How did you learn to ride a bike?  Was it stressful?  Were you scared for your life or did you triumph over the occasion?  Saturday found The Professor and me basking in the sun at the park while our children rode bikes around a trail, over a basketball court and up a playscape,

“Get down. No sir. No bikes on the slide! What are you thinking?”

Mostly, I tried to ignore the children, as I was over-involved with The Professor who lay beside me on the grass and was busy paying me undeserved compliments. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I eagerly accepted his adulation and waited with the electricity and patience of a Labrador waiting to retrieve for some more. From time to time the children would whiz by begging us to watch a new trick.  Such little attention to go around, such a great need…from us all.

(What if that was really The Professor? Changes the story, huh?)

As I sat up to dust the grassy debris from my sporty attire, I notice that my daughter is hawking a kid learning to ride a bike.  The kid’s father, who is clearly on his second marriage or who is just old, is mightily trying to teach his young child to ride a bike. My daughter is completely in the way- like a donut at a Weight Watcher’s meeting.

The old-man father is holding the child on the pink princess bike while pushing and running alongside in his loafers and high-waisted jeans. There is a teenager with floppy, curly hair, clearly the son from the first marriage, who is trying to run beside the bike and lend support to an ill-fated endeavor. 

OldMan is screaming,

“Peddle. Peddle. Peddle, damnit. Just peddle!” 

The kid appears to have either no interest in riding the bike or no clue that pushing the pedals turns the wheels.  She is sitting on the bike like one would sit on a toilet.

OldMan works himself into a rage, but he can’t give up the bike lesson. TeenagedSon is pained by the scene, and it is obvious he wants to counsel OldMan to take a break, but probably TeenagedSon has suffered a bitter reaction from OldMan in the past and decides to hold his advice.

To pour salt on the wound, my daughter, boasting her brand new helmet astride her shinny new bicycle, peddles beside the group offering taunting advice, “Peddle. Look. Peddle like this.” Hopefully, my child intends her cheerleading to be encouragement and not braggadocio, but from 20 yards away, I can feel OldMan is two seconds from knocking my child off her bicycle.

Teaching a child to bike is dicey. I recall that my parents sat my 6-year old body atop a white banana seat and placed my hands upon the Chopper style handlebars of my lime green bike and pushed me down a hill. Much like the child at the park, I had no natural inclination or desire to ride a bike. Apparently, my parents decided it was the day I would learn to ride a bike. The “throw her in the water, she’ll learn to swim” philosophy extended itself to bicycling instruction in my household.

Seriously, would you ever put a child on a bike and push them down a hill?  Perhaps that is why I started stealing the car early. I decided I better teach myself to drive or my parents might put me in the car with a brick on the gas pedal. With those two, you never know.

The Professor and I teach bike riding the correct way. One day we looked out the back window and my daughter was riding the neighbor kids bike back and forth between our yards.  After some begging for a bike, we bought her one. That’s how it should happen.

I didn’t have a chance to transmit this bike riding philosophy to OldMan. He packed it in, and went home without a win. As OldMan shoved the princess bike in the trunk of his dated luxury car, TeenagedSon gave the little girl a comforting hand on the back that let her know he felt her pain.

Comments

[Shelly]

We just let Drew ride his bike (first a tricycle, now a teeny-tiny two-wheeler with training wheels) through the house until he seems proficient enough to take it to the streets. Yes, that's right. Bike riding in the house. I hope he never gets a motorcycle!

[Lela]

Hmm, sounds like Oldman needed a banana seat up his back end. What a grump.

[hokgardner]

My dad taught my 4 3/4 (she makes me say 3/4) year-old how to ride without training wheels while he was here for Christmas. They were BOTH so proud of themselves.

[Value wIT]

Awww...bet that was cute to watch.