Tag: cycling skills

How do I teach my child to ride a bicycle?

How do I teach my child to ride a bicycle is one of the most frequent questions we receive. Here is a simple step by step guide that any parent can follow:

Firstly, find a suitable location. You will need plenty of space, a mix of different surfaces like gravel, bitumen and grass and ideally some flat and gradient areas. Quiet Cul-de-sacs and car parks work – the tighter the spaces the harder it’ll be to learn. I personally prefer some leafy parks with shade, trees and interesting areas to ride along as an extra incentive. As parks can get busy, chose a time when it’s still relatively quiet so your child doesn’t have to contend with too many walkers, runners and dogs.

Secondly, prepare the bicycle. A bicycle that’s too small will be terribly difficult to ride on. A bicycle that’s too big can potentially scare your child as they can’t make contact with their feet. What’s the right size? Get your child to sit on the saddle, if your child can comfortably reach the ground with his or her feet, that’s perfect. If they can only just reach with their tippy toes or there’s no contact with the ground, the frame is too big – particularly if the seat is on its lowest position. If your child has to bend the legs or would stand with space above the saddle, the frame is too small, particularly if the seat is on its highest setting.

If adjusting the seat doesn’t get your child into the optimum position, your frame isn’t suitable. Try and get the right size bike before attempting to learn to ride.

Remove training wheels. Training wheels do absolutely nothing for your child as they take away the ability to learn how to mount the bike and how to balance, which are both core skills of riding. Yes, your child will be to pedal, but pedalling is easy. Transitioning from training wheels will require you to follow the below steps. So, off they go, bye bye training wheels!

Check the brakes are working. Ideally you want a bicycle with two brake leavers on the handle bar. Most bigger bicycles have two brake leavers (as opposed to a pedal back brake) so why not learn one system once and make the rest of the life easier.

Once you know the brakes are working, check that your child is able to use the brakes – a lot of the times leavers are set so that adults can use them, but children can’t. Adjust the position of the brakes so your child can easily reach and pull the leavers.

Optional: remove the pedals. If you want to ease your child into riding, this is the gentlest option. Take the pedals off, keep them close by and when following the instructions below you get prompted to put them on, put them on. A tool is required for removal of pedals, but to put them on only elbow grease is required.

If the bike is ready, you’ve sourced a suitable location then you’re ready to rock’n roll:

  • Explain to your child how brakes work and encourage him or her to always use both brakes. The left needs more pulling, the right is sensitive and both together will always help her control her bike.
  • The main goal is to get him or her scooting, like on a balance bike. Scooting means you sit on your saddle and use your feet to move yourself forward. You can stabilise yourself by putting her feet down on the ground.
  • Get them to start slowly, in their own time. Some children like to slowly ‘walk’ the bike, others go fast quickly. There’s no right or wrong here.
  • If you haven’t removed the pedals get your child to stick their feet out like a v-shape so they don’t hurt themselves on the pedal.
  • With growing confidence, encourage them to go a bit faster and count the seconds they can lift her feet off the ground and simply glide using the momentum they’ve build up. We’re aiming for three to five seconds of feet off the ground and the child gliding. That’d be sufficient time to start pedalling.
  • Depending on your child’s progress this part can take a while. There’s no point in rushing this part as this is how your child learns to balance.
  • To make it interesting you can swap between different surfaces – try to scoot down grassy slopes, gravel and/or bitumen and allow your child to feel the different responses of the bicycle. Anxious children tend to like grass as it slows the bicycle down and allows them to build their confidence.
  • Your child will be ready for pedals when she can glide for three to five seconds. This is the right time to either put the pedals back or explain the next challenge. Show her how to move the pedals with her foot backwards to a parallel position. If the bike has a pedal back break this will be a bit frustrating and tricky, you will need to help your child to dismount, lift the bike and move the pedals for them.
  • The goal is to put the pedals parallel to the ground then scoot as before. Once they have got the sense of gliding explain to your child to lift their feet up, place them on the pedals and start pedalling in a forward motion. Usually a lot of stop starts happen at this point in time. If you feel your child is getting frustrated, get them to refocus on scooting and gliding – the more confident they are at this, the easier it is to start pedalling.

