Not only was I the weird kid in my school, I was also chronically uncoordinated, falling over my own feet with alarming frequency. This meant I was usually the kid that no one wanted on their team in sports and that I regularly came last in every event at the athletics carnival.
I remember my father helping me learn to ride a bike and throwing his hands up in the air before declaring that I was THE single most awkward child he’d ever watched try to ride a bike. I was secretly quite proud of that, because at least it LOOKED as difficult as it felt.
Speaking of bike riding, I didn’t actually learn to ride a bike until I was nearly eight years old – long long after all of my peers were zipping around their suburbs in groups. It didn’t help that I lived on a steep hill, with gravel roads and a gravelly stone filled driveway. It just wasn’t safe, and frankly, I was happier inside with a book anyway.
That was, until I went away on a community trip with my grandmother.
I frequently spent most of my weekends with Nan already, so when a community holiday was organised, obviously she was going to take me along. You can see why I miss her so much now, when I spent all of my spare time in her company growing up.
Nan knew that all of the kids were taking bikes along with them and hey, wasn’t it lucky that she’d bought me a bright pink bike just that Christmas? A bike that I had completely failed to master I should say.
Nonetheless, the bike was packed up, along with everyone else, before a whole group of us headed off for a week away.
I was the only child older than four that couldn’t already ride a bike. I think I ought to point that out.
But, if nothing else I was a determined kid and I was determined that they wouldn’t get to make fun of me this time.
There were big long grassy hills at the holiday destination and I could just picture myself sailing down them with ease. Until I actually tried it, and promptly fell off. Again and again I tried, wobbling my way down the hill and crashing more times than not.
One of the fathers finally took pity on me and considering his just-turned-five-year-old had finally mastered riding without training wheels, he attached her training wheels to my bike.
Can you see my dignity dying?
Two days and plenty of skinned ankles later (training wheels are vicious) and I was able to remove the training wheels and declare that I’d mastered my bike. I quickly progressed to riding everywhere with the other kids, pointedly ignoring the fact that they’d all seen me falling off again and again in the first few days.
I even managed not to fall off too many more times – but I wouldn’t recommend that a beginner bike rider tries to ride over a cattle grid. That one was nasty AND I broke the bell on my bike. Devastated.
We even managed to get Nan on a bike – although I suspect she was just showing off here and trying to make me believe that it was “easy”.
When did you learn to ride a bike? Are you as terribly unco as I am?
I was 10 when i got my first bike. My mother wanted my father to teach me how to ride, so he took me to the top of our street (which was very steep). I got on, he told me to put my feet on the pedals and held the seat. Then he pushed. No helmet.
I think I maybe made it 100 metres before I fell and scraped all down one side of my body in doing so on the road.
My father was determined to ‘teach me’ so I had to walk the bike back to the top of the hill and repeat the process.
Needless to say, i learnt very very quickly and once I got my balance nothing stopped me.
It became my escape from home.
I rode everywhere.
I got my first bike when I was six… many many crashes later, think it took me a year to learn to get the training wheels off.
Love the yellow stackhat!
I remember stackhats! I was riding about 5 or 6, a ‘friend’ and I both got bikes for Christmas and I was determined to be able to ride as well as her.
And I have hereditary terrible co-ordination – my father can’t do arms and legs together when exercising, he has to choose one and just do that. We regularly trip over thin air or walk into doorways and I’m scared of stairs, even though I’ve never had a bad fall on them, just minor ones. I think it’s knowing what I can do on the flat that worries me, and I worry about my kids flying down them.
Apart from being terrible at sport it mostly affected my writing growing up, and even then I got away with it because I was smart. Teachers will forgive illegibility when the essay is really good. My poor brother had the illegible writing plus dyslexia so he really copped it, he learnt to type when he was in primary school. These days he’d be the kid with permission to have a laptop or iPad in class. I still think touch typing is among the best things I learnt at school – far more useful than French or German! If I have to write too much my hands literally cramp up, but on the computer I can write thousands of words easily.
