We are now bike training experts. Two kids down and one to go. I’ve got the expert tutorial on how to train your kids to ride their bike right here. And I do hope you know that I am joking.
#1: Make sure you have a proper, functioning bike. The first bike we tried with on the first kid, someone gave to her as a gift and they got it from the secondhand store. Turned out, it wasn’t functioning properly. My husband spent a year using that to teach our child until he realized the bike was the problem. Talk about frustrating for both kid and parent. I’m sure our kid probably thought – bikes suck. So, don’t try with second hand bikes is my recommendation. And also try to make sure that the bike is a proper fit – if the bike is too big then that will intimidate them as well.
#2: Have Fun. This is the hardest part b/c bike training will break you, especially if you have multiple kids. I remember when I was a kid and my dad was bike training me. I didn’t realize it then, but now I know he had the patience of a saint. He just stayed silent instead of saying what he was really thinking – I never knew how hard that was until I had kids.
I remember being so proud of myself that I was riding a bike without training wheels that I wanted to show my mom. I rode around the front yard in the grass, my head swollen with pride, and promptly ran smack into a low lying tree branch with my forehead. I was lucky it was my forehead b/c that’s made of steel and pretty expansive. :-p I landed flat on my back. My mom just turned around slowly and went back inside – I could tell my Dad was going to get it.
My roller blading experience wasn’t any better.. My husband broke his wrist b/c of my roller blading skills or lack thereof. I have a strategy of throwing myself in the grass instead of using that rubber knob that doesn’t stop anyone. I’m convinced people stop by magic on roller blades. My husband didn’t realize my strategy of drop and roll instead of using magic and tried to catch me – thereby breaking his wrist. Good thing the kids only get half their athletic genes from me. :-p
#3: Demonstrate. Don’t be afraid to get on that kid’s bike and show them how it’s done with lots of horsing around. This helps break up some of the tension. If you can fake a fall without hurting yourself, you get extra credit points. :-p
#4: Try, try again. If they don’t get it this year, they’ll get it next year. Don’t be afraid to stop for the year and try again next year if things aren’t going well. Sometimes, they just aren’t ready yet or you just aren’t ready yet ;-).
How you know you are winning? You do so well with the first child that the second child asks you not to bike train her. She wants her older sister to do it or anybody but you. That’s a win win. Below is a small video clip of my husband demonstrating to my daughter how not to ride a bike. For some reason, she kept throwing herself off the bike to stop instead of using the brakes. It was really scary, I thought she was going to break a bone – good thing kids are made of rubber. So, of course, my husband had to give a demonstration of what not to do.
Here’s a video of my daughter dive bombing off her bike for no reason (this was about the 20th time she did it):
And here’s a video of my husband (I think he’d lost his mind by this point in the day) and trying to demonstrate what not to do. I couldn’t look at him without laughing for the rest of the weekend:
Here’s a video of my oldest daughter becoming the newest instructor to her sister:
And now, years later, we have our final bike rider in the family and we were able to achieve our dream of biking the Katy trail as a family last summer. It started out rough because although our daughter had learned to ride in a parking lot, riding on a trail was a different experience. It was a two-way trail which she hadn’t experienced before, so every time bike riders were coming toward her, she threw herself into a ditch – hmmm, wonder where she got that from?
My husband was a bit frazzled so I had to step in here. Sometimes you have to save the other parent. Eventually, we were able to talk to her and figured out why she was throwing herself off the trail and I had her follow directly behind me and focus on me and not the people coming towards her. She was so brave and didn’t give up. Knees all scraped up and frazzled, she made it all the way to the restaurants in downtown St Charles and we had a nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant and some ice cream at an ice cream shop. Super proud that day, but best of all I could see my daughter was beaming with pride herself. So, it was all worth it. This gravel trail does instill some grit in you.