While you may feel the urge to hold your child’s bicycle and run with her: don’t. You will need to allow your child to discover the feeling of balance on their own. If you hold the bicycle for your child you are depriving them of learning the skill and the magical sensations that come with it. While letting go may be a bit scary (for both of you),  it is a step towards independence, which makes riding a bicycle so much fun. You can run behind your child when they scoot, glide or ride, but I would recommend if you are keen to stay close to your child, bring your own bike and ride behind them.

If you follow the steps above, you should be able to see some major improvements soon. If you run into troubles, please comment below so we can help you trouble shoot!<

Payal’s chain reaction

I actually never learnt riding when I was young, just one of those things that got totally missed out. We had a bicycle at home and my brother rode it often, but I never did! I learnt how to drive a car but could never balance myself on a bicycle and never really tried. Somehow, I wanted to learn much later in life in my late twenties, but never came around to doing much about it.

I had my kids and then whenever they’d ride I would think of teaching myself. Finally, when I saw the course at the City of Belmont I just had to join. I learnt a lot at the course, but my balance was still off even on the last day of training. By that time though my confidence was high and I was persistent. I just learnt how to balance very recently after practising with my kids on my elder boy’s bike. It’s only been three or four weeks since I can ride a bike. But I enjoy it immensely.

Now I ride about two to three times a week and for very short distances. I still do not have the stamina to ride uphill from my cul-de-sac, so haven’t gone much further from home yet. But I practice regularly and intend to eventually be able to ride farther from home, maybe to the train station or every day for work, if possible.

My kids ride with me too. And just a couple weeks back my husband bought a bike for himself. Even my father in-law has picked up bike riding. He used to drop my kids to school and walk with them while they rode, which was frustrating for him. He now rides a bike alongside them when he goes to drop and pick them up. This all started in a way after I mentioned that I wanted to learn how to ride…like a chain reaction!<

Glendale Primary: Getting Kids to Ride to School

Glendale Primary School in the northern suburbs of Perth is, probably like many other primary schools around town, nestled into quiet suburbia surrounded by quiet streets, parkland and ovals. One look and it’s clear: this location is pure bliss for anyone keen to ride to school.

Which is why it wasn’t a surprise that the bike parking area was filled to the brim with all sized, shaped and coloured bicycles on our recent visit to the school to teach bicycle skills. Or was it? The PE teacher Tanya, who had previously invited us to run the course, said otherwise. Usually not that many children ride to school and it was the fact that the she had organised the training that suddenly everybody rode to school. We like it!

Interestingly our visit was targeting the years 4, 5 and 6 how to ride safely wouldn’t have been unusual. But the racks were STACKED with bicycles and even the younger years, who didn’t even participate in the bicycle classes, were riding to school. All because they heard about the training.

So why is it even necessary to do bicycle education at school when everybody is already riding? Firstly, it is necessary because usually kids aren’t riding to school. The average distance primary school aged children travel from home to school is 4 kilometres or less. An easy distance to travel by bike. But by car it is a blip on the radar for any parent who needs to drive to work. And that’s the core of the problem. The short distance in which you can safely drop of junior at school is just a small diversion. Why not quickly do it and make sure they get where they meant to go?

The impact of riding to school is immense: a healthier, more engaged and alert student because they used active transport, a student who took ownership and responsibility of getting from A to B, a student who is a lot more familiar with their neighbourhood, understands the risks along the way and knows which ones to tackle and which ones to avoid.

