Training Wheels

The earliest memory I have of my first bike is blurry. But I know it was in Iowa. I know my grandfather pulled it out of his garage or basement. I know it had been my dad’s bike. I know I thought it rather ugly as it had no real color left, leaving it look like it was covered with rust even though it wasn’t. And I know it was too big for me…blocks of wood were attached to the pedals so I could reach them. But I was only four. And a bike is a bike.

 

I remember riding it in Iowa on the sidewalk, but I don’t remember riding it back home in Texas on our driveway. And the next real memory I have of it is my dad telling me to stop running into the bushes around the house…a habit I had because I wasn’t very good with the brakes. But I can’t recall really learning to ride it – either with training wheels or without. I know I didn’t learn at our house in Tennessee (where we moved about six months after I got it) because all we had there were gravel driveways and a yard on a really busy street with no sidewalks. It was kept mostly at my grandmother’s house as she had a paved driveway and quiet neighborhood. But I did know how to ride a bike…and even learned to use the brakes.

 

In New Hampshire, probably when I was nine, I got a real, new, store-bought, I-got-to-pick-it-out-myself bike. As was popular in 1989 or 90, it was bright neon pink.  With white wheels. I even got to have these neon clacky things put on the spokes and a “license plate” that read “Melissa”. We had a great driveway to ride on, and I was very proud of my new bike. Almost so proud it didn’t hurt too much when my brother Daniel not only got my old bike but also got to paintit…something my dad wouldn’t let me do. (Yeah, yeah, it still hurts a bit. As a child it still rankles as unfair. As a parent, I get it.)

 

I enjoy riding a bike. In Minnesota, I saved up some money, did a lot of research, and bought a really good bike. I road it to work several times a week when it was nice up there. (Which means late June through, maybe, early September.) On Saturdays when I didn’t have to work at camp, I’d take it out on long rides around the countryside. I loved it. Ed and I even did some biking in Pittsburgh and bought a tag-a-long to take the kids. Emry was not at all impressed with the thing, but once Ethan joined her she didn’t seem to mind. 

 

Ed, too, loves to ride. He practically grew up on his bike, riding all over his Pittsburgh neighborhood as a kid. So, when Emry turned one he had to get her what he thought was ingenious: a Strider. You’ve probably seen them – a small bike with no pedals. The object is to teach the kids to balance which will progress to a real bike – no training wheels needed. But Emry didn’t even walk when she turned one and by the time she did at 18 months, our tiny little girl still needed to grow by leaps and bounds to fit on the bike. By then we had learned that Emry is far too cautious to benefit from a Strider. So, we set it aside for Ethan and gave her a bike with training wheels for her 4^thbirthday. It took her a day, but she finally caught on and has been merrily riding since. At least, until she saw a little girl her age riding a bike with no training wheels.

 

We attempted no training wheels for the first time a few weeks after Elly was born. Ed was gone, so I took to the kids over to the nearby school where Emry would have lots of space to ride and Ethan could play on the playground while we made the vain attempt at riding on two wheels. For despite her dreams that she would learn to ride in one easy lesson, her cautious and calculating approach to “dangerous” things doesn’t allow for that. Even another lesson the following morning didn’t go that well. And it was set aside for a couple of months. But the idea returned and I went out a couple of mornings for the back aching attempts. When I couldn’t take it anymore, she even started trying on her own. But it wasn’t until Ed got her to take it halfway up the small hill of our driveway and coast down, curving onto the sidewalk, that she finally picked it up. Coasting fell to pedaling by that afternoon. That evening as I was out with her, trying to encourage her to try without the hill but only her feet to push off, she was busy explaining to me how she just couldn’t do that while she tried to do that…and, suddenly, off she went. 

And she hasn’t slowed down since.