Dear LPG,

I have found the perfect excuse to tell readers some very personal news and today is just the day for this particular bulletin. 

The other day, via the wonders of Skype, I was allowed to see one of those all-important ‘first ever moments’ that are so significant to parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and many other friends and relatives.  My young grandson mastered the mysteries of movement on two wheels and I was so proud.

It took me back to my own experience of being taught.  I say ‘being taught’ guardedly because I never got much further than that.  I have three brothers who never had a problem with two-wheeled propulsion, but I got to the age of 10 without having mastered the skill.  We lived halfway up Devonshire Road in Forest Hill, and I am now giving my age away a little because my definitive bicycling lesson took place in the days when there was barely a car on the road. 

The three of them positioned me in the middle of the road while they held the back of the bike upright behind me as I straddled the seat with my feet on the peddles in the secure knowledge that the boys were keeping me upright.  Then they began to push slowly.  The hill helped and I was going quite quickly before I knew it but my brothers’ voices of encouragement stopped, so I looked round, only to see them, at the top of the hill on the horizon and fast disappearing into the distance.  Panic set in, the bike and I crashed to the ground and I resolved never to do that again; one resolution that I have kept for more than 60 years so far.

Then there was my attempt to teach the father of the young man I mentioned at the beginning of my message, I remember the park, the bike and my words of encouragement as I mentioned looking straight ahead and not at the ground, while he made progress and replied, ‘How do you know Mum, you can’t even ride a bike!’

History has taught me that bicycles started out without peddles while the rider was required to thrust himself along with feet touching the floor, rather like one still does on a scooter these days.  I say ‘one’ because I don’t mean me, although I think that I could have mastered that, but I don’t think that I will ever try again. It is interesting to note that mini versions of these ‘balance bikes’ are now sold to teach the very young.  I have decided over the years, that not every skill is designed to be grasped by every person and I am never going to master this one.  

We have come a long way from the ‘hobby horse’ and the ‘boneshaker’ models of two hundred years ago and Boris, with his London bikes, is doing his best to  convince us that they are cheap, good exercise and a way of dodging the traffic, but while I would like to acknowledge World Bicycle Day today, I think I will celebrate by taking another look at my grandson demonstrating his pedal power.

Can I lastly suggest that today is the day to get on your bike if you still can, or perhaps it is a day to recall your personal memories of the two wheeled wonder as we celebrate World Bicycle Day…

AP, Forest Hill

AP found a little information…

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…while LPG found a few videos to get the memory juices flowing and make you smile …

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