Press Coverage
Over the past 40+ years, Susan McLucas and her other teachers have been quietly teaching people to ride bicycles, but occasionally the press takes an interest.
Somerville’s Bicycle Riding School isn’t slowing down
By Felix Shackelford
Monday, July 27, 2026
A student once asked Susan McLucas what she wanted to do when she was a kid.
“I said I wanted to be a lion tamer,” recalled McLucas, now 77. “And he said, ‘It’s not too late. Follow your dream.’ I said, “Oh, thank you. But my dream has changed – and I’m doing it.”
That dream is teaching people how to ride a bike.
As head of Somerville’s Bicycle Riding School, she and eight fellow instructors teach students ages 5 to 82, some even coming from out of state. The school was founded 40 years ago, with origins from when she worked as a bicycle mechanic at the Broadway Bicycle School in Mid-Cambridge in the 1980s. That business specializes in maintenance, repairs and builds, but because of the name got occasional calls asking for riding lessons. McLucas took on that need, putting up a 4-by-6 card at the shop to advertise lessons that drew about 12 students a year.
Eventually she was approached by adult education centers, and began teaching there. The school, now based out of a home near Davis Square, says it has taught around 7,000 people, with only a “handful” unable to ride away a success.
McLucas has perfected her own teaching method. She begins by removing the pedals from bikes to encourage learners to focus on balance. Once a student can repeatedly go 60 feet without their feet touching the ground, she reattaches the pedals and student and teacher begin to work on steering and distance.
Students wear knee and elbow pads; for older adults, she has wrist braces. School bikes come in all sizes and are fitted with handlebars and pedals padded for comfort. She encourages nervous kids with a bike basket carrying a stuffed E.T. toy or rubber ducks on the handlebars. “You don’t need criticism, you need encouragement,” McLucas said.
Her step-by-step approach is laid out in a 2020 video posted by the school on Youtube. It has more than 103,000 views and comments filled with appreciation for McLucas’ approach. People from Los Angeles to Australia share stories of how the video helped them learn to ride.
The school’s website is similarly full of testimonials of success from students and families.
“My children have always struggled with anxiety, especially when it comes to trying new things. We had tried teaching bike riding on our own many times at different ages, but it always ended in frustration or tears – until we found Susan and her school,” one parent wrote. “From the very first lesson, Susan was calm, encouraging and truly understood how to work with a nervous beginner. Her step-by-step approach, gentle coaching and positive reinforcement made all the difference.”
The cost of lessons are on a sliding scale based on what students are able to pay, with group lessons between $10 and $50 and private lessons between $30 and $100 – an additional encouragement to ride that goes beyond the personal. “I’m an environmentalist,” McLucas said. “I want the world to survive.”
McLucas has cut down her teaching hours, but she has no immediate plans to retire. She loves teaching, she said, and wants to keep living her dream.
Click here for the full article.
By Felix Shackelford
Monday, July 27, 2026
A student once asked Susan McLucas what she wanted to do when she was a kid.
“I said I wanted to be a lion tamer,” recalled McLucas, now 77. “And he said, ‘It’s not too late. Follow your dream.’ I said, “Oh, thank you. But my dream has changed – and I’m doing it.”
That dream is teaching people how to ride a bike.
As head of Somerville’s Bicycle Riding School, she and eight fellow instructors teach students ages 5 to 82, some even coming from out of state. The school was founded 40 years ago, with origins from when she worked as a bicycle mechanic at the Broadway Bicycle School in Mid-Cambridge in the 1980s. That business specializes in maintenance, repairs and builds, but because of the name got occasional calls asking for riding lessons. McLucas took on that need, putting up a 4-by-6 card at the shop to advertise lessons that drew about 12 students a year.
Eventually she was approached by adult education centers, and began teaching there. The school, now based out of a home near Davis Square, says it has taught around 7,000 people, with only a “handful” unable to ride away a success.
McLucas has perfected her own teaching method. She begins by removing the pedals from bikes to encourage learners to focus on balance. Once a student can repeatedly go 60 feet without their feet touching the ground, she reattaches the pedals and student and teacher begin to work on steering and distance.