Tanya is on the ball and two years after we ran our first bicycle education program through the City of Stirling, we were back with the goal to equip students with safe riding skills. Anyone can ride fast, but not everyone can ride safely. Being able to control the bike in difficult situations, being able to survey what’s around you and make decisions on speed and distance is key. Plus, games on bicycles, which teach and practice all of these skills are fun.

Glendale’s year 6 students looked familiar, just with longer limbs and yes, they did still remember the basics of fitting a helmet, mounting a bicycle and loved a good slow race. That’s a lie. Kids hate slow races. But being able to ride slowly and balance on the bike is a fundamental skill and that’s why we do it!

The bicycle training highlights that there are always a few kids – even in year 6 – who have never learned how to ride a bicycle. With the training they have the opportunity to do so with a coach by their side, which boosts confidence.

As the students bring their own bicycles to school the training also points a spotlight at the safety and maintenance levels of kids bicycles. Deflated tyres, rusty chains and faulty breaks are common and so are bicycles that have become too small for the child to ride on. All of these discoveries, whilst frustrating for students, are essential to unearth, point out and flag with parents. Riding safely also means having safe equipment and what better way to ensure this is happening by pointing it out?

We absolutely loved teaching the bicycle training and can’t wait to be back. For those who don’t want to wait for their school to organise a customised training can enrol their child into our upcoming school holiday workshop.

 

Profile: Carol Green’s bicycle story and Auckland’s bike advocacy

I grew up in a small village just outside Cambridge, UK. My Dad never learned to drive a car, so he always biked everywhere, and still does, at the age of 74. I think he was a big part of normalising bike riding for me. He’s my bike hero.

I was quite late to learn to ride my own bike, until I was 7 I used to sit on the front of my Dad’s bike and go really fast down hill (and I wasn’t a small child). The road we lived on, at the outskirts of the village, had 70mph traffic so I didn’t learn like my friends did, out in the local streets.

In the last class of primary school, all the kids did a cycling proficiency test: riding on the road, indicating, that sort of thing. I think because it was the early 80s and because it was Cambridge, it was seen as a necessary skill to learn, like swimming.

Both my primary school and secondary school were too far to ride to for a kid, but at weekends I would ride to piano lessons and to visit friends in the village. I think because my Mum was the only car driver in the family, giving us the extra independence of a bike meant that she was in less demand as a taxi service.

My 6th form college, when I was between 16 and 18 years of age, was close enough to ride to, so I spent 2 years riding there and back, followed by two years on a course and working in Cambridge city. This was when my bike afforded me the most independence and I’d do most of my days and nights by bike. Almost none of my friends my age could afford to buy or run a car.

At 19 I went to university in Nottingham and took my bike with me. It didn’t really occur to me that I was one of the few people who rode a bike to college. In my final year, my bike got stolen and it felt as if my independence had been taken away. Walking home alone in the dark felt too dangerous, but riding a bike seemed much less so.

I moved to New Zealand in my mid-twenties and settled into Auckland, where the only people I saw riding a bike were mostly men on road bikes, wearing Lycra, or on mountain bikes, driving to a mountain bike park, riding round and round and getting back in the car. My partner was a mountain biker and I tried it, but I had to confess to him that I didn’t much like it. I wanted to bike to a destination. I wanted it to be part of my everyday transport.

For the first 10 years I was in Auckland I walked a lot but didn’t really ride a bike. I also drove a lot, like most Aucklanders. But when I visited the UK every 18 months or so, I would immediately get back on my bike and realise I really missed it in my everyday life.

The point at which I really got back on a bike in Auckland was about 5 years ago when I moved from working at home to a shared office a “doable” bike ride from home – 20 minutes – and I started riding every day. Part of that commute was along one of the motorways and I would regularly be riding faster than the cars. An off-road cycle path 50% of the way also helped make that choice easy.

Two offices later I now ride about 40 minutes each way. I wouldn’t have done that at the start – too far – but now it sets me up for the day, gives me some exercise, which I would otherwise struggle to do, and makes me much less prone to feeling down. If I had to go further than that every day (or if I had to deal with more hills) I would get an e-bike.

