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 daunting for

00:12parents. Children's bike expert and founder of Isla Bikes, Isla Roundtree, says it's actually

00:17possible to teach them everything they need to know in just 45 minutes. So is it really

00:22possible? I'm here to meet the lady herself. So I'm joined here at Herne Hill Velodrome

00:30by Isla now. Is it really true that 45 minutes is all it can take to get a child started?

00:35Yeah, obviously every child varies and there's a really wide spectrum of how quickly children

00:41want to get to grips with something like cycling, but that's typically a fairly generous amount

00:47of time just to get them balancing unaided. Starting and stopping can take longer. That

00:51is provided that they're ready to ride and that coordination development that has to

00:57come first, it is quite important that you wait for that and don't try and force it on

01:00a child that's not ready and make it stressful. I certainly think there's a window when they

01:06find it easier to learn to ride and I would say that's typically between four and six years.

01:11If you don't get them cycling pre-six, then they seem to become more cautious about it

01:17and perhaps find it psychologically more challenging to learn. There's perhaps two reasons for that,

01:22a heightened sense of fear as they get older, but also they're further from the ground. If

01:28they're taller, it's further to fall.

01:30So we're joined now by little Anna who's going to help us out today. What's the first step in

01:39getting started? The first thing is to choose a suitable place for your first lesson. Somewhere

01:44nice and flat and a big open space is ideal. We don't want any nasty hills where our beginner's

01:51going to whizz off out of control. It's really tempting to choose grass because it feels like

01:56it's going to be a soft landing but that actually makes learning quite difficult because you have

01:59to push quite hard on a small bike on the pedals. Now before we actually start riding we need to

02:04check that the saddle height's right for the child. We're looking to set the saddle height so they can just

02:09get the balls of their feet on the ground. That's the front bit of the foot where you run on. It's tempting

02:15to put the saddle lower so the feet go down flat but that actually makes pedalling more difficult. You

02:20want the bike to be able to wander at will so that the child can feel how it responds to leaning. So it's

02:26important not to hold the handlebars. You will see some parents trying to support them and make their

02:30child feel more secure like this but you actually end up fighting with them with the handlebars and it makes it

02:36more difficult. We find it easiest to support the bike while they get on between your legs and then

02:42support the child under their armpits. And you can actually steer them by leaning their body then and

02:49they can feel how the bike responds to that. Okay so you're actually holding on to the child as opposed to

02:55fixing on to the bike. Exactly. You ready? Pop your feet on the pedals and you're going to look up. Off we go.

03:02Okay. Then you can see that we can steer the bike by leaning her body. So we lean it to the right and she steers to the left.

03:12And she's learning how the bike responds to the leaning. And she's starting to go on her own. There we go. Look at that.

03:23Now Anna's balancing really well already but it's important that I stay with her because she hasn't

03:30learned how to stop yet. We don't want to abandon her. And she's riding on her own. Look at that.

03:36Did you know you were riding on your own? Yes you were. I wasn't holding you. Congratulations.

03:44Do you want a high five?

03:49Anna was very very confident getting going there. Is that usually the case or are there sometimes more

03:54challenges with children when they're getting on for the first time?

03:57It varies a lot from child to child but also at what age you make the first attempt with them to ride.

04:03A child very often will pedal backwards or pedal backwards for half a stroke and forward for one and a half

04:10and then flail and their feet coming off. If you try for ten minutes or so and they're really not able to turn

04:16their feet in circles they're probably just not ready and they're better off continuing on their balanced bike

04:21for a few more weeks and then have another go a bit later. When they're ready they will typically get that

04:26forward pedalling motion within 10 or 15 minutes. You can actually help with that when they pedal forward

04:33if you push them and when they're pedalling the wrong way actually stop pushing them so they feel the bike

04:38slowing down then they associate forward motion with pedalling in the right direction. Most children have got the

04:45coordination potential to learn. They develop that at some point between three and a half and four and a half.

04:52Once they've got that potential a session like this will get them going. Some children develop that really early

04:59as young as two and a half we've known and sudden not until they're five or five and a half. It doesn't matter.

05:05It's important not to push them before they're ready.

05:08We don't recommend covering starting and stopping before they've actually learned to balance because it's

05:16overloading them with information. Once they've got to Anna's stage where they're balancing really quite confidently

05:22you're going to need to teach them to set off and to stop safely. So for setting off Anna we need to get the pedal

05:31in the position for you to ride. That's right. Now put your foot on top. Okay. Now look where you're going

05:38and I'm going to support you again and give a really good push and see if you can set off by yourself.

05:43You ready? Go. That's it. Now we stop the bike by using the brakes. So we've got a brake lever here.

05:50Watch what happens to the wheel when we pull that on. See it stops. Alright. So you're showing the child how the brakes work

05:58and it helps them understand what they're trying to do. Right. We're going to just do a little walking exercise.

06:02Put your hands on the handlebars and see if you can reach the brakes. Now when they first learn to ride

06:08they'll probably just pull the brakes on very hard to stop and we want them to get a feel for stopping progressively

06:14before they're actually cycling. So Anna, can you walk with the bike for me, pushing it along.

06:19Just walk with it and then pull the brakes on. That's it. Stopped very suddenly then, didn't it?

06:26Do it again and pull them on a bit more gently this time. Okay. A little bit more gently and both hands together.

06:33Gently. That's better. Yay. And again. Gently. Gently. That's better.

06:47So as we've seen Anna's been so confident she just can't wait to pedal away and get going.

06:51Is that because she's progressed perhaps from a balanced bike and not stabilizers?

06:55If a child's progressing from stabilizers, we'd expect that initial balancing phase to take quite a bit longer.

07:02You still use exactly the same technique as we have today. But when you're pushing the child along holding under the armpits,

07:11they will tend to ride the bike like a tricycle. So they'll be trying to push their body away and hold the bike up.

07:17And when you're leaning to steer, they will try and fight that. Carry on in exactly the same way as we did today,

07:23but expect it to take quite a bit longer and encourage them to keep their body in line with the bike.

07:28And they will get the feel for it, but you might have to have perhaps a little bit longer

07:32or maybe two or three sessions at it before they're actually riding unaided.

07:36And in terms of giving advice to parents that might be really nervous about this process,

07:40how can you make sure it's safe and take that stress and worry out of the equation?

07:45I think the things that we mentioned at the start about finding a safe place, big open space.

07:50You'll notice that Anna's wearing some little gloves. If they do have a spill, they're going to put their hands out

07:55and they'll stop them grazing their hands. But the main thing is not to abandon the child when they're actually riding.

08:02Stay with them. It's really important to avoid a tumble at this stage because it can really knock the confidence

08:07and that can put a child off even having another go potentially for months.

08:11We want to avoid that. So stay with them. Lots of encouragement.

08:15And if you're there until you'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.

08:23And there's not much that can go wrong there. No, that's right.

08:25You can just literally grab them under the armpits and hoist them out the way and let the bike fall away.

08:29You can pick a little one up. Brilliant. Thank you so much for joining us today, Isla.

08:34And Anna, thank you. Well done.

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