Learning to ride

I have to admit I have been a little slack on teaching little miss to ride her bike, mainly because most our bike rides often also include lil bloke and shopping. It's hard to ride your own bike and watch little miss and in the event she needs help I wouldn't be able to get to her in time. But lately, she's been giving me a hard time as one of her friends can ride for a few meters without training wheels and lil miss keeps asking me when she too will be able to do the same.

So we've started heading out training on the bike and me on foot just the two of us which enables me to catch her when she falls.

Unfortunately little miss is a little bit of a sight seer and likes to look at everything around her rather than the road infront. Which I have to keep informing her quick look infront. In one of our outings I decided not too, because it's become a constant issue of not concentrating on the road ahead. This caused her to clip an uneven gutter and crash. She was OK, didn't fall off her bike but was totally peed at me as if it was my fault IT'S YOUR FAULT DAD! she exclaimed. She got used to me constantly saying look out, gutter, tree, bump that She was waiting for my instruction. Which is what I was trying to stop her from relying on me.

We were back on the road in no time and headed off past her favourite park, unfortunately due to lock down all play equipment are closed and we're only allowed out for 2hrs of exercise. There were some kids on the equipment and she was in shock because she is aware of the virus and she informed me that the kids were being naughty and could get the virus.

We came across a road and we stopped at the corner and I taught her abit about road safety and the dangers of bikes. Fortunately kids bikes have breaks if you press backwards so I taught her how to keep the breaks on the bike. Check both ways and ensure there are no cars. It's important that we remain in control of the bike at all times incase we roll onto the road.

Once it was clear to cross we headed on our way and along to the soccer club.

Lil miss is still not confident enough to take on ramps or Hills and requires a bit more muscle development in being able to travel uphill. Down hill is still daunting for her and she isn't confident enough to remain in control of the bike as it begins its decent. So dad walked the bike down the ramp for her.

Once through to the other side we ran into a little trouble as the drive way is on a pretty decent decline and the bike got away from her as she was walking it. A training will clipping her foot and the bike was off crashing into the gutter, fortunately no one was hurt and we eventually made it home again just before dark.

I remember learning to ride my first bike and the liberation that I felt as a kid, I've tried in the past but lil miss would often easily exhaust herself out after a short distance. This time around though she had alot more stamina and we managed to cycle 1.5km circuit.

Once I can get her to focus on the road alot more I will start taking off the training wheels and hopefully that is relatively soon.

How did you go with teaching your kids to ride a bike? are there any tricks to it or is it something the kids typically pick up on their own?

Let me know in the comments section below.