Hello,

I am 21 years old, but I just started riding a two-wheel bicycle few months ago. I can't keep my bicycle straight. Any advice on how to keep your bicycle straight and avoid swerving? Thanks a lot.

I have been teaching my 8 and ten year old daughters how to ride over the past few weeks and with my 10 year old daughter, who was the most nervous, I stressed that she needed to stay relaxed and release her death grip on the handlebars.

A bicycle wheel is a gyroscope and is the least stable when it is at rest and once it is turning it will resist being turned to some degree... if the rider and bike are well balanced , it should move in a straight line as long as there is no rider input.

Redirecting the bicycle involves push steering and leaning the bike into the turn to maintain one's position on the bike...it is only at very low speeds that one would turn the bars to steer the bike and when the bike is at this lowest speed that it is the most unstable.

It is actually easier to ride a bike at a slightly higher speed due to the gyroscopic forces generated by the front wheel which keeps it going straight... once my daughter learned this she was quickly riding solo and now rides with a great deal of confidence.

Know that at first you will find yourself riding towards whatever you are looking at so avoid looking at the road immediately in front of you, keep your head up, and look to where you are going.

Having a stable / upright bicycle will make learning to ride a great deal easier... it takes some time to learn how to handle a road bike and if you ride a mountain bike, you may want to raise the bars (if you can) or install a riser stem to bring the handlebars higher.

I also raised the bars on my 10 year old daughter's bike so she could have a higher hand position which also causes her to keep her head higher and look down the road instead of right in front of the bike.

My 8 year old daughter's bike is a bmx style and already has a high bar / grip position and she is an animal on a bike after only 2 weeks of solo riding... she practises her riding every day even if it is raining and this too is important.

As Sixty Fiver said -- the key to staying straight is all in where you're looking. Pick out a point far down the road. I'll bet that you can ride a straight line right to it. You will go where your eyes are looking. You'll also see road hazards -- i.e., broken glass, potholes, sewer grates, etc. -- long before you get to them and you can then gently steer around them instead of swerving at the last second.

Look down the road. As you get more comfortable looking further ahead you'll also get more comfortable with riding faster, as you'll find that you'll have plenty of time to react to anything in the road. And, as you'll quickly find, the faster the bike is going, the easier it is to balance, which inspires more confidence, which inspires the desire to go faster, which... But it all starts with looking 100+ feet in front of you. You'll see the big stuff and you'll learn to trust the tires will roll right over the little stuff.

There's all kinds of advice folks could give, but in the end it's like everything else in life, experience buffers out the extraneous stuff. Just keep riding. Also like everything else in life, if after some time you just cannot make it happen, well that's just The Universe telling you you're not a cyclist and there are worse things.

My only specific advice is to invoke the Ray Bradbury Principle**.


** - Don't think. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You cannot try to do things. You simply must do things.

A faster cadence in a lower gear is sometimes the solution. If you are mashing a higher gear the bike will tend to sway side to side and also jump as you put the extra pressure on the down stroke. Both make it more difficult to ride the bike smooth and straight. Think circles as you are pedaling for a smoother stroke and ride.

...make sure your handle bars are on straight?

does the bike track straight when you aren't riding it? Pushing it by the saddle, for instance. If not, then there are mechanical issues.

All good advice, to which I'll add:

Try to focus your attention on where you want to go, not what you want to avoid. If you focus on the pothole (bottle, sewer grate, etc), you'll probably hit it.

(I learned this trick while autocrossing years ago -- if you focus on the orange cones, you'll hit them. Instead, focus on the line you want to drive. The same works for cycling.)

Thanks for the replies. I am going to check if there is any mechanical issues (it's a re-furbished bike. I think the bike shop used different used parts and put them together.) I am going to raise my saddle a bit and try putting less weight on the saddle and more weight on the pedals.

FRom this description it maybe that you are trying to maintain your balance by your arms, attached to the your hands, which are holding the handle bars.

If you are, this could explain your experience. Balance is maintained by your forward motion and slight shifts to your boy weight against the seat, not by the position of your arms.

The best way to experiment and develop your confidence, may be by locating a gentle downgrade, and just coast straight, without pedaling, keeping relax grip on handle bars with your hands. Y0ou will not be pedaling which can shift your weight and give sensation of loosing your balance.

This may require several attempts, but each time, try adding some pedal strokes, and if you feel you are loosing balance, stop pedaling and regain composure. Also lowering your seat may help as well, to height your feet can easily be placed on the ground. If adjusted for proper leg extension, you may feel it is to high and fear of loosing balance is cause of arms for balance control.

