AGAINST ALL ODDS, Portland native Katy Fletcher made it 25
years without ever learning how to ride a bike.
“I’m the baby of my family, so learning how to ride a bike just fell
through the cracks,” Fletcher says. “I tried really hard when I was 11
years old. At that point, everyone already knew how. Within moments of
trying, I bit it.” She shows me her scar. “I gave up after
that—my pride got in the way.”
For the next 14 years, anytime Fletcher mentioned her biking
inability, bicyclists would get excited to teach her—but it never
panned out.
Until a night in May when everything changed, where so many things
do, at a bar.
“It was about midnight. One of the people at the table had a bike my
size—I’m height challenged—so we went out to the parking
lot and they were holding me up. I kept saying, ‘You can let go… I
think I got it.’ Then they’d laugh, ’cause it was pretty obvious I
didn’t have it,” Fletcher says. “I was swerving all over the parking
lot.”
Now with her own bike, Fletcher’s been tentatively exploring, but
has some catching up to do, having grown up bike-illiterate.
“A bunch of people were sitting around in the patio at work talking
about bike routes. I had no idea what they were talking about,” says
Fletcher, who’d just wrapped up her floor shift at the Moon and
Sixpence.
“I’ve been out three times so far. I already have another scar. I
really need to go somewhere to practice.”
Katy, I’d like to recommend a technique that can be used to teach anyone to ride a bike at any age. It’s not at all scary and it helps you get confident with balance and steering before you have to put your feet on the pedals. I’ve seen a video but can’t find it right now, but here’s a detailed description of the method: http://ask.metafilter.com/14303/Like-Learn…
I agree with some of the commenters that this technique is improved by removing the pedals entirely at first so your legs can swing as you walk/ride the bike.
Another person who didn’t learn until adulthood actually exists in Portland? I’m 19, and I learned in March. Like ballet, my bike-learning was stopped with a tantrum and I just never really picked it back up. As one with no car, I was left with getting around on the bus, and my mother was always asking me when I would join the other “unwashed youths” of the city in biking everywhere. And then I started dating a bike commuter, and moved out of my campus apartment and onto Hawthorne, and I pretty much had no choice but to learn how to ride a bike. I learned the good old-fashioned way, having someone (my boyfriend) hold me up and walk/run with me, which helps because the hardest part is starting from rest. Definitely put your seat a little shorter than is ideal for efficiency, so you can easily put your foot down.