First-Ever Learn to Ride Class Empowers Stanford Students to Get Rolling
Anyone who’s spent time at Stanford knows that the place voted most-beautiful campus in the country is best experienced from the seat of a bike. Yet many students arrive each September without having ever learned to ride. Or they feel intimidated and/or rusty because it’s been a minute since they last hopped on a bike. These nascent cyclists aren’t alone – studies show somewhere between 6 - 25% of adults say they can’t ride a bike.
Stanford Transportation set out to change that. As part of the Summer Bridge Program, our team hosted a free Adult Learn to Ride class in September. We set out to teach this inaugural cohort of students how to ride bikes, taking them from zero to “Look Ma, no hands!” (Ok, not really; you only take a hand off the handlebars when signaling a turn, but we’ll get to that later). First, let’s lower that seat, wrench off those pedals, strap on a helmet, and start with the basics.
EXCITED NOT TO FALL
Sebastian Resendiz-Perez, ‘29, had never successfully ridden a bike. “Friends tried to teach me, but I kept falling, so they gave up,” he said. When asked what he was most excited to learn, he said, “not falling.”
Lucky for Sebastian, during the first part of the class, falling off the bike was next to impossible. Andrew Meyer of the Campus Bike Shop provided each student with a bike with no pedals and a lowered seat. Then, instructors from Bicycle Solutions and Transportation’s own biking guru, Erin Fieberling, coached students as they scooted on their bikes down a gentle slope in the empty athletics parking lot.
READY TO RIDE
Diego Medina-Gutierrez, ‘29, wanted to take the class after several biking attempts on campus ended in minor crashes. By the end of the class, Medina-Gutierrez was a pro, able to lift one hand off the bars of his bike to signal. “I definitely feel a lot safer, and more prepared for when the school year starts when there are going to be a lot more bikers.”
BIKING AS PARENTING
Another “student” – Transportation’s own Director of Sustainable Transportation Planning & Mobility, Melissa Reggiardo also improved her bike skills during the class. Melissa joined because she saw so much benefit in “being able to ride my bike on campus; there are so many things to see! I'm especially pumped to be able to ride with my three-and-a-half-year-old; he's a way better cyclist than I am."
Students practiced coasting at low speeds with their feet raised, knowing that if they needed to stop, all they had to do was lower their feet to the ground. Once a student mastered those skills, it was time to put on a pedal. Andrew put pedals on one at a time, so students could get used to the feel and still be able to brake with one foot if they felt off-kilter. Once a student gained confidence with one pedal, he added the second. As a next step, he raised the seat, and by late morning on the day of the class, laughter and cheers echoed across the lot as participants successfully rode unassisted for the first time.
By the end of the class, all 12 students were riding bikes through the lot, including six brand-new riders with no prior biking experience. Does this sound like you? If you’re interested in signing up for the next Adult Learn to Ride, email us at commuteclub@stanford.edu.
