Happy New Bike!

Happy New Year! I haven't quite devised any resolutions for this year as like most people, I never tend to keep them. However, I have found a mountain bike that could be mine, so I don't keep poncing George's.

It is a mountain bike, however it has two flat tyres and probably needs more work doing that my untrained eye can spot. But the price is excellent, as it's free!

It belongs to my mate's dad from back home, they've put it in a free ad in the paper and still haven't managed to shift it (a definite sign of quality).

Nevertheless, with a bit of elbow grease and a few blog posts, I should have shown you how to rescue a bike from the scrap heap.

When I was told about the bike, they mentioned there was a girls bike there too. Immediatley I thought they were poking fun at my traumatic experiences, but they haven't read this blog. I think.

My mate's parents used to go biking together, which is why they had both. Perhaps my sister could take over the other bike and help teach me when I move home from university.

But what do you think - should I add Coach Simson into the mix? What do you think? Do women make better teachers?

The Box Technique

Apparently you need a licence to ride a bike. A flaming licence, as if going through all of this hassle wasn't enough I have to get a piece of paper from 'The Man' so I can ride my bicycle.


Well 'The Man' being The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents...on second thought, it might be worthwhile doing.
This week I tried the classic technique again, that instructors dish out on your cycling proficiency. I made a box with cones in a car park and I had to stay within those cones.

It sounds easy, however when you're challenged to make quick and sharp turns when normally they're slow and wide, it becomes very frustrating.

If you start with a size that you can comfortably ride around in, then slowly move the cones inward to decrease the size of the box and increase the difficulty.

When we set up my box, one end was marked with a big curb with a lampost in it. So I was forced to make the turns successfully at that end otherwise I would be launched off the bike.

    The pesky curb- where I crashed so many times- on the Bottom left.

I tried to ride around in a figure of eight in the box, this meant I had to control my speed when entering a turn. Also I had to keep looking forward instead of giving into the temptation of looking down, whilst riding in a big circle.

Look out for some videos and pictures of the box technique soon. Unfortunately it was too dark for pictures this time.

Re-Learn With Laurence

There may be some of you reading this who can already ride a bike, well in actuality you probably all can. Otherwise 20-year-old oddities such as myself would be very common indeed.

In this blog I am trying to help those who have only just began to learn or are teaching someone else. However, I have come across some techniques that experienced riders did not know and could help more than just beginnners.

The term under-rotation is one I picked up from IMB magazine and Coach Woodward.

When you are braking on the bike or trying to have any element of control over it in my case, try tipping your pedals back, so you heel points further towards the floor. This allows you to control the momentum rather than merely trying to battle it.

The easiest way to describe it is how it is mentioned in the article:

"If you were walking down a hill or a steep path you wouldn't do it on tip toes and leaning forward even if you were to run down it you'd dig your heels in- so do the same on your bike."


So if you dip your heels to gain more control you'll fall off less. Nuff said.

Look out for some more biking tips soon!

Little White Lies 3: Centre Parks

The problem with bikes, especially when you can't ride one, is that they crop up all too often. For instance, my school water sports trip, hanging out at the park and of course the bi-wheeled woodland magnet that is Center Parks.

In case you're not familiar with Center Parks, they are family resorts based all across Europe and the UK. It has all the usual family woodland fun, like clay pigeon shooting, laser pigeon shooting and paintballing. Basically if you like shooting things, they've got it covered.

Another staple-mark of Center Parks is biking, they have tandem bikes which I had only ever seen in films, treasure hunt on bikes, you can't even walk outside without some troublesome, showboating little girl whizzing past, doing a wheelie or something else ridiculously dangerous. All the kids there ride bikes, mostly alone, probably so their lazy parents can drink.

Bearing this in mind, my mother thought it would be a great idea to book our accommodation as far away from the swimming pool as humanly possible. The swimming complex at this particular Suffolk Center Parks was huge, with flumes, plunge pools and a subtropical swimming paradise theme. Any child in their right mind would kill to go there. However, I would be forced to cycle a sizeable distance just to swim!

Even though our family friends were treating us with the holiday, she had still managed to interfere and make things torturous for me. Their ingenious idea was that if I was simply forced to ride to the swimming pool, then I would somehow magically learn during the long weekend.

It was a very long weekend.

We rented two bikes for me that weekend, one dark blue BMX and a big red tricycle with a basket on the back. I was exstatic with the big red trike, as it gave me my first ever taste of riding and we used the basket on the back to carry our swimming stuff, so I was assured no one would realise I couldn't ride and would assume I was merely being a mobile baggage handler for the weekend.

