Bicycles

Today I taught Destroyer to ride her bike. That is to say, she’s ridden it a few feet before, but this evening she did six or seven laps of the park opposite our house.

To begin with, I had to hold her. The golden rule is to always hold your child’s torso, and not the bike, so they can feel where they’re being supported and not get accustomed to the bike holding itself up. Then Destroyer began to stop whenever she rode into a bush, so I concentrated on getting her to look at different objects in the distance and cycle towards them. She was nervous about riding downhill, so we got over that, and then gradually I began to just push her on the up hills and not hold her at all on the rest.

So she did a few laps, always stopping and starting, but then about the fourth or fifth, lights went on in her head. Or she spied her mother coming out the house and wanted to impress us. Then she didn’t stop, and just kept going round and round, despite having a bike that weighs a ton and not having her sister’s brute strength.

Between La Serpiente’s unicycling and Destroyer’s cycling, we’re now well on the way. At home afterwards, eating strawberry shortcake, they were both agog to watch YouTube videos on how to wheelie and bunnyhop. So that will be the next big adventure, perhaps ..