I got involved with my local bike group, Bike Te Atatu, not long after it had been set up, because their proposal to add bike infrastructure to the main roads and to slow traffic on the side streets was (and still is) a brilliant one. Te Atatu is a peninsula, one road in and out. It’s fairly flat and has lots of families and young people living here, so it’s ideal as a model suburb to try ideas and measure improvements in numbers. Of course everything official takes a lot more time than it should and we are still waiting for these things to be taken up by Auckland Transport. In the meantime we organise social and recreation events and rides, trying to encourage more people onto bikes. I think normalising transport bicycling is important; the more people are seen riding bikes to the shops, for example, the more people will give it a try, and the numbers increase exponentially.

I have also been involved with Bike Auckland (Bike Te Atatu’s ‘parent’ organisation) to help people set up similar groups in their suburbs. There’s a groundswell of cyclists now, not just recreational cyclists but people moving from A to B, going shopping, riding to work or school, and I think the more we can promote and encourage this the better. Recent investment in proper infrastructure has seen rider numbers increase a lot, and completion of some of those networks will help.

I ride an upright bike, fairly slowly, in my normal clothes, with all sorts of things in my giant basket, and (illegally) not wearing a helmet. I like to think that people see me and think “if she can do it, maybe I can too. Maybe it’s not so scary or dangerous. Maybe I don’t need to buy special clothes.” That’s my basic form of every day bike advocacy.

Anna’s Love For Riding

It all really started around 7 years ago. I watched my brother enjoy riding a bike and getting right into it. I was quite envious on how keen he developed the love of riding and how he lost weight. He was a bad sleepy-in person and you could never get him up, but with riding he changed his attitude.

I did own, and ride a bicycle when I was 35 but had no confidence and no idea of gears or brakes. My feet were my brakes. We used to go to Rottnest Island with a whole heap of friends and our young children. The most I would ride was from our lodgings to the town centre. If I had a couple of beers I felt a little more confident. That is until one night I fell off the bike which had a basket with food. That was the end of my riding days and my bike was used by everyone else as a carrier instead of me.

I decided I was going to start riding and saw the advertisement in the Stirling Times for the City of Stirling bike riding classes. I booked myself in for the lessons which were starting the following year in January 2010 and I asked my Kris Kringle for a Kmart bike for Christmas.

The night before my first lesson I tried to get on the bike but it wasn’t happening. I didn’t sleep all night as I felt like a failure. The first lesson I wasn’t particularly good. The second lesson I got better and the third I got the hang of it.

We started our 12 week Social Ride course and our first ride was to Gwelup, a proud 7 km round-trip. The following Sunday we went from Hillarys to Mullaloo, double the distance 14 km. The class taught us how to catch trains with a bicycle and how to go into the city with our bikes.

This was my new way of spending Sunday mornings and always finding a nice coffee with my new found friends. At that time my husband would be at the soccer club and the children were busy too. I was very happy with my new way of life.

I also joined the Friday and Wednesday group, but as I wasn’t committed, due to going away, I lost a little confidence on the Wednesday, so I started the Wednesday Easyriders group, which was mainly riding in the City of Stirling between 20 and 25 km. I was keen to be back home by 11 am and the other ladies enjoyed the rides and social time.

Nowadays I try and ride twice a week: Wednesday and Friday. Life has changed at home and Sundays are now reserved for grandchildren and soccer. My passion for riding has grown in the past 6 years. I love being out there in the sunshine and I love the encouragement from the others as I get better and continue to build my confidence.

With riding it has been beneficial to my health. I had suffered from clinical depression, now I’m off medication and enjoy the fruit of life. Feeling pretty good and loving it. I’m having my 60th Birthday soon so I think a new bike is on my wish list.

