General Cycling Discussion - people who don't know how to ride bicycles

I've encountered a few of these people recently. As in, adults who never learnt how to ride a bike. This saddens me greatly.

Is this relatively common where you are? Almost Everyone in New Zealand can ride a bicycle. One of the people I know who can't grew up in South Africa and riding around the streets was too dangerous. Another grew up in an American city, and noone ever taught her.

What's the deal?

I know several adults who don't know how to ride. Struck me as odd too, initially....
Growing up, every kid in the neighborhood rode bikes.

I've encountered a few of these people recently. As in, adults who never learnt how to ride a bike. This saddens me greatly.

Is this relatively common where you are? Almost Everyone in New Zealand can ride a bicycle. One of the people I know who can't grew up in South Africa and riding around the streets was too dangerous. Another grew up in an American city, and noone ever taught her.

What's the deal?


I still have a problem with adults not knowing how to drive a manual transmission car, so this biking thing is now really disturbing me:eek:

It happens. I am not particularly bothered by those that have not learned to ride a bike and do not care that they have not.

Growing up, every kid in the neighborhood rode bikes.

+1

But I do know one girl in junior high, never learn how to ride. Her family was filthy rich and her dad spoiled her rotten. He would let her on a bike so that she won't hurt herself.:rolleyes:

The older the adult gets, the more the fear factor of riding becomes. Adults dread the thought of falling off anything, let alone something that is moving plus the embarassment that goes with it.

I have often thought of how to teach those adults who are willing to try.

Ive found in the people I know, there seems to be a racial division for who knows how to ride bikes and who doesnt.

My wife never learned how to ride as a kid. She grew up fairly poor and about the time she did get a bike, she was diagnosed with T1 Diabetes and was pretty sick by then.

She does pretty good for someone who doesn't have riding a bike as second nature like those of us who grew up with them.

There are a couple of Scouts in my troop that don't own bikes (but know how to ride) and I thought that was bizzare. Fortunately I have extras to loan.

But hey, I know a guy that can't swim...

My wife is not only incapable of driving a manual transmission car, she cannot ride a bicycle either!

Even her automatic transmission car driving skills are questionable... :eek:


I still have a problem with adults not knowing how to drive a manual transmission car, so this biking thing is now really disturbing me:eek:

Some people just don't get exposed to certain things.

My Mom tells me I was swimming underwater at the beach before I was old enough to walk. Until I met my wife, I always thought swimming was instinctive...anybody could do it. Then I had to teach her to swim and found out there really, honestly, are some people who simply cannot swim. Oh boy, ever tried to teach someone in their early 30s to swim when they're afraid of a bigger body of water than a bath tub? We had to start at square one, wading out knee deep and kneeling. She does okay, now. Even goes snorkeling for scallops when the season is in.:)

I know a girl, 19 yo, who has never managed to learn. She has tried, but she has problems with her body control due to ADHD.

Only one adult (that I'm aware of) that I know never learned to ride a bike, and she grew up in Delhi, India. Like most of us, I could ride at a very young age. My oldest son asked me to take his training wheels off at 3. I was raised with the idea that all kids had bikes, because all of my friends as a kid had one.
On the other hand, I learned rudemintary swimming skills when I was almost 16, even though I had been snorkelling for years before that. At 42 I can still only barely swim.

One of my girl friends (a friend that is a girl, not a lover-type girlfriend) told me she couldn't ride bikes.
She guesses she just never got around to trying it out since her dad was always gone when 'till she was
13.

Next week some of our friends are going to help her learn :)

My bro-in-law asked me to teach him to ride a bike. He's 30 y/o. He asked me this over a year ago but he can't seem to find the time to learn. I think he's scared.

What's the best way to teach an adult to ride? I might be teaching my girlfriend to ride over the summer. I was thinking starting out with the saddle low enough that she can sit with both feet on the floor comfortably and 'scoot' along to get used to how the thing moves first.

Whilst I'd like to go with the way I was taught, which was my Dad running along holding me up by the saddle, I'm not sure I've got the strength to do that as she's not 4 years old after all.

I never thought of comparing it to swimming. Swimming is also something that is instinctive for me as I've done it since I was a child. Yet somehow I have always understood how people can find learning to swim a difficult experience. The strange thing is that I have a harder time seeing how learning to cycle is as difficult. Why is that?

Being inseparable from my bike through elementary, Junior high, and senior high.... it seems hard to beleieve... I definatly hung with the biker crowd.
But, I did have a friend who didn't learn till he was in 6th or so grade... I thought that was weird at the time. He learned specifically so he could ride to the places to fish which were too far to walk. I guess some people just need motivation :D

Anyone see the Friend's episode where Phoebe is given a bike, but can't ride it, so she walks it around? It's hilarious.

This might be an American thing. My (soon-to-be) wife grew up in Europe; she's never driven an automatic...


I still have a problem with adults not knowing how to drive a manual transmission car, so this biking thing is now really disturbing me:eek:

I still have a problem with adults not knowing how to drive a manual transmission car, so this biking thing is now really disturbing me:eek:

Ride a bike in an urbanized area and you will see plenty of people who do not know how to drive a car with an automatic tranmission.