LOL, Love this story, Veronica. 😀
My Dad taught me when I was 5, on this tiny bike he bought for my sister and I that had plastic mouldings on it to make it look like a motorbike. Poor guy, two daughters, one into music, the other into dance. He took me to a nice FLAT area *grins* and promised he would hold onto the back until I told him to let go. We did this several times and I thought he was still holding on, as he was running behind me, calling encouragements and then he said, “I’m not holding on, Kiddo, you’re doing it.” I was so (upset that he tricked me) surprised that I promptly fell off.
After that, they couldn’t keep me off the bike and didn’t see much of me between 3:30pm and 6pm, cos I had FREEDOM!
I have an amazing ability to fall off bikes, or break them, or break me. The first bike I rode, I stayed on successfully for 2 whole blocks, then the front wheel fell off and I split my head open and needed 3 stitches! Since then I have had many more embarrassing moments; stacks, grazes, ripped clothing, broken ribs and concussion as a result of failed rides yet somehow I just keep on going.
My daughter, just short of 5 years old declared that she would no longer be associated with a bike with training wheels yet declared that she couldn’t ride a big kid bike till she was 6. The bike sat untouched for over a year, then one day she dragged it out and was off, no stacks, no complaints just great riding. With those skills, I’m not sure that she could actually be my child, although the stubbornness does ring a bell!
Ha this could have been me…except I was about 10 when I finally mastered the art of the bicycle.
I wasn’t ‘allowed’ to have have a bike because my Mother was convinced I would die..simple..so no bike for me. When she finally came around to thinking I might be old enough I was 16 & had an 18yr old boyfriend…hmmm don’t think so Mum.
I was 9 or 10 when I learned to ride. Before that there just wasn’t a bike available except the full sized men’s bike that my dad rode to work and I couldn’t manage it. I eventually got the hang of leaning the bike to one side and pedalling with one leg swung through under the crossbar. Awkward, but I was riding so I didn’t care. When I was eleven and a halfish, dad traded his big bike for a smaller girls bike for me. After that I rode all over town. My girls learned to ride at 5, my older son was 4 and refused to even try training wheels. The younger son got a tiny bike with training wheels when he was two, by three he was zipping around the block with the others and without the training wheels.
I was 10 before I learned. And I was a country kid where everyone else was riding the moment they were out of nappies. Part of the problem was that my Dad got my cousin’s cast off bike for me and it was WAY too big for me and I was terrified on it. So I had this huge bike and training wheels. Talk about humiliating. Eventually I learned while playing at a friend’s place one day. On a SMALL bike. Not long after a cow sat on my big bike (we lived on a farm) so that was the end of that set of wheels. I was much happier with the smaller blue bike I got as a replacement.
Zack still hasn’t got a bike… he’s nearly 7. I’m a Bad Mother, but there’s just nowhere for him to use it! >_<
Think I may have to bite the bullet for his birthday in July.
I never learned to swim till I was 10, though. Mortifying!
Oy, I still can’t ride a bike (36 yrs old). I am THAT uncoordinated. Lots of people tried. At age 17, my then-boyfriend tried really hard, but even he gave up when I slammed into a (parked) car on a turn and bruised my entire body head-to-toe. My son inherited my coordination, I’m afraid. He’s 8 and still has training wheels. At least he’s not self-conscious about it…
I was almost 9.
My first time on a bike was while my parents were away and we were staying with family friends. They all, of course knew how to ride. They also lived on top of a very steep hill which flowed down to the largest road in the shire (yes, shire. Not suburb. This was a major road). They stuck me on the bike and pushed me and said ‘now pedal’. I was terrified. They had forgotten to mention brakes. I literally flew down that hill until right at the interesction I had to deliberately hit the light pole. It was that or traffic.
Then, when they found me, they belted me. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood (I’m talking a strange man, belting me, pants around my ankles. I never got over it). I was sent to my room without dinner and not allowed to make a sound.
I told my parents I’d had an accident on a bike (had to explain the damage done to my arms and legs. I neglected to mention the bruises on my backside. Or my fear of large men). Two weeks later, Dad had lovingly restored a bike. Yellow, my favourite colour. With a pink banana seat, a basket and yellow and pink streamers. He taught me in the huge, soft grass of our acreage. It was perfect.
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