Learning to Freewheel

03 Aug 2019 at 20:55 // under Cycling Family

This morning I went to the park with my eldest son and had him practice cycling his bike while I trotted along beside him. He has only recently learnt how to cycle (with pedals and without stabilisers) and hasn’t had that many opportunities to practice.

As we made our way around the park, he would frequently pull on the breaks, come to a complete stop and tell me he was tired and needed to rest. He would even do this when we were going down a slight hill. I then noticed that at all times, even when going down hill, he was always pedaling. He didn’t have the concept of freewheeling, letting the bike continue to move while keeping his legs still.

It is actually quite a difficult concept to explain and teach. The idea simply to stop and see if the bike keeps moving, allowing you to rest while still moving forward. I think by the end, he was starting to understand, though still had a tendency to stop at random locations.

Clearly we need to go to the park and practice more.

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