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So next on my list of "things I should have picked up twenty years ago, and now are vaguely embarrassing to learn" is bicycling. I found myself in possession of a 21 speed Pacific mountain bike, and I've been riding it a few miles as a warmup before climbing workouts on the moon board. The things is...I suck at bicycling. Like, badly. I can ride a bike, but even just keeping my balance while signaling a turn is a conscious effort, and I regularly get concerned I'm going to just fall over, which is deeply stupid. I feel like I should be more fluent in my motion, but I'm just not.
I learned to ride a bike at an appropriate age, but never really did it much after a few 15-20 mile bike trips in scouts in my early teens. My parents never really let me ride my bike anywhere interesting because I would have to cross "busy roads" and I was the kind of quiet submissive kid that listened to them and didn't push boundaries.
So here I am, 33 years old, and I'm bad at riding a bike. But it seems like something I "should" be able to do, and the novelty is making it a pretty fun workout.
How does one get better at riding a bike as an adult? What should I be doing to bike as a workout program? What should my goals be? I literally have no idea, so far I just ride a mile up the road and turn around and ride back, then climb.
A minor thing that may help (no guarantees) is learning how to bike without your hands on the handlebars (at least temporarily). Essentially this is going at a sufficient medium speed, and “shifting” your body weight or center of balance a little more towards your hips. It also forces you to make your pedal cycle more consistent and regular. You bike straight and one handed, then slowly practice shifting your weight back slightly, so that at first you are lightly resting the hand on top of the handlebars, or floating one or the other on top, and then practice removing it for longer periods of time (of course you can grab it back with one or ideally both hands carefully if you wobble). Eventually you can get to a point where you can, on flat and straight roads without traffic, bike straight with your hands on your hips or so. Note that this works best on a more mountain bike style bike, some road bikes have seats and/or handlebars that deliberately force you to assume more of an aerodynamically superior forward lean position. You also can’t really do this on any kind of notable incline.
I’m not completely positive if that would help or anything, but maybe? The process of learning it for me at least was helpful for getting a better and more intuitive sense of where my balance is and could be, though I already had spent a decent time biking so idk.
Also yes, perhaps adjust your seat too.
Thanks for the tip!
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