learn to ride a bicycle

I am 25 years old and don’t know how to ride a bike. My parents just never really bothered to teach me. In any case, I’ve decided that I should really give it a shot this summer, but unfortunately I live in Chicago, and I don’t think it’s the best place to try this out. So, I think I might take a trip back home to Minnesota to learn. Any advice?

Fifth time, this time it was raining. It’s not soooo much fun when it’s raining, but it’s ok. I did much better than before. My confidence is growing. I can see myself biking around soon. The problem is the seat a bit – it’l like my bu@@ is hurting from too much biking :). Maybe I will get used to it?

this time we did a tour of about 5 hours – mainly on cycling roads (plenty of them around here in the Netherlands) and quite some riding on the country roads. I got used to cars passing by next to me and I don’t feel nervous about being in the traffic with the other vehicles any more. My legs are aching! My face got sunburned. But boy, I had fun! I learned to let go freely downhill and not feel nervous that the bike is going faster and faster. I learned so many things! I am so excited!

wooohooo finally today I did go out for the first time to try and bike. It went incredibly well and I did great! Technically after about 5-6 minutes I was just biking! So here is how it went:

1. bike: I used a small bike – on the advice of a friend who also learned recently + I put the height of the seat so I could easily put my feet on the ground if I felt off balance

2. place: chose a biking track with grass on both sides, almost no people/bikes and no cars around – that helped!

3. friend: my friend was helping to hold the seat for the first few minutes. then he let go of it and told me I was biking by myself. then he was running next to me for psychological support and then I started biking on my own.

4. stopping and turning: then we went to another open space with no traffic, so I could practice turns and emergency stops. I learned how to stop correctly and still working on the turns :)

5. next steps: practice a bit more in isolated areas to get full control of the bike. then bike with my friend into town to get used to traffic and all. and then start biking to and from university!

what a sense of libearation I feel! My word of the year is FREE and free movement is a big aspect of how I want to see myself and feel this year. I felt very determined to do the biking also, I think that helped chase away the fear completely. Free, free, free I kept telling myself as I was feeling the wind blow in my face and as I was breathing the fresh air…free from the bus…free from waiting on the busstop…free from the stupid idea that I cannot baalnce…just free :)

i dreamt i was riding a bicycle, but i can’t remember what the dream was about….

I started to learn when I was a kid. I wasn’t very good and the neighborhood kids laughed at me, so I never truly learned.

the bike i had when i was a kid was second-hand, and the seat hurt my crotch like hell, so i never learned.

this time around, i want to get a bike that doesn’t hurt me where the sun don’t shine and practice! it’s great excercise, and i won’t be needing to walk everywhere.

Back on the bike. I took a shot at this in 2006, but wound up learning to ride stoker on the tandem instead, which is a thousand times easier. A bunch of things got in my way, not the least of which was a hip injury. Now I’m starting all over again.

I think my big mistake in 2006 was not going out on the bike every day. Instead, I was trying to balance bike riding with all the other physical things I was doing, which meant that I got out on it more like once a week. This allowed the dread to build up to levels that were unrealistically difficult to conquer.

Practice!

I don’t know how! (Deepest darkest secret alert!)