chickhabit

1.) I bought a bike from Austin’s Yellow Bikes Project. They’re a non-profit volunteer organization that refurbishes abandoned bikes and releases them to the community for general use. They also sell a few ready-to-ride bikes and have work exchange programs—you help them fix other bikes and earn your own badass Frankenbike. I mention this mainly as an alternative to buying an expensive new bike or an inexpensive Walmart bike. Neither options appealed to me, and I was sick of borrowing other people’s bikes. I knew that it was only going to happen once I had a bike of my own, I bike that I loved. My green cruiser cost me $15 and she’s a beautiful machine.

2. Lower the seat and, if you can, take off the pedals. Listen: lots of bike jocks will be all sassy about the pedals. They’ll say, “Huh, huh, how is taking off the pedals going to help? You’re trying to learn how to ride? Cause you need pedals for that.” This is what you say to them, either out loud or in your head: “Dude, you don’t know the first thing about learning how to ride a bike as an adult. I have done my research. Show me how to take the pedals off or I’ll find somebody else who will.” You want to take off the pedals because all you’re going to do at first is scoot around on the bike by pushing with your feet. If you feel wobbly you can put your feet out to stop yourself. The bolts that hold my pedals were too rusted to remove and I got some big ankle bruises from the first few days of practicing.

3. Practice: go to a big empty parking lot. Push off a little with your feet, then lift your feet off the ground. This is how you learn the balance part of it. Maybe at first you can balance for a few seconds. It really helps if the parking lot has a slight downhill grade—nothing major, just a little dip or something. You’ll pick up speed and get the feeling for how a bike stabilizes itself the faster it goes. Eventually you’ll be able to push off and cruise for thirty seconds or longer, and this is when you can practice braking.

4. You’re going to be riding in no time, so you really do need to practice braking. Figure out how much pressure to apply to the front and rear brakes for a quick stop or a slower one. You can still put your feet out to catch your balance if you start to fall.

5. Honestly, you could probably do all of the above in one afternoon. I stretched it out over a few weeks, just to get comfortable with everything. I practiced for maybe 15-30 minutes every night. I don’t know what made me finally do it. I had figured out how hard to push off, so I tried pushing off and pedaling (instead of pushing off and coasting, which I had become a champ at). It worked! I did some slow circles in the parking lot. I’m hooked.

People who have been riding bikes for a long time often have no idea how to teach somebody totally inexperienced. They take for granted all of the little things you have to do in order to do what has become simple, almost second nature to them. I found this totally frustrating because the same people were obviously incredulous that this method would work. Just because they know how to ride doesn’t mean they know how to teach it. Lower that seat, remove the pedals if you can, and take your time.