The bicycle and a learning curve

A son’s exciting first rides and a mother’s reminiscences of her own cycling lessons as a young girl

L earning to ride a bicycle can be an exciting milestone in one’s life, one that our son embarked on recently.

In the evening on the first day the cycle came home, we had a string of people for whom we opened the door. Seeing no one at eye level, we looked down, only to find another of the little fellow’s friends, about the height of our knees, who had heard about the exciting acquisition and had come to take a look at the gleaming machine.

I noticed the son casting loving glances at the bicycle propped in the corner with training wheels every so often for the next few days. When he did get to ride it with his training wheels, he glowed like Ben-Hur taking his chariot for a spin.

Finally, one glorious Saturday evening, father and son set out to learn cycling without the training wheels. A few minutes later I stepped out to see the progress and saw the son was to be seen wobbling along with copious tears cascading down his cheeks, the husband mildly breaking into a sweat, and the rest of the street muttering soothingly.

Heroic tales

Children came and told heroic tales of their own cycle-learning sagas. One fellow said he not only broke his arm but almost sundered his mother’s arm too. Some went for the inspirational angle and said that once he learnt to ride a cycle, the adventures never end: One can fly down from pavements, cycle without holding handle-bars, race one another over speed bumps, or even leap from the cycle to get off it.

Every story was worth noting down, to sit and devour on a rainy evening with a steaming cup of tea in hand. This learning-how-to-cycle is one thing you can always hope to get good stories out of. Ask anyone how he or she learnt to cycle, and depending on where they hail from the story is bound to entertain, amuse and sometimes curdle one’s tea.

Watching the son cycle made me think of our dear neighbour-uncle from another age with a pang. It was neighbour-uncle who taught all of us how to ride a bicycle. He may well have taught the whole street. He had bought a new bicycle for his son who was a couple of years older than I was. The times were such that cycles were not toys everyone had. In fact, toys were not something everyone had. So, obviously, getting a brand- new cycle was gripping news, the breaking headlines of the street that toppled the mildly interesting news that the servant maid had run away with the local vagrant.

Neighbour-uncle graciously let us monkey pedal on it (for it was too big for us). On that one cycle, he taught four kids how to ride, all in one week. It was one glorious week in which we waited with shining eyes for our turn to get on the cycle. We were paragons of virtue the whole week, and I am sure everyone was quite happy to see the effect the cycle was having on us, at least for a short while. I remember praying that the rains would not dish our efforts, come cycling time. Armed with the simple trusting confidence that neighbour-uncle was holding the cycle and would not let us fall, we donned hopeful looks on our faces as we glimpsed back every now and then to make sure he was jogging beside us, holding the cycle.

It is a knack learning to cycle on a much larger cycle, but we managed with his help. He taught us the monkey-pedalling technique. We must have looked ridiculous riding that way, but it was so much fun feeling the wind against our faces glowing red with exertion, that we did not really care.

Refreshments galore

I also fondly remembered the delicious, large helpings of tea-cake that awaited our labours at the end of the cycling sessions. Neighbour-aunty made the best cakes I have ever eaten — to date it beats hands down all the creamy and Mickey Mouse shaped ones available in bakeries. She made her own butter, and her butter-making was an equally fascinating act. Many a happy day have we spent at their house, and all the memories of the dear family came flooding back, as I watched our son cycling.

Neighbour-uncle passed away recently. When the golden evening sun shone down on the street of excited children, and whoops of victory came from the now over-confident cyclist and his friends, I am sure he smiled down at the street where the little fellow was wobbling along on his bicycle. It was the kind of thing he would have liked.

saumya.bala@gmail.com