Learning to ride a bike

For the past year or so, Sofia has been riding a little 12" yard sale bike I got for $10. We repainted it, put new handle grips on it and, of course, a basket. It has training wheels. She rides it about, umh... maybe a hundred miles an hour on our daily neighborhood walks. Sometimes she does tricks like sticking her legs out in the air, putting her toes on top of the handle bars, you know, the standard stuff. Sometimes, she pedals so fast the bike can't keep up with her and the pedals just spin down. Sometimes, she pedals so fast, the bike starts oscillating side to side until she hits down hard enough on one of the training wheels which causes her to shoot off in the opposite direction. Luckily, she's become quite adept at falling into the grass.

On one of our last walks she seemed awfully sluggish. We kept prodding her to hurry it up. "Sofia, c'mon!" She complained that the wind was just too thick for her to ride through. She was starting to get whiny. Ray, naturally was starting to accuse her of deliberately riding slow and whining as part of her and the family's master plan to aggravate him at all costs. So, I look back to see if by chance there might be a legitimate "thick wind"-type explanation for this. Sure enough, the starter bike finally gave out, she wore a hole clear through the rubber in the tire.

So, I wasted a bunch of time on the internet and online classifieds. Ray and I finally compromised on a used, over-priced, boy's MBX-style 16" bike that was REALLY far away by Toole (yes, I know, nobody even knows where that is, really). I tell ya. I'm not a fan of compromise. Comprise = mediocrity. Anyway, it's fine. There are two more boys that will get the used, over-priced, hand-me-down bike in the next few years anyway. And then I will get her my dreamy bike -a proper girls' beach cruiser in some light blue color with flowers, a big old seat and a nice basket.

-o-o-o-o-o-

For some reason, I thought I needed to capture her very first bike ride try on video so I have no pictures. (And seeing as technology is just passing me by, I've yet to make the connection between video in the camera to video on the computer to video on the internet. Sad. Just really sad). She did quite well. We had her go back and forth on the cement patio in the backyard. I would give her a tiny push encouraging her to go fast as I thought that would make it easier to balance. She would pedal over to Ray or veer off onto the grass where she would keep pedaling and turning or where she would fall and try to dive away from the bike resulting in an array of colorful bruises up and down her shins for the next week. She was excited to try it but weary of falling.

I tried to explain that the diving away from the bike technique really was not a good idea. We practiced wobbling from side to side and planting her foot down to catch herself. She even peddled as fast as she could toward Ray/the sandbox one time which looked like it was going to end badly and somehow managed to slam on the pedal breaks, doing a bit of a side swipe. She planted her foot down and stopped the bike about five centimeters from Ray’s crotch.  I was sure then, she would be a pro. The second time on the bike proved otherwise.

-o-o-o-o-o-

A couple of days later I told her that because she had done so well, we should go to a bigger area to practice, the church. I told her she could push-ride her bike all the way there to practice her balance and pedal at the church. Somehow, the thought of another practice session sent her into some kind of panic attack. She wanted to ride the bike so badly and at the same time she was deathly afraid of falling. She hadn’t exhibited the deathly afraid feelings on the first attempt despite of falling over a few times.

Needless to say, it took about 15-20 minutes to sort of convince her to go although I pretty much told her after the first 7 minutes that it was entirely up to her and if she didn’t want to practice we could just go on a neighborhood walk instead. This didn’t help. At all.

She decided to go. There was much whining over riding the bike and pushing it along with her feet. There was much whining when we arrived. And there was much whining on the way back. It took a good six months from my life span. The fear was much to gripping and she simply didn’t do too well. Her mind was just willing her to fall even if her body was capable of riding the bike.

All geared up and donning the appropriate shirt and jeans for road rash.

The level of concentration is quite palpable... especially because she appears to be looking only with her "mind's eye" and not her actual retinas.

Hmm, this shirt could be one of the reasons she's not invited to play with the neighbor kids. Thanks Kiri.
I forgot we were on church grounds.
Luckily no one saw us.
I don't think we were reported.

After this, there was no more practice for a week and a half or so. Finally, I convinced Ray to take the pedals and crank off the bike. This took about 9 months from my life span. And we moved on to Plan B.

Cute butt