I’m very involved with the MS society as my youngest son has MS. They have a lot of events to do with bike riding and I did the bridges ride which was over 40 km. It took me 2,5 hours in the dark, but I was happy that I completed it. We had a most spectacular ride with wonderful city views by night. That morning I had ridden 32 km with the Friday Ladies, so I totalled 75 km for the day.

I love riding and I am ever so grateful to the City of Stirling for creating such an opportunity for us. The friendship with these ladies grows every week. We all look out for each other and hope to ride safely for a very long time.

Humans on Bikes: Reaching beyond the strong and fearless

I met up with Sara Stace, creator of Humans on Bikes, Board Director of Cycle and Executive Director of Link.Place.Live, at the picturesque bike friendly cafe Sassys on the Swan in Perth recently and asked her a few questions about her passion for bicycles and her work.

I wondered how her passion for bicycles started and I found her story was basically similar to mine and many others that ride in normal clothes. Sara uses her passion to inspire others via her ‘hobby’ and create policies to support more people on bicycles through her day job.This is what she had to say:

“I am from Perth originally and my passion for bicycles started when I was young. I rode my bike everywhere. I rode to school, to uni and to work. All my friends rode and I didn’t really think about it.

Now I am a transport rider and ride a cargo bike and drop the kids to school. Working on Humans on Bikes and being a board member on Cycle is really my ‘hobby’.

Only 1-2% of people consider themselves bike riders, 7% use bikes for transport and are confident riders, 33% are interested but concerned and 57% say ‘no way’ will they get on a bike. Infrastructure is usually aimed at the first two groups, the strong and the fearless and, unfortunately, fails the other groups. The 33% of the population that is interested but concerned, may ride for transport if more separated bike lanes and paths are provided.

The idea of Humans on Bikes follows a similar format as Humans of New York. People send photos in from all over the world. I also talk to people I see riding and they share their story and pose for a photo.

The biggest challenge in promoting cycling has been convincing bureaucrats and politicians. Clover Moore, City of Sydney Mayor, is gutsy and has a strong vision regarding what she wants to achieve to make a better city. Moore is often attacked by the media and this puts off other politicians and bureaucrats.

My biggest achievements so far have been writing the Walking, Riding and Access to Public Transport  and the ACT Active Travel Framework.

Changes are happening. Less people want their own car and more people are walking, riding and using public transport. More people will consider shared vehicles and use private online sharing services like Go Get, or Car Next Door  that are similar to Air BnB. In the next 20-30 years there will be electric driverless shared vehicles.

In the future we won’t need extra family cars. People will ride, walk or share driverless cars so there will be less car ownership. Everyday bike riding will reach beyond the strong and fearless bike riders to include all those interested in riding, as their concerns will be better addressed.

Imagine the future with less individual car ownership. There will be less car parking and a move to higher and better uses for parking spaces such as proper separated bike lanes, alfresco dining or more trees and playgrounds.”

Sally and Vera in 2015.

Sally’s Saturday morning rides

I’m 62, and I work as a family mediator, a job I’ve done for the last 35 or so years. I work part-time, in the interests of keeping my sanity. My hobbies include cycling (obviously!), reading and playing games on the computer (mostly fantasy role-playing games).

Before enrolling in the cycling course in 2009, I wasn’t exercising much. I used to swim regularly when I was pregnant, and I used to walk regularly, but I wasn’t doing either of those as much as I felt I ought to – possibly because of too many games on the computer. So I saw the Back on Your Bike course run by City of Stirling and signed up. I was VERY nervous when I first got back on a bike after after, oh, probably 20 or so years. I was very wobbly and no confidence at all. But Joanne, the coach and City of Stirling Officer, was extremely patient with me and the rest of the other course participants and it wasn’t all that long before I learned to use gears and steer the bike without worrying TOO much about falling off.

The thing that made a huge difference to me, though, was that after the intensive skills development part of the course finished there were several weeks of lower-key skills development combined with social rides. If that hadn’t happened, I don’t think I’d still be riding today.

