Bike Rider

This past week I finally was able to teach Donovan to ride bike. Hallelujah! It has been a struggle but I admit we haven't pushed him too hard (no pun intended). A couple of years ago we took him to the Capitol mall and attempted to teach him. Last year we did the same a couple of times. Our thought with the mall area is the grass would make a softer landing for inevitable spills. It did not seem to work well as far as learning to ride, though.

This year we took him to a local concrete parking lot and he was very receptive - he really wanted to learn this time. In about 30 minutes and with patient instruction he was off and going on his own with no problem. We went back twice more on different evenings and he also rode with us on a walk in our neighborhood.

Gerrit was about the same way as far as resisting learning to ride bike. With him I finally reached the end of my rope after many tries and gave him an inspirational speech, and he was off and riding within a few minutes. For both I think it was pretty much in their heads that it was some difficult thing that was so hard to achieve. They weren't confident enough in their actual abilities.

Aleah kind of taught herself. A couple of days after Gerrit learned how she said she wanted to as well. We took her out and got her going and she was off and riding in no time.

My brother, Harvey, taught me how to ride. If I remember right, he positioned me at the top of the driveway hill and got me started. He may have said he would stay with me but I think he let go almost right away. That way has its merits - it forces you to concentrate on actually balancing and pedaling instead of worrying about whether or not you'll have the ability, at least for the first time. I think he was insistent I needed to learn on my own, without him running beside to catch me, and it worked out just fine.

Good job, Donovan! Let's go for a ride!