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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?

#131

Post by [deleted] »

mxfh wrote: post #116
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.

[deleted]

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

#132

Post by robotresearcher »

mrob wrote: post #49
j7ake wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How flat is Netherlands compared to other countries?

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.

> It's flatter than average

It's the flattest country in Europe, or close runner up.

https://beyondthemaps.wordpress.com/2017/01/28/flatness/

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

#134

Post by Too »

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…

Yep. A bike is self stabilizing due to the design of the dropout on the fork. If you lean left it automatically turns left which will push you upright again.

It is hard to not stay balanced on a bike. Unless you are on uneven or slippery surface, or do other stunts, the only way you can really fall is if you are moving too slow or you are deliberately forcing your handlebars to turn very hard.

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

#135

Post by barbarr »

Sharlin wrote: post #103
black-tea wrote: post #96

Has this actually been tested for a large number of years? I learnt to drive a manual car and then proceeded to not drive for ten years. When I tried to drive again I essentially had to learn again from scratch (quite dangerous actually as I was still fully licensed and everything). Would it actually be the same for a bike? Ten years is quite a long time.

Last time I cycled frequently I was in high school, 15 years ago. After that, I’ve almost exclusively just walked or used public transport. Recently I acquired a used bike and it took literally zero practice or adjustment to get going again. My technique may not be at the level of a serious road cyclist but then again it never was.

On the contrary, I used to cycle often when I was around 10 or so, and then never cycled when I was older. Then, when I was 21, I needed to use a bike to travel around work, but it turned out for some reason I had completely forgotten how to ride and had to pick up the skill anew. It's still a mystery to me how I completely forgot the skill and had to relearn it.

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

#136

Post by fatnoah »

wtallis wrote: post #13
VanillaCafe wrote: post #9

> Years later, when we discover these relics and hop on, it’s as if we never stopped biking. I'd like to challenge this. Barring scientific evidence to this fact, it is at best an anecdotal evidence, and so I will submit my own anecdote: I didn't ride a bike for about 10 years. When I started riding again, I definitely felt unsteady for the first few days or weeks compared to my previous riding ability. I was unstead…

> When I started riding again, I definitely felt unsteady for the first few days or weeks compared to my previous riding ability. This can happen to frequent riders simply as a result of switching to a different bike with different geometry from what you're used to. Eg. if you normally ride a mountain bike with a fairly upright posture and suddenly switch to a road bike with a low and narrow handlebars and toe overla…

I had a similar experience, but with cross-country skiing. I was an avid skier from age 2 to 22. I raced in high school, spent every weekend out skiing (skating and traditional), had no problems on any trail, no matter how steep or difficult, etc.

In college, I took up downhill skiing. Twenty years later, I tried cross-country skiing again and could barely stay upright! I went in with full confidence and ended up shuffling around like a zombie on ice.

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

#137

Post by garyclarke27 »

KineticLensman wrote: post #27
baddox wrote: post #6

Does anyone find anything odd or unique about the fact that we don’t forget how to ride a bike? I can’t think of any similar activity that people do forget.

Skiing is something else where, for me at least, the 'don't forget' effect applies. I used to ski in a one to two week block every year, for about 20 years (i.e. 2 weeks on then 50 weeks off). Once I reached a certain level (being able to do parallel turns) I never really forgot how to do them, although the first few runs of a new season would be a bit tentative. Something that continued to improve year on year was m…

Agreed, skiing very similar, I started skiing late at 40, after much - time expense falls - I am now a proficient skier, (black runs moguls etc no problem). If I go skiing after a long break, I worry still worry though whether I still ski?, but aleays come back to me immediately without having to think.

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

#138

Post by trustfundbaby »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #31
trustfundbaby wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you get by in day-to-day life without a bike ? By living in most cities in the USA? :D

I’ve only been to the US once (San Francisco) and US cities are strange to me. Especially the fact that there is no real city centre, just blocks of buildings with wide streets between them.

Most American cities do have a city center though ... which ones have you visited.

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

#139

Post by jacobolus »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #129
starbeast wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's just so many more men out there dedicated to climbing hard than women. There's a study that looked into this for chess and found that for the amount of people who actually stick at it, 96% of the the split in chess can be accounted for by it being what you would expect for the amount of men and women playing. >Why are (the best) women so good at chess? Participation rates and gender differences in intellectu…

"the amount of people who actually stick to it" is an absolutely massive sampling bias, even at age under 10. Even among people of same general intelligence, areas of interest matters a lot. I don't doubt there are sexism and cultural effects on participation disparities, but ask anyone raising chess-playing children and you'll find notable gender differences in interest level in chess from a young age. Similar is se…

> There's a classic book [..] by an author extremely excited about teaching math to small children. He found that his son lapped it up but he could never get his daughter interested (she would turn his math games into non-math social games)

It is ridiculous to suggest based on a sample of 2 (!) siblings that the sister’s precocity at drawing and storytelling and the brother’s greater interest in patterns and numbers is generally representative of their gender.

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