Back in 2009, my mother who lived in Dunsborough was quite unwell, and her condition deteriorated during 2010. She died in mid-2011. I went from occasional trips down to Dunsborough to monthly trips then to fortnightly ones, which made it difficult to keep up with regular riding. When I was not going down to Dunsborough quite so often, I rode with the group run by Jen Faint, I think it was Sundays?  Maybe Saturdays. However, she stopped organising those rides. By the time everything was sorted out with Mum’s estate and I was feeling up to riding again, there wasn’t a regular Saturday group and the Friday and Sunday groups were riding too far and too fast for me. So I thought, “Well, if I RUN a Saturday group, I’ll HAVE to get up and ride on Saturday mornings.” So I started organising a Saturday group.

There was one week where nobody turned up, but after that there was usually at least one other person. I started getting ladies from the Learning to Ride and Back on Your Bike courses because the Saturday rides were shorter and more gently paced than the Sunday or Friday rides.

I’m currently trying to get myself into cycling regularly more than once a week, but it’s sometimes hard to get motivated when it’s early in the morning and I’d rather sleep in.  As well, I’ve had bad doses of flu during each of the last three winters, which means a slow return to cycling even on Saturdays.

I’ve done some short bike rides around home – these days, I’d probably hop on my bike to get to the ATM or the post box rather than drive down. I did try riding to the local markets once, but I buy too much there!  Because I live on the top of a hill, and everywhere means going downhill but then returning uphill (and I’m not good on hills!) I don’t ride as much locally as I could. I’ve been considering buying an electric bike, though, and I think that’s likely to happen eventually. At that point I’ll probably do more local riding, and maybe cycle to and from the train station when I commute to work rather than driving there.

Through organising the Saturday rides I’ve made friendships  and joined a book club. I’m considerably fitter than I used to be. I organised a ride and high tea for my 60th birthday, which was lovely. I know a lot of wonderful paths around Perth, and I know there are a lot more I haven’t yet discovered. I know a lot of nice cafes to have coffee or breakfast at too, and I take my son out for brunch every couple of months. EVENTUALLY, I’ll go back to Dunsborough just to ride the cycle path between Busselton and Dunsborough. I’m considering – though not yet planning – a Bike to Barge cruise in Europe for 2018 or so.

November courses open for enrolment

November is unarguably the best time in Perth to learn how to ride a bike, get back into it and join a riding group to keep practicing. The wind is losing its cool nip, temperatures are climbing into the comfortable 20 degrees Celsius – not too warm, not too cold – and then there are the vast blue Perth skies. True, there’s always a blue sky spanning across this city, but there is no better place than marveling at it from the seat of a saddle.

Because November is simply perfect we’ve just scheduled another set of adult riding courses that will enable you to learn, practice and perfect your riding skills. There is no better way to actually ride a bike than knowing exactly how to avoid the most common hiccups and safely navigate through curly situations. Many people use shared paths across town to enjoy Spring, which makes paths a busy place to be, which can be challenging for those who have never ridden, or those who need a refresher of how to handle the bike.

If you like people watching this is good fun there is more out to see. Although not a native to WA, Jacarandas are now in full blossom and Applecross is a particularly great neighbourhood if you’re keen to have a look at the sea of purple flowers. Not sure how to get there? Join Jillian’s five week social ride and learn the best tricks and trips for planning your own journey around town.

New adult learn how to ride courses

People on Bicycles is pleased to offer a fresh set of adult rider classes. Learn how to ride caters for absolute novices, who are keen to acquire the skills of riding a bicycle. There are many reasons why some people never learned as a child – from parents being overprotective, a neighbourhood that wasn’t overly cycle friendly or bicycles that were just too expensive for families to buy.