Students wear knee and elbow pads; for older adults, she has wrist braces. School bikes come in all sizes and are fitted with handlebars and pedals padded for comfort. She encourages nervous kids with a bike basket carrying a stuffed E.T. toy or rubber ducks on the handlebars. “You don’t need criticism, you need encouragement,” McLucas said.
Her step-by-step approach is laid out in a 2020 video posted by the school on Youtube. It has more than 103,000 views and comments filled with appreciation for McLucas’ approach. People from Los Angeles to Australia share stories of how the video helped them learn to ride.
The school’s website is similarly full of testimonials of success from students and families.
“My children have always struggled with anxiety, especially when it comes to trying new things. We had tried teaching bike riding on our own many times at different ages, but it always ended in frustration or tears – until we found Susan and her school,” one parent wrote. “From the very first lesson, Susan was calm, encouraging and truly understood how to work with a nervous beginner. Her step-by-step approach, gentle coaching and positive reinforcement made all the difference.”
The cost of lessons are on a sliding scale based on what students are able to pay, with group lessons between $10 and $50 and private lessons between $30 and $100 – an additional encouragement to ride that goes beyond the personal. “I’m an environmentalist,” McLucas said. “I want the world to survive.”
McLucas has cut down her teaching hours, but she has no immediate plans to retire. She loves teaching, she said, and wants to keep living her dream.
Click here for the full article.
The Bicycle Riding School has offered lessons for kids and adults in Somerville for 40 years. Susan McLucas is the owner of the school who, along with seven other instructors, has been teaching people of all ages how to ride at local schoolyards.
Her red barn, located at 14 William Street near Davis Square, houses a selection of bicycles to choose from that are suitable for all ages. After meeting at the barn, the students travel to a nearby parking lot to learn how to ride a bike.
It’s a process that requires learning how to balance, steer, and pedal. But there’s much more to it, explained Somerville’s Bicycle Whisperer.
The school has a virtually 100 percent success rate. She says maybe 5-10 people over her 40-year career couldn’t ride a bicycle after being instructed. Approximately 6000 students have learned to ride at her school.
Many of the adults go on the bike path and can later sign up for a road riding session to learn how to ride safely on the streets.
Click here for the full article.
Her red barn, located at 14 William Street near Davis Square, houses a selection of bicycles to choose from that are suitable for all ages. After meeting at the barn, the students travel to a nearby parking lot to learn how to ride a bike.
It’s a process that requires learning how to balance, steer, and pedal. But there’s much more to it, explained Somerville’s Bicycle Whisperer.
The school has a virtually 100 percent success rate. She says maybe 5-10 people over her 40-year career couldn’t ride a bicycle after being instructed. Approximately 6000 students have learned to ride at her school.
Many of the adults go on the bike path and can later sign up for a road riding session to learn how to ride safely on the streets.
Click here for the full article.
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Two 45-second radio spots by Matt Shearer, Feb 10, 2022.
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By her own admission, when Joanna Lydgate heard there was a woman in Somerville who gives kids bike-riding lessons, this is what she thought: “That seems like a total racket. I can teach my own kid to ride a bike.”
Then Lydgate remembered that she and her husband had in fact already tried to teach their 5-year-old to ride, on multiple occasions, and that tears — not a life skill — had come of it. Suddenly, hiring someone else to do the teaching didn’t seem so wrong. (click to read full article) 2017 BIFF critics discuss
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| Download or click The Artery above to listen |
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Bicycle Riding School - Never Too Old to Learn "A Somerville woman teaches adults, more than two thousand so far, how to bicycle." (BUTV10, Nov. 2011) |
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CBS Sunday Morning "Pedal Power"
"Pedal Power (click to read transcript) is coming into its own these days, as Americans of all ages are coming to realize biking can be practical, economical, and good clean fun - or should we say, good GREEN fun?"
National Public Radio: The "Bicycle Whisperer"
Summer weather and high gas prices have bicycle shops busy this season. And adults that never learned how to ride are enrolling in beginner cycling classes in record numbers. Here in New England, Susan McLucas, also known as The "Bicycle Whisperer" (click to listen to program) teaches nervous adults at the Bicycle Riding School in Somerville, Massachusetts.
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CJAD Montreal, Canada
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