Looking back, there is no reason why a child would voluntarily choose a cumbersome red trike over a nifty BMX with a million gears. Which probably explains some of the sniggers I recieved over the weekend and why I remember quite vividly noticing one man, on a trike with no basket...he shared my curse.

The role of tutoring me on my BMX fell to Freddie, the partner of my mum's old school friend. Now Freddie was a very intelligent and caring man, however up until this point he had not experienced the joys of fatherhood. I remember at one point, Freddie tried to entertain me with a calculator. Yes, a calculator. His game involved multiplying numbers by two, with me trying to guess the answer...quite possibly the worst game in the history of the world.

I think Freddie's overtly logical approach may have been his downfall.

1 child + 1 boys bike x 2 hours practice= success

Well it didn't. With no stabilisers, Freddie resorted to the classic tactic of holding me up, whilst I tried to pedal. The only problem was that I just stared at my feet, whilst pedaling, safe in the knowledge that he was holding me. Until he let go, with me staring at my feet and suddenly I was staring at the ground, with a big graze on my knee and tears in my eyes.

The second attempt was slightly more 'compassionate',  my sister's obnoxious boyfriend rode alongside me, shouting the least encouraging encouragement imaginable.

"Don't fall off, don't fall off, don't fall off."

I fell off.

I remember picking the bike up again, puffing with frustration, determined to succeed at last. I set the bike pointing up the road and pedaled hard with my eyes shut for concentration. As you can imagine, this was an awful idea and I opened them just in time to see three things:

1) My front tyre veer sharply off the road
2) Some showboating little girls whiz past me, cackling
3) A huge stingy nettle bush loom ahead


I slammed on my breaks (quite an achievement for me at the time) slipped off the seat, then went over the handle bars straight into the stingy nettles. As the tears began to roll once more, I sub-consciously erased this traumatic event from my memory, until my mother reminded me whilst I told her about this blog.

Mothers eh? gotta love them.

What I learnt:

1) I really, really hate showboating little girls
2) Shouting really obvious commands still doesn't work
3) I hate maths
4) Being frustrated or wound up, really ruin your chances of progress, take time out to calm down

Students Become The Teacher:

Learning to ride a bike takes will power, patience and a good teacher. My previous teachers either gave up too quickly or didn't know the right way to go about it.

This time round I've enlisted two helpers, two of my university housemates George Woodward and Atif Ali.

On the left, Coach Ali and on the right Coach Woodward.

George is a keen mountain-biking-extreme-dude. He rides down hills in the country at brake neck speeds and recently returned from a trip to Morzine in France, a mountain biking hot spot. Check out his blog for more. http://studentbikingblog.blogspot.com/
George is very ambitious and always strives for the next level in my biking skill.

Coach Woodward: "I'm totally pumped to teach Laurence to ride, some of the fails will be pretty gnarly and he'll probably spank it big time but we're all stoked here in Stoke to see him succeed."

Atif, like many is a regular bike rider and learned when he was very young. He has missed using a bike since he has started driving and been at university. Atif also brings a more methodical approach and an understanding balance to the teaching team.

Coach Ali: "What the hell did George just say!?"

                  Coach Ali fulfilling the proud paternal role

Check back soon, for my first ever ride in 10 years and hilarious videos of my attempts!

In The Beginning: Part 2-Showboating Little Girls

Last time, as i delved into my closet of skeletal biking tales, i mentioned three people have attempted to teach me to ride.

My Mum tried alone whilst my mates dad and brother worked in tandem (see the bike related pun).

However despite the expertise and strength of two grown men, they failed...whilst this does ruin the end of the story, hopefully you can learn more from my journey. As most children won't tell you why they're so embarrassed to be learning or failing, I can outline every gory detail.

The attempt began one afternoon after school, my school friend's dad, was attempting to fill my fatherless void and help out my mum by teaching me to ride a bike, when I came round for a play-date.

Whilst being a very nice gesture, it was news to me, I had no idea or intention of learning. Instead I had planned on some particularly epic adventures with my mates action men, or producing another installment of our worryingly named radio show 'Rude Radio'. With highlights including us interviewing each other, whilst one of us pretended to be Briney Spears, talking to listeners (in an old woman's voice) about her menstrual cycle.

Amazing what you learn on the playground.

So soon I was stood in the middle of the park, staring at my mates intimidatingly large BMX. Although I was much taller than my friend at the time (he has since shot up to a tower 6'4") the towering size of the bike only meant one thing to me, a bigger fall.

According to a friend on mine, whilst working at Halfords most parents always purchased a large bike their kids could 'grow in to' my mother applied the same logic to clothes, that saw the same space invaders hoody dutifully serve me for four years! Although this theory is easier on the back pocket, especially as we still wade through recession, perhaps a smaller, cheaper bike from a bootfair is better. Especially if your child is still knee-high to a grasshopper.

