h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am a 28 year old with virtually no bicycle riding experience...restrictive childhood.

Any and all bicycle advice appreciated. I have not even purchased one yet but I really want to learn and learn well.

The traditional way is to have your father run along beside you holding the saddle and then letting go when you are not aware of it. This is probably not appropriate for you.

I suggest you find a large flat area such as an empty car park and cycle around. Get yourself skate boarder's knee and elbow pads and a cycling helmet. Lower the saddle on the bike so that you can sit on it with with your toes on the ground on both sides of the bike. Push yourself around without pedalling until you have got the feel of the bike. Then try pedalling. Once you are moving at a reasonable speed, the bike keeps itself upright with a little help from you.

Don't buy a mountain bike. The thick tyres absorb a lot of energy and mean that you have to work hard to keep going, which will make it harder to learn.

Don't buy a small-wheeled bike, as these are harder to balance.

Gnomon:_
Thank you. I printed out your ideas. They included a lot of things I had not even thought about(for instance,since mountain bikes are nice I might have bought one and had problems,if you had not educated me).
Andrea (who is grateful to anyone who offers advice on this)

Not entirely sure about the not buying a mountain bike. Don't buy a bike with thick knobbly tyres and very complicated gears, for sure.

You can get cheapish mountain bikes which are ideal for getting around the city, without breaking your bike on potholes etc.

If you are worried about falling off, find a park with nice short grass and start in a very low gear.

Get quite comfortable with brakes, gears and steering before you go near busy roads. Drivers do not always give cyclists enough room so you need to be in control.

Other than that - good luck - there's no better form of transport! Come and join the H2G2 cyclists club (link on my page) for more advice.

Sprout

But in a very low gear, you will be going slow, which means it is harder to balance. The faster you go, the more stable the bike is, but the more you hurt yourself when you come off. You have to find a sutiable compromise between the two extremes.

Mountain bikes aren't recommended for learners, the BMX style is much better because the handlebars aren't so low - I think this makes them easier to balance. Plus BMXs won't mind very much if they end up on the ground a few times.

I'm trying to teach my 8 year old to ride a bike, but it's not going very fast as he's not very interested. Too scared for some reason.

I guess it depends what the use for the bike is likely to be. If Andrea needs to buy a bike to learn on and then use afterwards, then a BMX could be tricky.

I wouldn't want to ride around town on a BMX...

Maybe something like a tourer - more upright than a mountain bike?

Sprout

PS - Gnomon - point taken about a very low gear -difficult to get going if your balance isn't good. Too high gear will also cause a problem.

I endorse the suggestion to find a large grassy area. I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was in my 40s - we went to our local recreation ground early on Sunday mornings when there weren't too many people about.
Getting up & cycling didn't take too long but I couldn't steer or change gears very well. Center parcs is also a good venue to try cycling on roads without traffic around - only pedestrians to contend with!
Unfortunately I have not practised enough to get confident on proper roads. One day perhaps, when I have time.

Been reading this thread with interest.

I have had manny patient people atempting to get be to ride a biKe, and could never the ballance thing right!

Is it someting that comes with lots of proctice or am I a lost case to four wheels?

I would so much like to cycle, but not in London.

Lightman

Central London cycling is dreadful. The agression, the pollution, the nightmare roundabouts... Out in the burbs is not so bad tho.

Actually learning to cycle is a question of practicing until it clicks. Once you've got the hang of it, you never forget.

Cycling safely on the road is just experience and confidence.

Sprout

My daughter only got to learn to ride a bike quite late in her teenage years and my wife was in her 20's when she learnt.

Aside: Of course you must look up a copy of Tolstoy's Bicycle (a real book) Tolstoy (Russian, famous, books and stuff) only learned to ride a book very late in life and the book holds info on people who did things at extremes of age.

Anyway advice on learning to ride...

Rather than a flat surface try and find a very slight incline - not a hill.

You can sit on the bike and let it roll down the hill a few times to get used to moving on it without having to pedal and then you can try brakes and things at a low speed without having to think too much about pedalling. As you can see the problem with riding a bike is the pedalling bit. I think the wheels act like gyroscopes when you are going at speed and as you probably knkow turning a speeding gyroscope is quite a feat. So as a previous person said the faster you go the steadier you are.

Or you could go to www.rentadadtorunalongsideyouwhileyoulearntorideabike.com

but I've heard they have a problem with their server at the moment.

Drat! Tolstoy, of course only learned to ride a BIKE late in life!

*Has yet to see a BMX with higher handlebars then a mountain bike.*

Do not, repeat do not learn to ride on a BMX. They are very specifically desgined for tricks, and are next to useless as a pushbike. They only have one gear, the whole body of the bike is so small its not comfortable to sit and ride on, (BMXer's will not use the seat at all when doing tricks or pedalling anywhere but downhill), and you'll be paying a lot more money than you need to...

Hi Andrea

Hows the bike riding going?

It's one of those things that you have to keep going at. Note that forward speed is going to make you more stable but be carefull because you'll hit things harder the faster you go. If you have a large park with a thin path running through the middle then that's your best bet. Riding over grass can be hard work.

Start in sixth gear (if you have a ten gear racer type), that will give you a good speed to get the balance thing. Try not to freak out at the speed and don't brake too hard.

Don't cycle anywhere near dogs. They like to sniff the wheels with disasterous consequences.

Once you've got some speed up. Try slowing down gentle (and I mean gently) with the rear brake and get used to how strong the brakes are. Practice cycling at slow speeds. It's tricky but you'll need this skill.

Good luck.

Let us know how you get on. Any queries, come back.

Good Luck. I wish I could get my wife to learn.

Looks like pretty sound advice from all contributors. Just bear in mind that although it looks difficult, if it really was almost nobody would be able to do it, whereas almost everybody can.

F

Good luck to your wife Fathom. All she needs is confidence, balance and a strong prevailing wind.

Be carefull with the wind
One of the worst mistakes you can make is to go with the wind, for afterwards you will have to go back against it.

Always start against the wind!

Still waiting on the bike purchase
Andrea (who doesn't know how to drive a car either)

Oh this could be so much fun!

Lower the saddle so that you can touch the ground with most of your feet for the moment. You should only touch with the balls of your feet in the real world but that's scary for when you're just learning.

Grab a friend for doing this. I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was 11 and I got all of my friends together to help me.

well...I live in a University town and a lot of people only use bicycles...so I am getting all sorts of advice....I should be buying within the next month.

I want to find a good model that will fold up....we are not supposed to have bicycles in our apartments but this sort of gets around the rule.