00:07Teaching your child to ride their first bike is a big milestone, but it can be daunting for
00:12parents. Children's bike expert and founder of Isla Bikes, Isla Roundtree, says it's actually
00:17possible to teach them everything they need to know in just 45 minutes. So is it really
00:22possible? I'm here to meet the lady herself. So I'm joined here at Herne Hill Velodrome
00:30by Isla now. Is it really true that 45 minutes is all it can take to get a child started?
00:35Yeah, obviously every child varies and there's a really wide spectrum of how quickly children
00:41want to get to grips with something like cycling, but that's typically a fairly generous amount
00:47of time just to get them balancing unaided. Starting and stopping can take longer. That
00:51is provided that they're ready to ride and that coordination development that has to
00:57come first, it is quite important that you wait for that and don't try and force it on
01:00a child that's not ready and make it stressful. I certainly think there's a window when they
01:06find it easier to learn to ride and I would say that's typically between four and six years.
01:11If you don't get them cycling pre-six, then they seem to become more cautious about it
01:17and perhaps find it psychologically more challenging to learn. There's perhaps two reasons for that,
01:23a heightened sense of fear as they get older, but also they're further from the ground. If
01:28they're taller, it's further to fall.
01:34So we're joined now by little Anna who's going to help us out today. What's the first step in
01:39getting started? The first thing is to choose a suitable place for your first lesson. Somewhere
01:45nice and flat and a big open space is ideal. We don't want any nasty hills where our beginner
01:51is going to whiz off out of control. It's really tempting to choose grass because it feels like
01:56it's going to be a soft landing, but that actually makes learning quite difficult because you have
01:59to push quite hard on a small bike on the pedals. Now, before we actually start riding, we need to
02:04check that the saddle height's right for the child. We're looking to set the saddle height
02:09so they can just get the balls of their feet on the ground. That's the front bit of the
02:13footwear you run on. It's tempting to put the saddle lower so the feet go down flat, but that
02:18actually makes pedalling more difficult. You want the bike to be able to wander at will so
02:23that the child can feel how it responds to leaning. So it's important not to hold the handlebars.
02:28You will see some parents trying to support them and make their child feel more secure like this,
02:32but you actually end up fighting with them with the handlebars and it makes it more difficult.
02:37We find it easiest to support the bike while they get on between your legs and then support
02:43the child under their armpits. You can actually steer them by leaning their body then and they
02:50can feel how the bike responds to that. Okay, so you're actually holding onto the child as
02:55opposed to fixing onto the bike. Exactly. You ready? Pop your feet on the pedals and you're
03:01going to look up. Off we go. Okay, then you can see that we can steer the bike by leaning
03:08her body.
03:09So we lean it to the right and she steers to the left and she's learning how the bike responds
03:15to the
03:16leaning. And she's starting to go on her own. There we go. Look at that. Now Anna's balancing really well
03:27already,
03:27but it's important that I stay with her because she hasn't learned how to stop yet. We don't want
03:33to abandon her. And she's riding on her own. Look at that. Did you know you were riding on your
03:40own?
03:41Yes, you were. I wasn't holding you. Congratulations. Give me a high five.
03:49Anna was very, very confident getting going there. Is that usually the case or are there sometimes more
03:54challenges with children when they're getting on for the first time? It varies a lot from child to
03:59child, but also at what age you make the first attempt with them to ride. A child very often will
04:06pedal backwards or pedal backwards for half a stroke and forward for one and a half and then flail and
04:11their feet coming off. If you try for 10 minutes or so and they're really not able to turn their
04:17feet
04:17in circles, they're probably just not ready and they're better off continuing on their balance bike
04:21for a few more weeks and then have another go a bit later. When they're ready, they will typically get
04:26that forward pedaling motion within 10 or 15 minutes. You can actually help with that when they pedal
04:33forward if you push them and when they're pedaling the wrong way, actually stop pushing them so they
04:38feel the bike slowing down. Then they associate forward motion with pedaling in the right direction.
04:44Most children have got the coordination potential to learn. They develop that at some point between
04:50three and a half and four and a half. Once they've got that potential, a session like this will get
04:56them
04:56going. Some children develop that really early, as young as two and a half we've known,
05:01and suddenly not until they're five or five and a half. It doesn't matter. It's important not to
05:06push them before they're ready.
05:11We don't recommend covering, starting and stopping before they've actually learned to balance because
05:16it's overloading them with information. Once they've got to Anna's stage where they're balancing
05:21really quite confidently, you're going to need to teach them to set off and to stop safely.
05:28So for setting off, Anna, we need to get the pedal in the position for you to ride. That's right.
05:34Now
05:34put your foot on top. Okay, now look where you're going and I'm going to support you again and give
05:40a really good push and see if you can set off by yourself. You ready? Go. That's it. Now we
05:46stop the
05:47bike by using the brakes. So we've got a brake lever here. Watch what happens to the wheel when we
05:53pull
05:53that on. See it stops. All right? So you're showing the child how the brakes work and it helps them
05:59understand what they're trying to do. Right, we're going to just do a little walking exercise. Put
06:02your hands on the handlebars and see if you can reach the brakes. Now, when they first learn to ride,
06:08they'll probably just pull the brakes on very hard to stop and we want them to get a feel for
06:13stopping
06:13progressively before they're actually cycling. So, Anna, can you walk with the bike for me? Pushing it along.
06:19Just walk with it and then pull the brakes on. That's it. Stopped very suddenly then, didn't
06:25it? Now do it again and pull them on a bit more gently this time. Okay, a little bit more
06:31gently
06:31and both hands together. Gently. That's better. Yay. And again. Gently. Gently. That's better.
06:47So as we've seen, Anna's been so confident she just can't wait to pedal away and get going. Yeah.
06:51Is that because she's progressed perhaps from a balanced bike and not stabilizers?
06:55If a child's progressing from stabilizers, we'd expect that initial balancing phase to take quite a
07:01bit longer. You still use exactly the same technique as we have today, but when you're pushing the child
07:09along holding under the armpits, they will tend to ride the bike like a tricycle. So they'll be trying to
07:15push their body away and hold the bike up. And when you're leaning to steer, they will try and fight
07:20that.
07:21Carry on in exactly the same way as we did today, but expect it to take quite a bit longer
07:25and
07:25encourage them to keep their body in line with the bike. And they will get the feel for it, but
07:30you
07:30might have to have perhaps a little bit longer or maybe two or three sessions at it before they're actually
07:35riding unaided. And in terms of giving advice to parents that might be really nervous about this
07:40process, how can you make sure it's safe and, you know, take that stress and worry out of the equation?
07:45I think the things that we mentioned at the start about finding a safe place,
07:49big open space. You'll notice that Anna's wearing some little gloves. If they do have a spill,
07:54they're going to put their hands out and they'll stop them grazing their hands. But the main thing is,
07:59is not to abandon the child when they're actually riding, is stay with them. It's really important to
08:04avoid a tumble at this stage because it can really knock the confidence and that can put a child
08:09off even having another go potentially for months. We want to avoid that. So stay with them,
08:14lots of encouragement. And if you're there until you're really sure that they can manage on their
08:19own and start and stop safely, you can catch them if they get a wobble or lose concentration.
08:23There's not much that can go wrong there. No, that's right. You can just literally grab
08:27them under the armpits and hoist them out of the way and let the bike fall away. You can pick
08:30a little
08:31one up and one up. Brilliant. Thank you so much for joining us today,
08:34Isla. And Anna, thank you. Well done.
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