Back in a chilly park in Kent, the first of a few attempts at riding failed miserably. So my mates dad and brother, held me at either side and tried to run along with me as i pedalled. Now two problems occurred here-

1) The aforementioned puppy fat was too much for my 50-year old teacher and his chain smoking son. Which lead to much heavy breathing and mumbled profanities as they waddled along beside me.

PUPPY FAT ACTION MAN

2) Soon another attempt was abandoned, to my great relief. I recall my mate's dad saying, 'keep practicing Laurence' as I got into my mum's car, I smiled and said I would...Then turned my back on learning for ten years.

I think another three pearls of wisdom can be drawn from this trip down memory lane:

1. DON'T neglect to tell your kids when you plan on teaching them, especially if their previous attempts have been riddled with failure. If it's something they really don't want to do, don't just drop it on them, especially with a relative stranger.
2. AVOID buying a huge bike for your kids to grow on to, even though it may seem cheaper, if it's too big and intimidating, they'll never learn and the bike will never get used.
   Maybe share a smaller bike between a group of parents at school??
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY go somewhere secluded, this was one thing my dear old mum did get right, no one likes having their faults on display in public...
   BEWARE SHOWBOATING LITTLE GIRLS
   

In The Beginning: Learning To Ride

Before I set out and open the old wounds (metaphorically) and create some new ones (literally) I want to divulge my past experiences.

The past 20 years, have seen some calamitous attempts and the odd white lie.

To date, three people have attempted to teach me to ride. My mother, my friend's dad and my friend's brother. All three tried. All three failed.

However there are some lessons to be learnt from their attempts and quite a few laughs to be had.

First of all came my mum. Now, she worked hard all her life and still does. At the time she was working as a cleaner and was strapped of time and energy to take me out to learn.

My mum and sister's bike had been condemned to a dusty grave in my nan's shed, as our house was too small to store them. So there were no bikes readily available, odd conversation sometimes cropped up between the family, mumblings about my nan's god-son fitting stabilizers.

I have only met this god-son about four times in my entire life, so the odds of him dropping his busy life of being an unemployed chav, buying some stabilizers, fitting them to a bike I didn't have and then teaching me to ride, were slim to say the least.

So the job fell to my mum, who god-bless her was protective of me. However calling her protective doesn't quite cut it. In primary school I was forced to wear a vest, polo-shirt, shirt and jumper to school, to keep me warm, in the summer. Even now, when I told her I was learning to ride a bike, the first thing she said was "STAY OFF THE MAIN ROAD!"

Bearing her maternal omnipotence in mind, I'm sure it won't surprise you that she bought me a girls bike. Yes thats right, not only was the idea of a tubby, 10-year-old falling off his bike in public bad enough, she wanted me to do it on a little girls bike as well.

Although there was some method in her madness, said bike was purchased from a boot fair, where choice was limited but the bikes were cheap. Being a single parent family it was the logical choice, however a baby blue, girl's bike emblazoned with Tony The Tiger stickers was not.

THEY'RE FOR GGGGGGGGIRLS!!!

Her other reason for buying a girls bike was the bent, down-tube frame. So if I fell off, I wouldn't hurt my...little fella.

In her credit I never did hurt myself in that way, however the one and only time she took me out on the baby blue monstrosity, I hurt myself in so many other ways. Scraped knees and bruised shins shattered my motivation as did her lack of advice...

"JUST PEDDLE, JUST PEDDLE!"

This method of teaching me to ride a bike was very similar to her method of teaching me to drive.

"KICK ON, KICK ON!"

What, 'kick on' means is speed up. Why she kept saying it and didn't just say 'speed up' I do not know. All I can say, was that it was annoying, very, very annoying!

My day spent 'just peddling' saw me reach my record distance on the long-jump run up:

Three Metres.

My mother has been the ideal parent all of my life, however for all her countless skills, she can't teach for toffee.

What i learnt: So if you are a parent or friend trying to teach a child or anyone to ride a bike. There are three things to avoid.

1. Don't shout vague commands like- "RIDE A BIKE", "PEDDLE" and "STOP CRYING" It may have helped Forest Gump learn to run but won't magically teach someone to ride a bike.
2. Don't buy a Girls bike for a boy, it adds insult to injury, most parents are oblivious to the embarrassment they cause. This is a no brainer.
3. Don't put it off, if you're going to buy a bike, buy it! If you're going to fit stabilizers, fit them! If you're going to go out and teach someone, stick at it!

*Stay tuned for more embarrassing moral tales, as two grown men try and fail to hold an obese 10-year-old on his bike!*