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Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

#111

Post by heavenlyblue »

jplayer01 wrote: post #105
heavenlyblue wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I think the article misses one of the points, though: for example, I had a time between 14 and about 22 when I didn't swim at all, having spent about 4 years doing swimming as a sport. When I started swimming again at the age of 22, I could swim obviously - but it took me weeks of re-remembering all of the correct positions of my hands, which muscles to contract and how should I breathe in order to sustai…

> When I started swimming again at the age of 22, I could swim obviously - but it took me weeks of re-remembering all of the correct positions of my hands, which muscles to contract and how should I breathe in order to sustain that swimming for longer than a few laps. But it's important to note that it took you only a few weeks. Originally learning all these movements probably took years of training and you still kne…

>> Originally learning all these movements probably took years of training and you still knew them so well that you could retrain your muscles to use them like back then.

Nah. I am actually making the opposite point: I had to consciously re-remember (from whatever I remembered my instructor told me) how it were back then and retrain myself to do it correctly all over again.

For example, getting over anxiety that I would be out of breath the next time I am breathing in. The only reason I could get over it was because I have consciously remembered I could do that when I was a kid, so it was just a matter of training and habit both of which I had to consciously push myself to acquire again.

"a few weeks" would only be related to "conscious remembering how it needs to be done", rather than "swimming like the old days". It took me a few months; constant attention and reading how to swim properly otherwise.

Re: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

#113

Post by aidenn0 »

FatalLogic wrote: post #2

I'll suggest that we don't forget to how to ride a bike because a very important part of that skill is confidence and self-belief. It's similar to swimming. Does anybody ever forget how to swim? If you don't believe you can ride a bike then you'll tend to wobble around slowly and cautiously and overcorrect by manual steering. If you don't believe you can swim then you'll try to constantly hold your face too high abov…

But, anecdotally at least, you can unlearn how to ride a bike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0

Re: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

#114

Post by aidenn0 »

kaybe wrote: post #76
mrob wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's flatter than average, but I think most people bringing up flatness are non-cyclists. Regular cyclists know that wind speed is just as important, and the Netherlands has higher wind speed than average. If you've never ridden into a strong headwind you might not realize how much it slows you down.

What always gets me is that you don't really feel a tailwind. Riding just becomes so easy, and you'd think it's you, or your bike and the street are in a good condition.. and then you try to turn around. A great metaphor in life as well, really.

Yeah, I remember as a kid I covered 20 miles in under an hour and at first thought that I had just gotten in way better shape. Then I rode back...

Re: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

#115

Post by aidenn0 »

baddox wrote: post #19
ken wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite what the article suggests about playing a musical instrument, I picked up an instrument that I used to play (for ~10 years), a couple years ago, and I was completely lost. Tone, pitch, form, fingering, tuning, reading sheet music, knowing scales -- pretty much everything was just gone. It was not at all "like riding a bike". I played around for a few weeks but it felt like I was starting from scratch.

I’m a musician, so I considered the example of playing an instrument. It’s an interesting example, because it certainly requires a lot of muscle memory that becomes “automatic” with practice, but it also usually requires conscious thought about what you’re playing (which basic bicycling does not). I would expect that the basic muscle memory parts would be hard to forget, but that the conscious decisions would be easy…

I didn't play my clarinet at all for 5ish years (and was only playing it once or twice a year for the 5 previous years), and getting a good sound out of it was impossible[1], but basic technique (e.g. scales, arpeggios, sight reading) was still about as good as 4 years in to when I was learning as a kid.

1: At least some of this is mouth muscles just being too weak (in another thread an ex rock climber talks about climbing a tree and that's a similar effect), some of it is that when I quit, I was still learning to make it sound good, so I never had unconscious control for a lot of the subtle changes I had to make. The rest is probably just things I forgot.

Re: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

#116

Post by mxfh »

chmod775 wrote: post #78

Because the main "skill" to riding a bike is actually overcoming your fear that it'll tip over. A bike is naturally stable while moving and your body's natural sense of balance will do the rest. Only when you're actually scared, don't trust the bike and try to overcompensate will you tip over. You can "get" riding a bike on your first attempt if you're trusting enough. I have seen children do it. It took myself a few…

I think it the same thing riding bike isn't intrinsically hard to learn, it's about confidence and overcoming fear a lot too. Same goes for downhill skiing, havent done it in years, but would not hesitate.

Re: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

#117

Post by milesvp »

adrianN wrote: post #20
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came to love climbing as a sport partially because of what you're describing. You could be able to deadlift 450lb, do 10 pull ups with 100lb hanging off of your body, what have you, and still be an awful climber (like I was) despite having so much grip and upper and lower body strength. It's all about technique, and it takes years to nail it down. That feeling of progression is a lot of fun and it isn't linear at a…

Technique is super important. Female climbers obviously don't have the same kind of strength as men, which is why they climb differently. That doesn't mean that they're (much) worse than their male competitors.

I was taught that women tended to be better than men at climbing due to the basic physics of their physiology. That pound for pound women have stonger muscles and that women tend to have lower center of gravity due to wider hips (though maybe this was just for pear shaped women?). And that this more than offset their shorter reach and lower strength. I’d be curious if this line of thinking is still fasionable in the sport, I never got very good at the sport, and havn’t climbed in like 16 years. It sounds like from another comment here that at the top tier men might only have the advantage of numbers and the top climbers simply tend to be men because they out number women climbers.

Re: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

#118

Post by agumonkey »

Jetroid wrote: post #47

Anecdotal, but perhaps interesting: I rode a bike every few weeks with my father as a child. When I was 11, I had a pretty serious health condition including paralysis from the waist down. I had to spend several years retraining my muscles to be able to walk and run again. I'm 22 now, and have just (literally in the past two weeks) started riding a bike again. I wasn't particularly confident but I was happily surpris…

Our system is so large and full of over-capacity, somehow it takes extreme cases like yours to know it firsthand. Anyways, happy to know you're back on track.

Re: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

#119

Post by maxxxxx »

FatalLogic wrote: post #2

I'll suggest that we don't forget to how to ride a bike because a very important part of that skill is confidence and self-belief. It's similar to swimming. Does anybody ever forget how to swim? If you don't believe you can ride a bike then you'll tend to wobble around slowly and cautiously and overcorrect by manual steering. If you don't believe you can swim then you'll try to constantly hold your face too high abov…

I think you are on to something. Biking doesn't require any special muscles or strength so you can do it purely from memory. With other activities you also need some physical skills untrained people don't have.

When I did kickboxing I used to be able to kick really high but after a few years of not doing it the muscle memory is still there but I just don't have the strength and flexibility to go really high.

Re: Why Don’t We Forget How to Ride a Bike?

#120

Post by aristophenes »

Two unique things about bikes is that it is harder the slower you go, and it uses a skill, balance, that we practice every day as we stand and walk. When you are a child, afraid of falling, with no experience, you want to go very slow. And that is the hardest way to ride a bike. As you increase speed it wants to stay more stable (on a flat surface).

Just the knowledge that you have done it before, that it is an easy thing, means that in the first second you are accelerating to a speed where it is in fact easy to ride a bike. I don't think that particular example is as much about skill as it is about confidence.

Frankly, the experience "you don't forget how to ride a bike" was true for me the very first time I rode a bike. My mom was holding on to the bike, then we moved faster, then a few seconds later I realized my mom had stopped behind me and I had been doing it on my own. We just had reached a speed where that became easy. And then the trick was not panicking ;)

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