Ah, that first bike ride, a time-honored rite of passage for kids and parents alike. The wheezing gasps as Dad or Mom runs alongside, holding up the frame. The secretive release, the momentary independence — the topple, the skinned knees, the tears.
There’s got to be a better way.
Enter the bike tutor, one of an underground army of instructors working to get kids — and adults who never learned as children — riding.
Their going rate is $90 to $125 an hour for private lessons, although some set up higher fees for open-ended sessions or offer lower rates for group instruction.
Some of their clients are New York parents who are too busy to teach their own kids. But Howard Roth, who teaches bike-riding from his Syosset, LI, base, says even engaged parents sometimes need help — because they’re doing it wrong.
“A fair number of kids have a hard time learning to ride,” Roth says. “The classic method that parents use has a very low rate of success in real life.”
Roth developed his technique 10 years ago to help his twin boys ride two-wheelers. Drawing on his training in martial arts, he teaches kids to balance before they start to pedal.
“Training wheels are the devil’s hand,” Roth says. “Few things will delay a child more. You don’t learn how to balance by not balancing.”
The results seem miraculous to parents who have tried and failed to teach their kids to ride.
“My son and I would get so frustrated, we’d just get into a screaming match,” says Sonya Goldberg of Jericho, LI. When 8-year-old Max had a lesson with Roth, “it only took about an hour for him to learn to balance without the pedals. Now he’s super-excited to ride every day. I can’t get him off the bike.”
Kids who can’t ride often feel ostracized.
“It affected him socially and emotionally,” says a Staten Island mother whose son swore off biking when the traditional teaching methods ended in frightening falls at age 7.
At age 14, bike lessons made all the difference. “It took longer than usual, but he got it, and I’m extremely grateful,” the mom says. “It gave him confidence, and now he’s really blooming.”