The youngest person we've taught to ride on a two-wheeler was four years old, and the oldest was in her seventies. (So if you are an adult, don't worry, you aren't too old!)

You don't have to be an athlete to ride a bike! If you have no significant mobility, balance or mental impairments, you should be fine. If you or your child have a disability, we can evaluate whether our program is a match on a base-by-case basis. Many people with disabilities can enjoy cycling, with or without modifications to equipment and technique.

Any physical activity has an inherent amount of risk, so we cannot guarantee you won't have an "ungraceful dismount" during one of your sessions; however, we use a gradual progression method thar results in a very low-stress zero-crashing learning experience for most participants. In fact, we have helped many people who'd had a less than ideal introduction to cycling overcome the trauma of their initial experience and get comfortable with riding.

This is the part where you learn to not fall over immediately :) In this stage you go from not being able to ride at all, to being able to balance and pedal on your own, directing the bicycle approximately where you'd like to go. For safety and comfort, this stage is taught on the grass. Some students only use  our services to conquer this stage, particularly the balancing, electing to practice on their own after that. Others come back to continue building their skills in a more structured environment, as outlined below.

STAGE 2 - Handling Skills

4-6 Sessions

This is where we transition to an open paved surface like a parking lot, where you can practice starting, stopping, straight-line riding, turns, off-the-saddle riding, gearing and speed control. We also start introducing traffic safety skills such as shoulder -checking (glancing backwards while going forward) and signaling (which requires learning one-handed riding first).

The length of this stage is highly variable, as it depends on how proficient you are trying to become and how much you practice between sessions. All of the above elements can be introduced in about 4-6 sessions but it will take consistent frequent practice to actually become proficient in them.

STAGE 3 - Real Life (Easy Mode)

3-4 Sessions

Once you've built up the handling skills, we can start practicing riding on bike paths and quiet streets. If you have a driver's license, it might help you, as you would have a sense of how traffic in general operates. Once again, the concepts covered here can be introduced over a handful of sessions, but it will take a lot of practice on your own to actually become comfortable with them. 

STAGE 4 - Real Life (Hard Mode)

3-4 Sessions

If you are looking to ride on busier streets, you need to be very comfortable with handling skills, to the point where you're not even consciously thinking about what you're doing with respect to choosing your speed, gearing, trajectory etc.; you're doing those things on autopilot mode, because your conscious attention needs to be focused on the traffic situation around you and the strategies to navigate it. You should also learn some evasive manoeuvres – how to safely make sharp turns and quick stops, should an unexpected situation require them.

When I taught the advanced classes for the city of Toronto, this material over a couple of weekends. In a private session the topics can be covered a bit faster, and the focus can be exactly on what you personally need to work on the most. However, these sessions require you to have a good level of comfort on the bike, and that would be achieved by lots of riding in calmer scenarios, where you're constantly challenging yourself to control the bike precisely and develop your abilities.

OVERALL TIMELINES

For most adult learnings starting with zero experience, getting to the point of comfort on bike paths and quiet streets is a challenging but doable one-year goal. If you do ride consistently for at least one riding season (approximate May to October in Canada) you should be ready to start progressing towards more challenging environments.