Little girl learns to ride

A milestone was just reached in my house last month that I'd like to share. 

My three-year-old daughter asked for pedals to be installed on her bike, and it took five minutes for her to be rolling along under his own power.

She has no clue what training wheels are, never saw them, never had them offered to her.

Her story started at 19 months of age with a push bike, which had 10-inch wheels, no pedals, restricted steering, and made from wood. 

The seat was set to the right height so her feet could still reach the ground. 

Also known as a “run bike” it’s meant to help kids learn how to balance on two wheels before they have to worry about the rest of the actions needed to get a bike moving.

She needed good shoes, flipflops would have gotten me in trouble with her mom when the state of her toenails would have gone downhill. But there was no chain to get caught up in and shorts or pants worked just fine.

Early riding consisted of a running motion with one foot then the next to roll herself along. Coming to a stop was just a matter of putting both feet down.

She grew and the seat had to go up.

Steering wasn’t quite intuitive; there were times she went straight into the fence. Sometimes we had to be ready to grab her before rolling downhill faster than she could handle.

As her experience level grew, the distance between her alternating feet grew further and further apart.

Rolling down a little hill was quite the thrill for her, feet propped on the back axle studs she’d squeal as the wind blew her hair up.

She actually outgrew her pushbike before she felt ready for a pedal bike, so I got her next bike ready and removed the pedals and crank. 

At almost the age of four, she finally said she wanted pedals so on a Sunday morning when her mom was out of the house we put the pedals back on her bike and I gave her a bit of a show with how I used pedals. 

Before I knew it she was riding on her own through the park. I wasn’t running behind her to make sure she kept her balance, I was staring dumbfounded as I watched her stay upright and roll down the path.

Since that day she has been excited to ride her bike every day, thankfully at about walking pace so we can stay together.

I kick myself for giving my niece a princess bike with training wheels. Three years later, she was still having issues with balance.

Now that the mechanical aspect of learning how to ride a bike has been conquered by my daughter, we can start working on more important things, the things that will keep her safe when she’s riding on the road with other traffic.

Yes, she rides on the sidewalk right now, but she uses her bell to let pedestrians know she’s coming. 

She knows to look for elephant feet on crosswalks to see if she needs to walk or ride across the street. She’s still working on the looking both ways when she gets to the road but we’re practicing. 

When I have my bike. I’ll be paralleling her from the roadway. We don’t use busy streets for this.

The next time you hear someone say something is “like riding a bike,” you can reply with “it took years of effort and a lot of practice?”

Riding a bike isn’t intuitive, there’s a lot to it and every day I find something new to think about. 

It’s the reason that CAN-BIKE courses for people to become more confident riders.

But if my three-year-old can realize that riding at night without lights is a bad idea and might get someone hit by a car, there is promise that we can all figure it out.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.