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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Adults who can't ride bikes

97 replies

LikeDylanInTheMovies · 21/09/2016 12:03

To find it unusual when adults have never learned to ride a bike? (Health/disability isdues aside)?

I was out for a walk with a friend and his baby daughter. The path also doubles as a cycle path and several people wizzed past with toddlers on bike seats. 'Another few years and they'll be you and [baby name] I commented.

He then sheepishly admitted that he couldn't ride a bike. He'd never learned as a kid as he'd never been interested. His older brother's hand me down bike had been kept for him, but he'd never shown any interest and his parents never forced the issue.

He's quite sporty and active and has been since he was a kid, so I was slightly surprised, more so that his parents didn't encourage him more. Bombing around with your mates seems such a big part of growing up and I didn't know anyone who couldn't ride a bike even if they didn't own one themselves or ride that often.

Now he has a daughter he regrets not learning as he won't be able to teach his daughter. So odds are it will fall to me to teach her how to ride or teach him first.

Out of interest, would an adult need to 'learn' to ride a bike in the way a child needs to work on their balance, confidence and coordination? Or would a reasonably competent and fit adult be able to just hop on the bike and pedal away despite not learning as a nipper?

OP posts:

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 21/09/2016 12:56

Nobody taught me to ride a bike. I taught myself at 15, but it was hard (like someone else said, more conscious of physics/gravity/falling off, I suppose).

I can ride now. Although I fell off and broke some bones last time I did, so I haven't in a while!

LotsOfShoes · 21/09/2016 12:56

Yabu. I only just learned and I'm 30. I grew up in a big, crowded city and there was nowhere safe to bike. I tried to learn in my 20s but didn't manage bc of all the people pointing at me and making comments when trying to learn. So I gave up until recently as DH offered to teach me and we found a big empty underground parking lot where I could learn without people staring. Nice attitude there, OP.

sillyoldfool · 21/09/2016 12:58

Our council fund lessons for adults to learn, they take the pedals off the bikes so they're adult sized balance bikes!

Gottagetmoving · 21/09/2016 12:58

No one taught me to ride a bike. I taught myself when I was 10.
I never had a bike but friends did so I borrowed a bike and kept falling off until I learned not to.
Some people just never get the chance or are not interested. I doubt it causes them too much inconvenience.

NewPotatoes · 21/09/2016 13:03

This thread has elements of sneeriness and blinkeredness - OP, you've had lots of people telling you exactly why they didn't learn to ride a bike as a child, and lots of them involve poverty, lack of space, lack of money and lack of safe place to ride. Hadn't any of these occurred to you?

This is like those sneery threads about adults who can't swim, when it doesn't appear to occur to some of the incredulous that (unless a compulsory element of school) it requires money, time and a local pool or transport to one, not to mention parents who have swimming on their radar as 'essential life skill' rather than 'middle-class frill like piano lessons, because when is my child likely to need to swim?'

EmpressKnowsWhereHerTowelIs · 21/09/2016 13:04

I had one for a bit when I was a kid but was never that interested. A friend decided she was going to teach me to ride hers a few years ago but I was falling off too often & it hurt too much, so I decided to stick to feet & public transport.

Same principle as not everybody driving. Some of us do, some of us don't.

LiviaDrusillaAugusta · 21/09/2016 13:08

I learnt to ride a bike as a child but I live in a very hilly area. And since losing control and crashing into a parked van when I was 16, I haven't been keen to try it again.

I always wonder why so many people on MN struggle with certain concepts - non drivers, non cyclists, people who keep their shoes on in the house.... they pretend shock at the idea of someone doing it differently!

luckylavender · 21/09/2016 13:08

I can't ride a bike and neither can either of my best friends - different parts of the country. My mother can't either and my father can't swim.

carefreeeee · 21/09/2016 13:14

Saying he can't teach his daughter is mad though - parents in wheelchairs manage to 'teach' their kids to walk surely - it's just a case of providing a suitable bike and giving chance to practice and encouragement. You don't tell them what to do like knitting - it's something your body learns.

Riding on the road is a different matter but sounds like that's be a few years off yet anyway

PlymouthMaid1 · 21/09/2016 13:20

When my children were small we did not live in a bike friendly place (hilly, busy streets and tiny yard for garden) but I really didn't want them to be adults who couldn't ride a bike so we made a big effort to take them to parks etc to learn. I don't ride bikes well for similar childhood reasons and would always rather walk than ride but it is an fairly important life skill in my book not in a life saving way like learning to swim but in 'not feeling lie a wally and being left out' kind of way.

corythatwas · 21/09/2016 13:26

Dh was never allowed a bike as a child (very busy part of London, nowhere safe to ride it), but taught himself as an adult. Took him a few spills but he went on to become very confident.

We both tried to teach dd but she had severe balancing issues as a child and never got the hang of it.

I used to be a confident bike rider growing up in Scandinavia, but can't cope with the level of traffic here so haven't ridden for decades.

WashingMatilda · 21/09/2016 13:27

Oh my god.
This thread has reminded me of when I was an actor and I had a job in a shit tv comedy pilot about Tandemming.
In one shot me and another guy needed to ride around on this tandem together.
The set was rigged up, hair and makeup done, lighting set, director counted our cue in and the other actor sheepishly says....
'Oh, sorry I can't ride a bike'
We had to re shoot the whole thing with just me on this massive tandem and cut the shots just in time so you couldn't see he wasn't on it. It was hilarious way funnier than the original
Bless him, he was mortified, said he was going to tell them at the audition but they didn't ask (I suppose they didn't think to??) and he really needed the money.
I'd never heard of an adult not knowing how to ride a bike before then, OP, but guess it's more common than we thought...

