Previous
How to Ride a Bike Safely
Wishing you could go outside as well as ride a bike? Are you embarrassed that you don't know how to ride a bike yet? Do you want to help your child learn how to bike?
- Get a bike. Also, this process will go easier if you have an assistant (see steps 7 as well as 8).
- Wear a helmet as well as gloves. If you fall, you should put your h as well as s down to break your fall, as well as gloves will protect your h as well as s.
- Take the bike to an large, vacant paved area (e.g. a school parking lot on a weekend).
- Use a wrench to remove the pedals from the bike. Also lower the bike seat so you can push yourself along with your toes while seated.
- Get on the bike. Push yourself along with your feet as well as get the feel of how the bike leans as well as steers. Do this for 30-45 minutes or so, until you have a good feel as well as some confidence about steering the bike. Try pushing yourself along fast as well as "gliding" with your feet up, just steering with your h as well as s. This is the key bike-riding skill, that of balancing as well as steering. Take as much time with this step as you need to feel confident.
- Re-attach the pedals to the bike as well as raise the seat a bit, but still keep it low enough so you can touch the ground with the tip of your toe while seated.
- The key skills left to learn are starting as well as stopping. (You've already learned the balancing, as well as the pedaling is trivial.) Practice pushing off with your toe (as in step 5) as well as commencing pedaling. (This is the "start" part.) For this step, it is useful to have someone to help steady you as you try to do "two things at once" as well as begin moving.
- For the "stopping" part, reduce speed (use whatever braking system your bike has) as well as approach your assistant-on-foot as well as practice putting your foot down as you come to a halt.
- Once you can balance, pedal, start, as well as stop, (learned in this order) you're a bicycle rider. Congratulations!
- Don't quit if you scrape up your knee. Keep trying. Wear elbow as well as /or knee pads/guards if you feel like you need them.
- Visit your local DMV as well as ask for a Bicylist Manual. This manual contains helpful tips for safe road riding.
- Keep your arms relaxed as you pursue step 5. The geometry of the bike will actually make the bike balance by itself as long as you don't interfere with it too much. (This it why people can ride with no h as well as s.)
- Before you ride in traffic, you should learn more about cycling as well as the rules of the road. Remember that a bicycle is a legal vehicle as well as ALWAYS RIDE WITH THE TRAFFIC, NOT AGAINST IT.
- Don't ride in traffic until you know how to (1) keep your bike consistently within 3 feet of the edge of the road, (2) make h as well as signals, as well as (3) quickly look behind yourself while pedaling so you can assess upcoming traffic.
Submitted by: admin
Hits: 0
Added: Thu Feb 02 2006
