfortable for her, but she adapted. It was a new one in the fleet and I told her that she could name it, if anything occurred to her. When she got back from the lesson, she had a name for it: Mariposa, butterfly in Spanish, which she said stood for endurance, change, hope and life. (S McL)
Bike school in the rain
Everybody learns to ride at their own pace. I have a student from Ethiopia these days who's having a little bit of a harder time picking it up than some people. She started in a class that went off to the path, but she wasn't ready to join them. Plus her schedule is pretty full. We've been struggling to find times when she could come in to get some extra time at the schoolyard. The other day we made an appointment in the evening, after work, and it rained. We were both disappointed, but she came. She was a little cold when she got here so I gave her some snow pants and a heavy jacket that warmed her right up. We thought about it for a few minutes and then decided to see what we could do. It was raining pretty hard, but we were both warm. She made really good progress, getting a stronger push-off and going around in circles many times. It was the first time she'd gone long stretches and we were both very happy. When we got home, I gave her some dry socks and sent her off, feeling very accomplished. She's coming again tonight and it's supposed to rain!
I can remember another student, years ago, whose class was canceled because of rain, but she wanted to get some extra practice in, so she came anyway. That was the day she caught up with her class. (S McL)
"Follow your dream"
I taught two brothers recently, 6 years old. One, especially, had a hard time getting his balance and was very nervous. I used the harness, so I could convince him he wouldn't fall. It's not great for my back, but it's great for kids who are really scared, having a gentle pull up and then, if they start to fall, a serious pull up. Their mom mostly helped the brother who wasn't quite as scared and they both got a little balance, but both the mother and I thought it might be a long process. But on the second lesson, right from the start, the kid who had had the most trouble and fear the first time, all of a sudden had some more balance. He could go a few feet with no feet on the ground. Then he could go a few more. It was getting really exciting. I switched off with the mother and both kids earned their pedals by the end of the class and they were all so happy. The mother couldn't believe it. They wanted to help me name everything. When they heard that most of the bikes already had names, they thought "We could name the bells and the helmets!" But the most fun thing for me was when one of them asked me what I had wanted to be when I grew up, when I was little. I told them I wanted to be a lion tamer. He said to me, "You can still follow your dream. It's not too late." Sweet kid, wanting me to be happy. I told him I had a new dream and I was doing it, running my bike school. (S McL)
Teaching a Reluctant Riding Student
The girl of 8 didn’t speak. She didn’t smile even when invited to ring all the different bells and horns of the dozen bikes in the Bicycle Barn. I chose a bike for her so that she could sit with her feet flat on the ground and her knees a little bit bent. I asked if she liked it and she said nothing. She was willing to take it over to the school yard so we put Nightshade in the back of her mother’s car and went over to our usual spot.
I told her in the car that 2,800 people had already learned how to ride there and she didn’t respond. I said I liked kids who were a little quiet or maybe scared. It made it all the more exciting when they started riding and grinning ear to ear.
I took the pedals off and she sat on the bike but insisted that her mother be right by her. In fact, she didn’t want me to teach her. I tried to show her mother how to push her, but she didn’t get the right speed. We compromised by having both of our hands on her back. I told her to turn the front wheel whichever way she started to lean, but she was basically just walking with the bike under her. I said “Have a seat and see if you can lift your legs a little bit, for just a moment.” She kept walking and I kept saying the same thing, “Sit down. You have to be sitting. Move that wheel a bit.” She was just walking. After 40 minutes or so, she got about a second of balance where her feet were off the ground and she was moving the handle bars to stay up. I said “That’s great! Did you feel it?”
After another 5 minutes of walking around, she did it again. “That’s what we’re talking about! Yea! You’re doing it!” She asked her mother every few minutes how much longer we were going to to do. Her mother said “A little more time. You’re getting it.” She kept thinking that a little more time had gone by, but we tried to keep her at it.
An hour or so into the lesson, she started going a few feet at a time. “Is that enough to get the pedals?” she asked. I said “No. You have to go all the way across the school yard and do it 3 times.” “That’s impossible! It’ll never happen!” she said. “If I put the pedals on now, it’ll be frustrating for you,” I answered.
Her mother said she did well with a specific goal. So that became our focus: earning the pedals. She still wasn’t smiling, but she stopped asking how much longer we were going to do. Now the focus was on getting the pedals on. Her stretches got longer and longer and she did one all the way across the yard about an hour and 20 minutes into the lesson. Her mother whispered to me “Your method is impeccable!” We got another 2 long stretches before the end of the hour and a half long lesson, so she was ready for pedals. Now she started talking. I heard all about her favorite books and things to do. My back was hurting from all the leaning over and pushing, but my soul was happy.
The next lesson I made her repeat the 3 long stretches and earn her pedals anew, but it wasn’t long before she got the pedals on and she pedaled right off, smiling all the way. (S McL)
Chipmunk Talk
Teaching bicycle riding sometimes requires surprising skills. I have a 6 year-old student who was convinced he could never learn to ride and said he didn’t like bikes. He is now pedaling a bit, though he still says he’s not good at it.
From time to time, he reaches up and touches my side and says “You’re a chipmunk. Talk like a chipmunk.” Luckily, I remember Alvin and the Chipmunks and do my best to talk like a chipmunk. If I revert to regular talk, he complains and says “Don’t forget! Talk like a chipmunk!” It seems to make it more fun for him. I don’t mind saying “Go left! Go right! You can do it!” in a high voice if that makes him want to come to bike lessons more, and his mom says that she doesn’t have to push him to come anymore. He now likes his bike lessons. Plus I like talking like a chipmunk. When I was in education graduate school, they didn’t teach us this, but I’m filling in the gaps in my formal education as I go along. (S McL)
Teaching bicycle riding sometimes requires surprising skills. I have a 6 year-old student who was convinced he could never learn to ride and said he didn’t like bikes. He is now pedaling a bit, though he still says he’s not good at it.
From time to time, he reaches up and touches my side and says “You’re a chipmunk. Talk like a chipmunk.” Luckily, I remember Alvin and the Chipmunks and do my best to talk like a chipmunk. If I revert to regular talk, he complains and says “Don’t forget! Talk like a chipmunk!” It seems to make it more fun for him. I don’t mind saying “Go left! Go right! You can do it!” in a high voice if that makes him want to come to bike lessons more, and his mom says that she doesn’t have to push him to come anymore. He now likes his bike lessons. Plus I like talking like a chipmunk. When I was in education graduate school, they didn’t teach us this, but I’m filling in the gaps in my formal education as I go along. (S McL)
