"Training Wheels" for Starters

Question

After numerous attempts to ride my cruiser bike without falling, I have ordered a set of "training wheels" for my bike. Yes, I took the pedals off and practiced on grass and all that, but just could not get the hang of it. The very last time I had training wheels on a bike, I was 7 years old, so this was not an easy decision for me. I am 59.

My question is this: How will I be able to tell when I no longer need the training wheels? When I was a kid, the training wheels actually lifted off the ground after awhile, indicating that I wasn't even dependent on them (so my parents took them off). I became quite proficient at riding and hope to be again, so this is important to me. Any ideas?

Please do not write in and tell me not to install the wheels - I agonized over this so long, and am only doing it as a last resort. Please just advise based on the assumption that these wheels are going on the bike. Thanks.

Answer 1

Please do not write in and tell me not to install the wheels - I agonized over this so long, and am only doing it as a last resort.

I know you don’t want to hear this, but at least for children there has been a trend in recent years to skip training wheels completly. It just leads to children trusting in them and never learning to balance. Where did you find strong enough training wheels for a grown adult anyways?

Just like Daniel R Hicks in the comments I suspect the bicycle for being at least partly responsible. I’ve never ridden one of those cruiser bicycles myself but the seating position generally looks horrible.

Can’t you borrow a more normal bicycle, adjust the saddle height (hiiiigh!) and ask someone to assist you i.e. keep you steady so you can reach speed? (it’s much easier to balance a moving bicycle)

Answer 2

This probably sounds completely non-helpful, but you'll know you don't need the training wheels when you're no longer using the training wheels.

I'm sure you're probably tired of the non-helpful "don't use training wheels" as well... here's the problem with training wheels.

Any two wheel, in-line vehicle (i.e., bicycle, motorcycle) is balanced and steered by countersteering*; the operator controls balance and direction by turning the front wheel the direction it's falling over, or to turn, away from the desired path of travel to force it to lean in.

Any vehicle with more than two points of contact with the ground (bus, car, motorcycle with sidecar, bicycle with training wheels), doesn't; direction is controlled "normally" by pointing the front wheel(s) where you want to go.

This makes training wheels- at the surface a good idea- problematic, as your motor system is trying to learn two different sets of skills. At best, you've converted your bicycle into a quadcycle. At worst where they don't touch the ground all the time, sometimes it's a tricycle, sometimes it's not, and you're forcing your brain to switch modes rapidly, making it harder to learn, not easier.

There's a video on YouTube channel "Smarter Every Day" with a backward steering bicycle; maybe you've seen them at a fair or carnival. The steering is geared so turning the bars right make the wheel turn left. It is very difficult to learn how to ride, because you have to retrain your motor skills. Should you watch it, note at 1:02 to 1:05, when he attempts to ride it- the bike starts falling to rider's left, and he tries to steer the front tire back under it- causing it to fall faster. Later he tries to ride a normal bicycle, and can't at first; his brain has to switch modes. This is what you're doing to yourself by wanting to use training wheels. Smarter Every Day, Backwards Bicycle

Good Luck!

*The mechanics of which are beyond the scope, etc; for this article, let's run with the belief in magic. Or, Countsteering 101