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

01:39in getting started?

01:40The first thing is to choose a suitable place for your first lesson. Somewhere nice and flat

01:46and a big open space is ideal. We don't want any nasty hills where our beginner's going to

01:51whizz off out of control. 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 you have to

02:00push quite hard on a small bike on the pedals. Now, before we actually start riding, we need

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

02:09so they can just get the balls of their feet on the ground. That's the front bit of the foot

02:13where you run on. It's tempting to put the saddle lower so the feet go down flat, but that

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

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

02:28You will see some parents trying to support them and make their child feel more secure

02:32like this, but you actually end up fighting with them with the handlebars and it makes

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

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

02:49body then and they can feel how the bike responds to that.

02:53Okay, so you're actually holding onto the child as opposed to fixing onto the bike.

02:57Exactly.

02:58You ready? Pop your feet on the pedals and you're going to look up. Off we go. Okay. And you

03:06can see that we can steer the bike by leaning her body. So we lean it to the right and she

03:11steers to the left. And she's learning how the bike responds to the leaning. And she's

03:19starting to go on her own. There we go. Look at that. Now, Anna's balancing really

03:26well already, but it's important that I stay with her because she hasn't learned how to

03:31stop yet. We don't want to abandon her. And she's riding on her own. Look at that. Did

03:38you know you were riding on on your own? Yes, you were. I wasn't holding you. Congratulations.

03:45Give me a high five.

03:47Anna was very, very confident getting going there. Is that usually the case or are there

03:53sometimes more challenges 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

04:02them to ride. A child very often will pedal backwards or pedal backwards for half a stroke

04:09and forward for one and a half and then flail and their feet coming off. If you try for 10

04:14minutes or so and they're really not able to turn their feet in circles, they're probably

04:18just not ready and they'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 that forward

04:27and pedalling motion within 10 or 15 minutes. You can actually help with that when they

04:33pedal forward if you push them. And when they're pedalling the wrong way, actually stop pushing

04:37them so they feel the bike slowing down. Then they associate forward motion with pedalling

04:43in the right direction. Most children have got the coordination potential to learn. They

04:48develop that at some point between three and a half and four and a half. Once they've got

04:53that potential, a session like this will get them going. Some children develop that really

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

05:03a half. It doesn't matter. It'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

05:15because it's overloading them with information. Once they've got to Anna's stage where they're

05:21balancing really quite confidently, you're going to need to teach them to set off and to

05:26stop safely. So 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. Now look where you're going and I'm going to

05:39support you again and give a really good push and see if you can set off by yourself. You

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

05:50here. Watch what happens to the wheel when we pull that on. See it stops. So you're showing

05:57the child how the brakes work and it helps them understand what they're trying to do. Right,

06:00we're going to just 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 just pull the

06:09brakes on very hard to stop and we want them to get a feel for stopping progressively before

06:14they'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

06:25it? Now do it again and pull them on a bit more gently this time.

06:30Okay, a little bit more gently and both hands together. Gently. That's better. Yay! And

06:39again. Gently. Gently. That's better.

06:45So 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 balance bike and not stabilizers? If a child's

06:56running from stabilizers, we'd expect that initial balancing phase to take quite a bit

07:02longer. You still use exactly the same technique as we have today. But when you're pushing the

07:08child along holding under the armpits, they will tend to ride the bike like a tricycle.

07:14So they'll be trying to push their body away and hold the bike up. And when you're leaning

07:18to 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

07:27the bike. And they will get the feel for it, but you might have to have perhaps a little

07:32bit longer or 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

07:55their hands out and they'll stop them grazing their hands. But the main thing is not to abandon the

08:00child when they're actually riding. Stay with them. It's really important to avoid a tumble at this stage,

08:05because it can really knock the confidence and that can put a child off even having another go

08:10potentially for months. And we 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. And you can just literally grab them under the armpits

08:27and hoist them out the way and let the bike fall away. You can pick a little one up.

08:31Brilliant. Thank you so much for joining us today, Isla. And Anna,

08:34Thank you. Well done.

08:36And Anna thank you. Well done.

08:51Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

08:54Cool.

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