User talk:Dennis Bratland/Learning to ride a bicycle



Learning to ride a bicycle is the process of acquiring the gross motor skills to ride a bicycle, specifically starting off, balancing, pedaling, turning, and stopping the bicycle, as governed by the principles of bicycle and motorcycle dynamics. Many bicycle teaching pedagogies include bicycle safety skills beyond strictly riding, such as imparting the habit of always wearing a helmet, or learning age-appropriate road traffic safety rules.

Learning to ride a bicycle is considered an important rite of passage in child development, and although there are many adults never learned, they often are embarrassed to admit it. Historically, learning to ride was considered transformative experience for adults in the bicycle boom of the 1890s, and as bicycling spread to become ubiquitous, it transitioned from an adult skill to a childhood skill.

There are a range of different approaches to learning, and a number of learning aids ranging from the simplicity of the child's balance bike, harking back to the primordial dandy horse, to the familiar training wheels, to the high-tech Gyrobike.

Mark Twain
Taming the Bicycle by Mark Twain "Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live."

- Mark Twain

Frances E. Williard
A Wheel Within A Wheel by Frances E. Willard

Tolstoy
"I don't know why I like it [riding a bicycle]. N. [ Chertkov ] is offended and finds fault with this, but I keep doing it and am not ashamed. On the contrary, I feel that I am entitled to my share of natural light-heartedness, and that the opinion of others has no importance, and that there is nothing wrong with enjoying oneself, simply, like a boy."

- Leo Tolstoy

The Little Red Bike
"The Little Red Bike" Bicycling'' magazine.