I commend you for learning and wish you all the best.

One thing to do is relax. Bikes steer in large part according to shifts in the rider's weight. Shifts in weight are unavoidable when you are peddling. If you get tense, you will just increase the problem.

I have heard some sources claim that bikes are intrinsically unstable. Riding a bike takes constant minor corrections which soon become second nature. The Wright Brothers were cyclists. Unlike other people pursuing the problem of flight, the Wrights did not try to make a plane that was stable in flight. They realized from their cycling that a pilot could maintain stable flight by constant minor inputs.

In function, one can often find smooth roads with white lines painted near their margins. Just ride a bit to the left of the line and see how close you can come to riding in a straight line. Imagine that you are riding on a railroad track. You should be able to ride pretty dern straight in a fairly short period of time.

No-one can keep their bicycle straight. Ive been riding for 40 years and still cant ride in a straight line. I do however ride with curves so large in radius that they appear straight.
A bicycle is inherently unstable and will lean to one side. You need to shift your weight and lean to correct the curve then you overshoot and the bike leans the other way. As you gain experience, the shifts in weight and lean become very slight and the bike goes more or less where you want. Generally it goes where you look.

You can practice extending the radius of your swerves. Pick an empty car lot and ride some slalolm around tin cans. Extend the distance between the cans and eventually you will approximate a straight line.

Most people learn to ride as young children when we are much better at learning and can pick up skills easily. We also spend a lot of time training these skills (called play). I used to spend hours with my neighbours riding up and down, in circles, over makeshift obstructions.

Practice.

A short answer, but it's really the only one. There is no trick to it. You just need to practice until your brain masters the control feedback loop. It's like learning to juggle. I could tell you how your hands need to move to keep three balls in the air, but you'll pick a lot of them off the floor before your brain makes the correct connections.

I had a few beers before learning to ride a bike. I'm serious, helped a lot - just stay off the road.

Me too, but I was 5.

It's good that I am not riding on the road. I am just riding a simple bicycle on a college campus.

A few tips:

• Keep your cadence high, and pedaling pressure lower.
• Keep your hands in similar positions on the handlebars (as opposed to one on the hoods, one on the drops).
• Watch 100 feet or more ahead.
• Practice being able to look over your shoulder without turning the bike.
• Keep your speed high enough that you have adequate gyroscopic forces working for you, and fast enough that you don't lose "steerage."
• Don't ride in or on the side of ruts.

I'm sure there are a lot of other tips, but the most important is practice, and correct bike fit.

People who ride bicycle seem like nice people. I appreciate the fast replies.

C'mon over to the Road Biking forum and you may soon change your mind.

That's the key that got me to understand riding when I was 7. My dad (possibly the most patient man on the planet ) was walking/hustling behind me, holding onto the banana seat to keep me upright. I was looking down at the sidewalk, turning away from the edges by turning the bars, which kept throwing off my balance.

My dad goes, "How about you look up, to the end of the block, at the end of the sidewalk?"

I swear, I was riding on my own after about five more minutes.

I could say a bunch of over-analytical things, too, but nothing beat "look up."

Keep riding is all I can say.

When driving, it helps to look at stuff on up ahead of you, not the ground right in front of you. Maybe this would make a difference.

Some bikes have more stable steering than others, relates to how far forward the forks sweep and stuff. It can make it easier or harder to ride without hands. If you can't ride without hands, it likely isn't you. If the steering seems twitchy, that may be part of the reason, too. This can happen with cars as well. A little bit of toe-in in the front wheel alignment tends to make them go straight by themselves.

If you have a chance, ride some other people's bicycles and see how they are different- that might show if the problem is the bike or if it's you.

How do you walk? You've probably done it most of your life, but you'd have a heck of a time trying to tell someone how to do it over the internet- it's mostly just second nature and you don't think about it.

I couldn't help but add this --

You don't "steer" the bike with the handlebars. The only time you need to do this is probably while standing on the ground, off the saddle, while you maneuver the bike in & out of your garage or at an intersection or bike rack.

It really is about weight transfer and looking where you want to go. You'd need to become UNaware of the phrase "weight transfer", though. Just look ahead, lean your body, and go.

Your body's own balancing reactions are the result of millions of years of evolution. It's all automatic. Don't think too much. Let go, Luke.

The first thing to do is to have your bike checked to make sure there isn't a mechanical problem. A too tight headset, for example, will cause the problem that you describe.

I thought this thread was going to be about something else

And you were intrigued?