SnugglySnerd · 21/09/2016 13:30

I did ride a bike as a child but I can't ride one now. That saying about it being "just like riding a bike, you never forget" is clearly bollocks.
I would be too scared on the road anyway.

NewPotatoes · 21/09/2016 13:35

I suspect that at bottom this is a mainstay of the enduring fascination of Mn - discovering, especially for people who have always lived among people who make much the same kinds of decisions as they do about what is 'normal', that Other People Think Their Way Is Equally Normal, whether it's having a child at fifteen or fifty, taking your shoes off in the house, voting Labour/Brexit/the Monster Raving Loony Party etc etc.

I will hold my hands up and say that I never realised until I came on Mn how many women were hugely emotionally engaged in the cleanliness of their houses.

End of derail.

Foxyloxy1plus1 · 21/09/2016 13:36

My parents couldn't afford a bike when I was young, so I didn't have the opportunity. My children both had bikes, first with stabilisers and then without. I don't think it was so much a question of teaching them, more getting them confident with stabilisers and then letting them try without somewhere fairly soft.

Original poster

LikeDylanInTheMovies · 21/09/2016 13:36

OP, you've had lots of people telling you exactly why they didn't learn to ride a bike as a child, and lots of them involve poverty, lack of space, lack of money and lack of safe place to ride. Hadn't any of these occurred to you?

Yes of course, they have but none apply in the case of my friend. I will admit that in his circumstances - sporty, supportive family not living in difficult financial circumstances, siblings who could ride, access to a bike and growing up in a suburban location - that it came as a surprise when I found out he couldn't.

OP posts:

madein1995 · 21/09/2016 13:39

I can't ride a bike - as a child my balance was crap, it's getting better now but nothing like it should be. My Co ordination isn't very good, for example despite years of my parents trying I only 'got' how to do up shoelaces at 17 I just avoided laces until then. I'd give my child a bike and hopefully a partner/frirnd etc would be able to help them learn.

WomensNet · 21/09/2016 13:43

Never learnt or had a bike as a child. Taught myself how to ride at 35yrs to the delight of our neighbourhood kids

tibbawyrots · 21/09/2016 13:48

I can't ride a bike either. Or swim. Or drive. The bike one I tried and just couldn't get it. The swimming I had my head held under water at a young age by my class teacher and can't get past that innate fear. The driving I have taken so many lessons but I can't make it stick in my head what to do, it just has never "clicked" and I'm not wasting any more money on lessons.

Oh and I have a loo brush.

Thurlow · 21/09/2016 13:50

I did ride as a teenager, my parents taught me like most kids are taught at about 4.

Then I hit my late teenage years and stopped cycling and haven't been on a bike since, which is over 20 years. So I'd definitely say that I can't ride.

I am tempted to get lessons though, and learn again - it will be handy for the schools and nursery runs. I'd definitely want lessons in road safety first thought before I got on a bike with a child on the back.

I do think it's slightly more surprising that someone never learnt to ride a bike as a child (but only slightly, as there are so many reasons given on this thread), but it's not very surprising that someone who might have learnt as a kid didn't keep it up and now says as an adult that they can't ride.

MrsMook · 21/09/2016 14:11

I learned at 19!

My parents weren't bothered about that kind of thing. My brother learned when we lived on a quiet road where children played out, but I grew up on a major road out of school catchment so didn't play out with friends. I had a hand-me-down bike, left it out and the dog chewed the saddle up. It was never fixed or replaced. I was offered a bike at 11, but didn't realistically see a chance to learn to ride on it and wasn't interested. At 19, buoyed by having learned to swim at 16, I decided to go down to Halfords and splurge my first salary from my new holiday job on "the cheapest bike that fits me". I had to roll it home. By the end of the weekend practicing on my own on quiet roads, I'd found my balance and sussed the gears. I did a bit of cycling in my 20s with friends. The trickiest part for me is hand signals. I've not ridden for a few years while my DCs have been young, but they're approaching the age for learning, so hopefully I can dust my bike off again.

Swimming at 16, cycling at 19, running at 32... watch out Brownlee Brothers, here I come! Better late than never!

Gabilan · 21/09/2016 14:13

It isn't an essential life skill like swimming

I'm in my 40s and can't swim. Thus far, it hasn't been a problem. I do cycle every day but recognise that whilst it's essential for me, it's not necessarily a problem for anyone else.

Mynestisfullofempty · 21/09/2016 14:24

Well they say you never forget how to ride a bike, but I was always on my bike as a child, but when I got on my daughter's bike a few years ago it was clear that that saying doesn't apply to me. Much to her hilarity I wobbled all over the road* and then fell off!

*A very quiet private road that had no traffic at the time, so I wasn't a danger to anyone but myself.

LunaLoveg00d · 21/09/2016 14:31

Bikes aren't expensive though, or don't have to be. Growing up, I don't think I ever had a new bike. Mine was always a hand me down from an older cousin, friend of the family or bought cheaply from the small ads in the paper, and once I'd grown out of it, it got passed on again. Everyone in my class at school could ride a bike as we all did cycling proficiency when we were 10 or 11. Nobody didn't do it.

I hadn't ridden a bike for years, probably 25 years when I got myself a bike last year on Gumtree (£20, not expensive) and after a couple of laps around the playground it was as if I'd never been off it.

DoYouRememberJustinBobby · 21/09/2016 14:34

My parents never forced the issue of cycling with me (we lived the back of beyond and the roads were lethal, so I suppose they had a reason) but learnt aged 19 as I was about to attend a university with a huge cycling culture.

It's similar to swimming I suppose? Lots of people just don't have it on their priority list or can't afford it. Swimming is probably more useful (safety wise) of the two as a skill to commit to learning.

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