“The shame of not knowing how to pedal” – learning to cycle as an adult is possible

Yes, learning to ride a bike as an adult is possible. We met four students from the same cycling school last December. Three of them, Alexandra, Nora and Oumana, learned to cycle around their respective thirties; As for Christine, she learned to pedal again once she retired.

Learning to ride a bike as an adult, a possible experience

During December, in 2024, the Vélo Paris 17 committee is organizing an evening. The theme? “Let’s talk bikes”. Desire ? Try to slip in a stand-up format. Each witness has approximately 10 minutes to tell their story of cycling in their life. Or the place of cycling in your city. Representatives of associations (Paris en Selle in particular) take the floor following citizens who pedal or work in the world of cycling.

Back to school (from the bike)

Patrick Roland, representative of the branch of the MDB-Clichy association and cycling instructor trainer, carries Alexandra, Nora, Oumana and Christine in his wake. All four of them have in common that they wanted to learn cycling as adults. Christine, to be precise, learned to pedal again, once she retired. For 10 minutes, on stage, they explain their desire for cycling. For what ? How ? Except that 10 minutes is too short.

Learning to ride a bike as an adult: 5 witnesses

Since in ten minutes, on stage (a quick calculation indicates that they had around 2 minutes each), they barely have time to tell us about their journey. Why didn’t they learn to ride a bike when they were younger? Why did they want to cycle now? How did they find the bike school? How did they learn to pedal? Pedal, to do what? To go where? Nora, Christine, Oumama, Alexandra and Patrick came to speak on the microphone of Cause-Commune, for a special one-hour episode of Rayons Libres.

Lots of learning

Find the school

On the microphone, they teach us that the first difficulty when you want to learn to ride a bike as an adult is finding the bike school. “To learn to swim, it’s simple, you go to the swimming pool and ask the person at the counter“To learn to drive a car, we go to a driving school, which is well established.

But to learn to pedal, you don’t go to the velodrome! And bike school point with a storefront. So, we go to a bike seller, and we ask them. Often, in these places, they don’t even know that there are bicycle schools. Since they sell bikes… to those who know how to ride them.

A question of gender

Having four female students around the table is certainly not a coincidence. When I ask them the question, “Do you think you would have been a boy, your parents would have taught you to ride a bike?“. The answer is unanimous: yes. As if it were more natural, still in the 1990s, to teach a boy to pedal. Girls? What’s the point.

Another way to project yourself into the city

Patrick confirms this to us. Learning to ride a bike is two major steps. The first is to learn to master technique, balance, pedaling, braking. But when her students master the object, they have only completed half of the training.

The second part of the learning? Understanding public space in a new way. Public space by bike is different whether you are on foot, by public transport, by car or by bike. The only way to understand it is to confront it, slowly, with guidance.

“The shame of not knowing how to pedal“

“The pride they have in being able to say today that they know how to pedal is palpable”

By listening to this testimony from these five people, we learn. Many points that might seem obvious to us who know how to pedal are not obvious to those who don’t know how. She’s not far away either.”the shame of not knowing how to ride a bike“, in a society which talks more and more about this machine as a means of transport, a tool for tourism. And if the shame of not knowing how to pedal is not far away, the pride they have in being able to say Now that they know how to pedal is palpable.

Often, here, in the columns of Weelz!, we slip you a link to these Rayons Libres broadcasts. We are providing you with this link, as if to make it easier for you, if your curiosity prevails, click on the link and listen to the guest’s testimony. For once, we include the link and beyond that, we encourage you to take an hour to listen to his testimonies. They are strong, they are beautiful. They also allow us to measure how lucky we were to learn to ride a bike a long, long time ago.

I often notice when politicians talk about bicycles, they start with “I remember my first bike…” then they tell an anecdote, cute or not. “I was 8 years old…” Concerning myself, I am lucky enough not to remember my first bike. That probably means that I got my first bike around the same time as my first shoes. Who remembers their first shoes?

Photo credit for featured image: La Fabrique des Cyclistes Courbevoie.