Learning how to ride a bike

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The traditional way of maintaining the equilibrium when pedaling consists in using training wheels when you are a child, and once you dominate it move to just two wheels. This target can take more or less time, but ultimately we all reach it. Fortunately, you will never forget it.

Apart from the most used technique I have indicated, there are some others probably innovative methods that have demonstrated their effectiveness. Some of them are:

  • Using a balance bike instead of a bicycle with training wheels: This way the kid gets use to a bike shape and weight, as well as she develops the equilibrium needed to ride a bicycle.

  • Taking the pedals off a bike and lowering the seat: Here, the target is convert the traditional bicycle into a balance bike. The goals are the same as in the previous point.

  • Tell your child to turn in the direction that she is falling: This maneuver allows her straighten out and helps dominating her body and the bike when a falling is about to happen.

  • Raising the training wheels a little at a time, so that she thinks her bike uses such wheels, but in reality it does not. When she realizes that she does not use training wheels, she will not use they anymore.

There are additional techniques to learn riding a bike that have been developed thoroughly by experts in the field like this one.

Youngest cyclists

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After writing the post about the oldest bikers, my intention was to reflect who were the youngest cyclist in the world. I could not find the answer on the net, so I am going to explain a little about the process a lot of us have experienced with great pleasure.

Learning to ride a bicycle, a two-wheeled bike without training wheels, mostly occurs sometime between the ages of 3 and 8 (although some adults learn it because they did not have the opportunity when they were young, and fortunately, people do not forget how to ride). The average age is 5. Indeed, most kids just learn when they are ready if their families can provide them with bikes. Curiously, a systematic review found that children who started biking at ages between 3 and 5 suffer higher injuries than those who were 3 to years old.

Sliding the 3 to 5 group, kids between 3 and 4 years are in significant gross motor skills development. For example, they learn to balance on one foot, walk on their tiptoes, climb, hop and skip. A 3 years old child can pedal, use a handlebar and ride a tricycle, but she does not have the balance required to ride a two-wheeled bicycle. Better, she can ride a bike with training wheels and after she dominates it, increases coordination and muscle, move to a bike without training ones. It is a good idea use foot brakes instead of hand brakes in this age group.

Regarding the 4 and 5 group, these children are ready for two-wheeled bicycles. Most 5-year-old kids have balance and coordination enough to ride a bike without training wheels. However, they might not understand the risks of riding near traffic or without paying attention to crossings. Then, adult supervision is required to avoid falls and injuries.

Oldest bikers

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Health and bike have been studied as a cooperative concepts: The more cycling (under some limits), the better health. Indeed, more and more doctors recommend riding bikes to maintain a healthy personal state. Some of them also prescribe bike rides. Such piece of news has leaded me to investigate who are the oldest bicyclers in the world.

It is not easy an easy task to determine what riders are the oldest. Commonly, local newspapers or websites announce feats made by senior citizens, although it is difficult to establish which ones are the oldest. Nevertheless and as you can imagine, speed is not a point to keep in mind here. Better, I have focused on their age. At the time I am writing this post, the Guinnes World Record recognizes Lynnea C. Salvo as the older woman to cross the USA between Oceanside, California to Bethany Beach, Delaware, on 23 October 2016. She rode 5,090.37 km through temperatures which sometimes exceed 37.78 degrees Celsius. Cheers for her!

Another senior citizen who was in shape was Rush, a Dublin man. This retired teacher was the oldest person to circumnavigate the globe by bicycle. Native of Dermot Higgins, he spent the first nine months of his retirement pedaling 31,000 km in an attempt to break a world record and raise funds for Trócaire. The USA, Portugal or Spain…, he has not limits with his beloved bike.

And the oldest person on a bike I have discovered is Octavio Orduño who rode his bike being 103, at least. This hero was born in Long Beach (USA) and as a youngster, he always wanted biking and back in 2019 would not accept changing his bicycle by a car. Good choice! He probably continue taking a ride everyday around the neighborhood, similarly as he has done for the last four decades. Due to his age, he had to trade in his street-bike for a three-wheeler, on account of his faltering balance. He is such a biker example that when his wife proposed gifting him an electric wheelchair, he refused it: “Why would I [use a wheelchair]?” he asked. Here, you can see a video about he.

The longest bridge for bikes

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As the time I am writing this post, the Skyway elevated pathway in Xiamen (China) holds the international record of the longest infrastructure of this kind. Xiamen, as well as most of the largest cities in the world, suffers from excessive road traffic, pollution and noise. China was full of bicycles decades ago, and authorities want to come back to it, at least partly. Indeed, bikes were one of the main treasures every citizen should have for Mao Zedong.

The Skyway was designed by the Danish architecture studio Dissing + Weitling, and constitutes a 7.6 kilometers long and 4.8 meters width wonder for riders. Moreover, it has pedestrian crossings, parking areas for bikes, access ramps and several intermodality stations, where you can get public transport. 30,000 led lights illuminate it.

Riding on it is so impressive that thousands of people use it everyday. From an architecture perspective, it has received awards like the Danish Design Award in the category of Livable Cities in 2019.