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by cduan 6006 days ago
Apparently a much simpler way is to just take the pedals off the bike:

http://www.sandcanyoncyclery.com/index.php?option=com_conten...

2 comments

I recently helped somebody (adult) to learn to ride a bike, and I'm pretty happy with how I did it. The first and only thing I insisted on was how to stop, i.e. how to come from both feet on the pedals and bike moving (mostly pushed by me) to a proper stop with one foot down. Once he could do it from a reasonable speed on both sides... it was pretty much over.

I took the idea from a friend who once got on a motorcycle without a good idea of where the break was, with rather funny results. First concern should be how to stop. The rest can be trial and error.

I assumed he meant rotating the handlebars clockwise and anti' when he says "forward and back".

Both techniques are doing the same thing. The one in the post is explicitly guiding the rider as to the mechanism involved in keeping the bike upright. The "remove the pedals" method is allowing the rider to discover this themselves. The later method probably introduces a side-to-side motion by virtue of the mechanics of pushing off with ones feet; you twist and turn the handlebars automatically.

OT: Can't read that link at all in the default style, dark blue on black?