At the end of the three-week course most participants will be able to balance on the bike, ride a short stretch and master wide turns, which is a great start and a good basis to continue to build on

Many participants are motivated to learn to ride as it is a fun activity and good way to get fit, but are afraid of getting hurt and sustaining injuries that will put a stop to any further exercise. The focus of the course is on safety and how to avoid any mishaps so that participants know exactly how to get on and off the bike, balance and use the brakes, which will keep them safe during the class and whenever they head out on their own.

Those who learned to ride a bike when they were little, but haven’t set their bum on a seat for a while will find the Back on Your Bike class extremely useful. The reason why many adults don’t ride a bicycle is because they worry about what might happen and getting into a situation they feel they can’t control. Learning how to ride safely is key to building people’s confidence and with a few tips and tricks it is easy to make a ride as safe as possible.

For those keen to practice their newly learned or re-freshed skill, but are too shy to go out on their own can join the Share the Ride: social ride which guides them on Perth’s shared paths network through the city, discover some of the hidden treasures of the town and really continue to build their skills and confidence. The rides are guided by experienced accredited cycle coach who provides useful recommendations for each rider to improve event further.

Check out the upcoming courses for more information and future dates.

Things we have forgotten: Distance

“Don’t you have a car?” is a question that carries a fair amount of judgement. If you’re a frequent rider you may have heard it before. What do you reply?

The first time I was asked why I didn’t drive I felt obliged to explain myself and justify that riding was my preferred choice. At the core of the question is people’s default assumption that everybody drives, everybody owns a car, it’s just “natural”.

I touched on our car centric look and approach last time, but I’d like to dig a bit deeper. Our love affair with cars, or “Automophilia”, manifests itself in so many aspects of life, which are worth to examine and become aware.

This is a great exercise to conduct amongst your colleagues or friends: when we talk about the distance of destination we will usually say talk about time as in “that’s only 20 minutes away”. This, of course, is entirely based on driving distance – on some instances perhaps walking or public transport. Then there will be the two different travel variants: Peak-hour and quiet times, which will be the time it takes to commute or drive in a perfect world where you are the only one on the road (read: never).

People don’t think of destinations anymore and know the actual kilometres. They know the driving time and the sad part is, they have no idea how far or close things are to travel by bicycle.

Let me give you two examples. Last weekend was the first social ride of the beginner ladies on bikes group. The first session is always tricky. Participants tend to be nervous and as a coach you really need to see the riders out and about to make a judgement on how far you can travel. The rides start being slow and short and progressively get faster and longer over the course of six weeks.

We rode for half an hour, waited for the very slow people to catch-up, did some skills training then turned around and rode back. The entire group was baffled when I said they just did their first six kilometre ride. Most thought that was quite a long distance (I didn’t tell them that by the end of week six I was hoping to ride 20 kilometres with them, baby steps). Did they think six kilometres were such a pleasurable short distance to ride? Nope. Would they walk six kilometres? No way.

Example two. The Fremantle train line broke down a few weeks ago. A gentleman in the coffee cue in front of me was complaining. He lived in Swanbourne and had to use busses, there was more traffic than usual, he had been late. He’d drive into the city if parking wasn’t such a huge problem, blah blah blah.

I asked him whether he had considered riding a bike. After all, he could ride along the train, or even better, along the river. He said “No way, that’d be way too far. See, I live in Swanbourne that’s like 28 kilometres from here”. Swanbourne? That’s 10 kilometre from Perth’s CBD.

See where the problem is? We have no clue anymore. We don’t know what’s far or close. We have no idea what it feels like to ride a distance for half an hour, enjoy it without sweat trickling down like a waterfall. We sure don’t know what’s completely doable to ride on bicycle without being “sporty”.

We have become so accustomed to use our cars whenever we “need” to without considering alternatives. While it may not be an alternative for everyone, every day, the truth is that often a bicycle is a real transport option.

Over to you: do you have similar experiences? Have you had to “learn” distances again? How do you respond to people’s Automophilia?