Someone once told me there is a book called Rules of the Road. In it there are printed words that say stop for stopsigns, stop for red lights, and share the road.:eek:

I have to add that it used to happen a long time ago too.

My father was born on a farm at the beginning of the depression (1929). The farm was at the end of a muddy road, so they never used or saw bicycles. He learned to bike – a little bit – while in college. And walking 6 km each way for school or 0,5-1 km each way to play with friends was not a problem.

I never thought of comparing it to swimming. Swimming is also something that is instinctive for me as I've done it since I was a child. Yet somehow I have always understood how people can find learning to swim a difficult experience. The strange thing is that I have a harder time seeing how learning to cycle is as difficult. Why is that?

I can see the similarity--they are afraid of falling off (where with swimming they're afraid of going under/swallowing water) and possibly somewhat embarrassed that they didn't learn as a kid like most people did (same with swimming). And both require a certain coordination of movements that has to be learned. Actually, when I saw this thread the first thing that popped into my mind was the comparison with swimming--it used to really throw me when I came across an adult (other than maybe an elderly person) who never learned to swim. I still find it somewhat hard to understand given that I've been swimming since I was little, but have gotten more used to it because I have taught adult swimming lessons (very different from teaching kids--easier in some ways but harder in others!). I give people a lot of credit for wanting to learn as adults--it's never too late!

Swimming is even worse........ Many people cant swim to save their lives

I grew up with the mentality that riding a bike and swimming should be taught to every kid. I never knowingly knew someone unable to ride a bike until 2 months ago. I'm 21 and my neighbor does not know how. It strikes me as odd.

Everyone should know how to drive a clutch as well.

My wife is not only incapable of driving a manual transmission car, she cannot ride a bicycle either!

Even her automatic transmission car driving skills are questionable... :eek:

Yeah but can she cook? Is she good in...

Everyone I know at least knew how to ride a bike... they just seem to have forgotten how.

I still have a problem with adults not knowing how to drive a manual transmission car, so this biking thing is now really disturbing me:eek:

Yep, a vehicle that has "three on the tree" is pretty much theft proof today. 20 years ago I worked as a valet parker in California and nobody could figure out how to drive one of those. But, when I leaned to drive in Kentucky that's what it seemed most people had. I guess then it's a hyper manual transmission.

Back to the original topic. Getting through childhood without knowing how to ride a bike is like:

Not knowing how to swim
Not knowing how to pet a dog
Not knowing how to read
Not knowing how to tie shoe laces
Not knowing how to put batteries in a flashlight
In short... being a trekkie

I have taught several adults over the years to ride a bike. Being in the business will create that type of encounter. I found their fear of falling tended to run second to their fear of looking like new riders. But overall, adults were no worse to teach than kids. Each person has their own personal glitches to overcome. So we overcame them.

When I look back, I cannot remember not being able to swim or ride a bike. Well, yeah, I have vague memories of being taught both, but they have faded to the point where I like to think I swam out of the womb, jumped on a bike and never looked back. Both activities are so natural to me, I took a long time getting my head around the fact that not everyone grew up the same way I did.

I'm not sure I've got the strength to do that as she's not 4 years old after all.

Does a 5 year old really weigh that much more than a 4 year old???

:)

Swimming is even worse........ Many people cant swim to save their lives

...quite literally!

One of my two sons does not ride. I tried to teach him several times over the years, starting at about age 5. At about age 12 I was helping him and he got the hang of it and rode a few hundred yards by himself. Then he quit. I was never able to get him back on a bike and he never expressed any interest. I don't think it was a fear thing, he just didn't like it. He played baseball and football, got some injuries and didn't seem to care. He is now 20 and in college. His girlfirend can't get him to ride either.


My second son took easily to riding. I helped him for about half an hour and he was off on his own leaving me in his dust. I guess everyone is different.

Does a 5 year old really weigh that much more than a 4 year old???

:)

:p That's a good point and well made.

I guess before I go working out how to teach her I should make sure she actually wants to learn to ride and isn't just doing it to make me happy...

Well, I'll say this; If you don't learn to ride a bike as a child, you'll look aweful silly with training wheels on your bike when your an adult.

Almost happened to me. I didn't get a bicycle until I was seven, on account my Dad was unemployed and he said he had no money.
My first bike was a black Royce Union with a banana seat, but I had to ride it with training wheels for a while before I could get the hang of it. I looked silly having training wheels at seven, most children having outgrown them by then.

Wonder what goes through their minds when someone mentions the common phrase "It's like riding a bike" in a conversation?

My S.O. had almost no exposure to bicycles as a kid (borrowed brother's bike but was never taught by anyone). She has picked up the skills later in life.

I'd guestimate that in Hong Kong, 70% of the population under 30 years old don't know how to ride. Perfectly understandable in a city where people live in 30 story high buildings and hovers around 80-90% humidity for much of the year.

Most of the population in China can ride (of course). But that will be starting to change in the big urban centres where cars are flooding the streets. Sad, but I guess that's progress of a sort.