Monthly Archives: April 2012

Put the Pedals Back On!

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My grandson Ransom recently sent me a picture of his new bicycle – a snazzy, blue Diamondback city bike. He’s attending college in New England and wrote, “It had been a while since I’d ridden … I had forgotten how much fun it is! It’s been a joy exploring surrounding towns with it. I’ve been going on long rides a couple times a week whenever it’s warm and I just rode my first 50-miler!”

In our next few email exchanges he and I both recalled when he first learned to ride a bike. He’d been on training wheels for a long while and was finally ready – though apprehensive – to take them off.

His dad and I started with the classic approach – holding onto the back of the seat and running alongside while Ransom pedaled and steered – trying to find that magic moment of balance. It wasn’t working very well. He was frightened and frustrated. We were out-of-breath and frustrated.

“There must be a better way for learning to ride a bike!” I declared. So I did a quick Internet search and came across this amazing, counter-intuitive approach.

We lowered the seat of the bicycle as far down as it would go and took the pedals off. This gave Ransom more control. On level ground he could comfortably “push” the bike forward with both feet touching the ground. He felt safer going slow. And all the while he was gaining a feel for balancing and steering.

As his confidence grew in his ability to balance and control the bike we moved to a very slight downhill grade in our driveway. The bike he was learning to ride had hand brakes, so we had him practice using them for slowing and stopping a few times before attempting a longer “coast.” With the seat down and the pedals off, he felt safe and in control – comfortable enough to practice and learn at his own pace.

Frankly, he was doing so well – and having so much fun – that we briefly went inside to get some refreshments. Only minutes later Ransom rushed in and excitedly announced, “I’m ready for you to put the pedals back on!”

And he was.

We put the pedals back on. But we only raised the seat a little bit, so he could easily put either foot down whenever he wanted. In the protected safety of our long driveway Ransom excitedly went back-and-forth riding his uncle’s old Schwinn Frontier – a small, sturdy “mountain bike” with 22-inch wheels I’d bought a few years earlier when my son Brian and I started riding together. As Ransom pedaled around, it wasn’t long before I heard a distinctive “click” as he shifted into a higher gear. He was already exploring what the bicycle could do – how it worked – and what he could do while riding it.

In less than one hour since we first lowered the seat and took the pedals off Ransom had learned to ride!

Brian used this technique to teach my other grandson Sebastian to ride without training wheels at the age of three. And Ransom recently shared it with a college friend who had never learned how to ride a bike – within just a couple of hours they were having a blast riding around campus together!

In how many areas of our lives do we need to “lower the seat and take the pedals off” so we can learn something new? It’s worth discarding conventional approaches – and expectations – when we consider the sheer joy of emerging mastery that could be ours when we reach the point of being ready to “put the pedals back on” and propel ourselves forward using newfound skills.

Gear Loft

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I returned home one evening last week to find my daughter Elisabeth and her fiancé Jude squatting in my driveway with my son Kevin and his wife Lennie. They were in the process of test firing my old MSR Whisperlite backpacking stove and were trying to remember the exact process for priming and then igniting the burner. It seems Kevin and Lennie were introducing friends of theirs to the joys of backpacking. They’d come to my house to borrow equipment from my “gear loft” (actually, Elisabeth was returning a two-person tent she had previously borrowed …).

A gear loft is a rectangle of mesh netting that ties to loops suspended from the top of a tent. It serves as a small storage area for lightweight items like a flashlight – or for drying a damp camp towel or freshly washed socks. I’d dubbed the decked area above my garage my “gear loft” when I realized it was a great place to store tents, sleeping bags, backpacks, bicycle accessories and all the other accoutrements of camping, cycling and canoeing we’d accumulated over three decades of adventures together.

I squatted in the driveway and led an impromptu coaching session on the fine points of operating the collapsible stove – including a safety inspection and some needed adjustments to the venerable burner.

“Dad, when did you get this stove?” Elisabeth asked.

“Hmmm,” I reflected. “I think I bought it for the trek we did on the Nantahala Forest section of the Appalachian Trail.” We both grinned, vividly recalling treasured memories from ten days we’d spent backpacking together in 1990.

Kevin chimed in, “Isn’t this the same stove we used at the Grand Canyon?”

I instantly conjured up a picture of him cooking supper on a South Rim campsite picnic table in 1996 the evening he and his brother Brian and I had just hiked river-to-rim following an overnighter at Bright Angel Creek. We’d gotten a backcountry permit and had packed into the canyon just the day before.

“Yep,” I answered, “and the family camping next to us refilled our fuel bottle and saved us a walk to the store that we didn’t need after that long climb up Bright Angel Trail!”

We lingered on the driveway for a while as a thunderstorm approached – sharing recollections of various backcountry trips I’ve taken over the years with diverse groupings of my children.

I’m very grateful for the terrific adventures we’ve had together – and the ones we’ll have in the future. And I’m very pleased that my children continue to work together as brothers and sister – and with their respective friends and now with their own children – to extend our family tradition of planning and sharing wonderful outdoor adventures.

That’s why my gear loft is always open!