How To Teach Children To Ride A Bike In 45 Minutes

Cycling Weekly

Tips on how to teach your children to ride a bike.

Transcript

00:00Teaching your child to ride their first bike is a big milestone but it can be

00:12daunting for parents. Children's bike expert and founder of Isla Bikes, Isla

00:16Roundtree, says it's actually possible to teach them everything they need to know

00:19in just 45 minutes. So is it really possible? I'm here to meet the lady

00:24herself. So I'm joined here at Herne Hill Velodrome by Isla now. Is it really

00:32true that 45 minutes is all it can take to get a child started? Yeah, I mean

00:36obviously every child varies and there's a really wide spectrum of how quickly

00:41children will get to grips with something like cycling but that's

00:45typically a fairly generous amount of time just to get them balancing unaided.

00:49Starting and stopping can take longer. That is provided that they're ready to

00:54ride and that coordination development that has to come first, it is quite

00:58important that you wait for that and don't try and force it on a child that's

01:01not ready and make it stressful. I certainly think there's a window when

01:06they find it easier to learn to ride and I would say that's typically between

01:10four and six years. If you don't get them cycling pre-six then they seem to become

01:15more cautious about it and perhaps find it psychologically more challenging to

01:20learn. There's perhaps two reasons for that, a heightened sense of fear as they

01:25get older but also they're further from the ground. If they're taller it's further to fall.

01:34So we're joined now by little Anna who's going to help us out today. What's the

01:38first step in getting started? The first thing is to choose a suitable place for

01:42your first lesson and somewhere nice and flat and a big open space is ideal.

01:47We don't want any nasty hills where our beginners going to whiz off out of

01:52control. It's really tempting to choose grass because it feels like it's going

01:56to be a soft landing but that actually makes learning quite difficult because

01:59you have to push quite hard on a small bike on the pedals. Now before we

02:03actually start riding we need to check that the saddle height's right for the

02:06child. We're looking to set the saddle height so they can just get the balls of

02:11their feet on the ground. That's the front bit of the foot where you run on.

02:14It's tempting to put the saddle lower so the feet go down flat but that actually

02:18makes pedaling more difficult. You want the bike to be able to wander at will so

02:23that the child can feel how it responds to leaning. So it's important not to hold

02:27the handlebars. You will see some parents trying to support them, make their child

02:31feel more secure like this but you actually end up fighting with them with

02:34the handlebars and it makes it more difficult. We find it easiest to support

02:39the bike while they get on between your legs and then support the child under

02:44their armpits and you can actually steer them by leaning their body then and they

02:50can feel how the bike responds to that. Okay so you're actually holding on to

02:54the child as opposed to fixing onto the bike. Exactly. You ready? Pop your feet on

03:00the pedals and you're going to look up. Off we go.

03:04Okay and you can see that we can steer the bike by leaning her body so we lean

03:10it to the right and she steers to the left and she's learning how the bike

03:15responds to the leaning and she's starting to go on her own. There we go.

03:21Look at that. Now Anna's balancing really well already but it's important that I

03:29stay with her because she hasn't learned how to stop yet. We don't want to abandon

03:33her and she's riding on her own. Look at that. Did you know you were riding on

03:40your own? Yes you were. I wasn't holding you. Congratulations. Can I high five?

03:48Anna was very very confident getting going there. Is that usually the case or

03:53are there sometimes more challenges with children when they're getting on for the

03:56first time? It varies a lot from child to child but also at what age you make the

04:02first attempt with them to ride. A child very often will pedal backwards or

04:07pedal backwards for half a stroke and forward for one and a half and then flail

04:11and their feet coming off. If you try for ten minutes or so and they're really not

04:16able to turn their feet in circles they're probably just not ready and

04:19they're better off continuing on their balance bike for a few more weeks and

04:22then have another go a bit later. When they're ready they will typically get

04:26that forward pedaling motion within 10 or 15 minutes. You can actually help with

04:32that when they pedal forward if you push them and when they're pedaling the wrong

04:36way actually stop pushing them so they feel the bike slowing down then they

04:40associate forward motion with pedaling in the right direction. Most children

04:45have got the coordination potential to learn. They develop that at some point

04:49between three and a half and four and a half. Once they've got that potential a

04:54session like this will get them going. Some children develop that really early

04:59as young as two and a half we've known and some not until they're five or five

05:03and a half. It doesn't matter it's important not to push them before they're

05:07ready. We don't recommend covering starting and stopping before they've

05:14actually learned to balance because it's overloading them with information. Once

05:18they've got to Anna's stage where they're balancing really quite

05:22confidently you're going to need to teach them to set off and to stop safely.

05:27So for setting off Anna we need to get the pedal in the position for you to

05:32ride. That's right now put your foot on top. Okay now look where you're going and

05:39I'm going to support you again and give a really good push and see if you can

05:42set off by yourself. You ready? Go. That's it. Now we stop the bike by using the

05:48brakes. So we've got a brake lever here. Watch what happens to the wheel when we

05:53pull that on. See it stops. Alright. So you're showing the child how the

05:58brakes work and it helps them understand what they're trying to do. Right we're

06:01going to do a little walking exercise. Put your hands on the handlebars and see if

06:05you can reach the brakes. Now when they first learn to ride they'll probably

06:08just pull the brakes on very hard to stop and we want them to get a feel for

06:13stopping progressively before they're actually cycling. So Anna can you walk

06:17with the bike for me, pushing it along. Just walk with it and then pull the

06:21brakes on. That's it. Stopped very suddenly then didn't it? Now do it again

06:27and pull them on a bit more gently this time. Okay a little bit more gently and

06:32both hands together. Gently. That's better. Yay. And again. Gently. Gently. That's

06:45better. So as we've seen Anna's been so confident she just can't wait to pedal

06:50away and get going. Is that because she's progressed perhaps from a

06:53balanced bike and not stabilisers? If a child's progressing from stabilisers

06:58we'd expect that initial balancing phase to take quite a bit longer. You still

07:03use exactly the same technique as we have today but when you're pushing the

07:09child along holding under the armpits they will tend to ride the bike like a

07:13tricycle so they'll be trying to push their body away and hold the bike up and

07:17when you're leaning to steer they will they will try and fight that. Carry on in

07:21exactly the same way as we did today but expect it to take quite a bit longer and

07:25encourage them to keep their body in line with the bike and they will get the

07:29feel for it but you might have to have perhaps a little bit longer or maybe two

07:33or three sessions at it before they're actually riding unaided. And in terms of

07:38giving advice to parents that might be really nervous about this process how

07:41can you make sure it's safe and you know take that stress and worry out of

07:44the equation? I think the things that we mentioned at the start about finding a

07:48safe place, big open space, you'll notice that Anna's wearing some little gloves

07:52if they do have a spill they're going to put their hands out and they'll stop

07:56them grazing their hands but the main thing is is not to abandon the child

08:00when they're actually riding, stay with them. It's really important to avoid a

08:04tumble at this stage because it can really knock the confidence and that can

08:08put a child off even having another go potentially for months and we want to

08:12avoid that so stay with them, lots of encouragement and if you're there until

08:17you're really sure that they can manage on their own and start and stop safely

08:20you can catch them if they get a wobble or lose concentration. And there's not much that can go wrong there. No, that's right and you can you can just literally grab them under the

08:27armpits and hoist them out the way and let the bike fall away, you can pick a

08:30little one up so. Brilliant, thank you so much for joining us today Isla and Anna

08:34thank you and well done.

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