Can you ride a bike?

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I never learned. When I was a kid and tried I couldn't stay balanced on a bike even with training wheels.

Hi BicyclingGuitarist, good to hear you riding again! (I get a bit dizzy...)

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I learned to ride the bike at around the age of 4. My little bike had training wheels too, attached to the rear axle. I remember clearly when they were removed and I could ride freely on two wheels the first time. Since then, I always liked to cycle. I know I'm a bit clumsy so it takes more time to me to learn more difficult rides like doing xc downhill trails.

I think difficulties with riding the bike might also stem from insufficient functioning of the vestibular system (neurological and physiological), not only clumsiness. I have two left legs virtually, so I can hardly dance, skate, ski, kick a ball.

I can, but I notice I bobble from side to side a bit more than others. I still prefer it to running. I can't run 20 feet. My knees just feel like they are going to break. I ride a bike much more "normal", than I can walk. Its like a cross between a pimp-limp and a ceasar stomp. Just doesn't translate into speed very well.

I had bikes in the past but I was never able to ride a bike without training wheels.

Yes, I can ride a bike. I do remember having some difficulty learning to ride one as a child. But I believe many children have difficulty when learning. I know that getting past the training wheels stage was a challenge, but I was soon riding without them.

No I can't. And I grew up in China, so it certainly wasn't for lack of need or lack of trying.

It kinda sucks but I try to remember that not every aspie has every typical issues. My gross motor skill is poor and my reflex slow, but my fine motor skill is excellent. My writing is nice and my paintings are beautiful. I can do fine needlework or any other detailed work that require steady hands. My brother is the opposite. His hands suck but his gross motor skill was great. He participated in sports all the time when he was young. Every aspie is different, and I haven't encountered anyone with all the issues on the list.

Hi OJani and thanks.

I don't remember whether or not I ever had training wheels. I've heard those actually hinder learning how to ride a bike properly, because they prevent one from learning how to balance the bike oneself instead of having the wheels do it. Turning is more difficult with such wheels too since one can't tilt or lean the bicycle as needed.

I used to ride a bicycle in tight circles for hours on the concrete back patio of the house I grew up in. The going in circles things should have been a clue to autistic traits, but of course in the early 1960s high-functioning autism was not recognized in the USA as a diagnosis. I am only graceful on a bicycle with a guitar. Off the bicycle I walk funny, can't dance, can't catch or throw a ball, and I am generally clumsy

As for other autistic traits, I talk funny too. People from my home town sometimes assumed I was from elsewhere because of how I sounded. When younger, I spoke much more in a monotone like a robot, and would drone on endlessly about my favorite subjects if they ever came up in conversation (or if I thought they did or should!) I have also apparently never been able to read social cues such as facial expression or body language. It still freaks me out that according to most sources that is how most (some say 90%) of a message is conveyed to other people in face to face communication. If that number is true, I may be missing 90% of what people are trying to tell me, and they of course would be freaked out subconsciously by someone who doesn't react to their automatic signals the way most other people do.

While the social issues are bad and have caused much misery in my life, my sensory issues have caused extreme physical torment my entire life. Everything is "too intense." I love that new "intense world" theory of autism that I recently learned about from this very web site! It explains so much about my physical and mental experiences. When riding the guitar while playing the bicycle (yes, I said that right) my mind is on the music instead of racing a hundred directions at once, and my body seems to go on autopilot keeping the bike balanced so I am less aware of sensory issues. It is the only peace I have found in this life so far, but it is getting more and more difficult to ride the older I get. I have some arthritis in my right hip, and have to take an anti-inflammatory regularly to avoid chronic pain of muscles, bones and joints, plus I just don't seem to have as much energy as I used to, plus worst of all, I am so tired of having lived so long with all this pain and loneliness, and it is very discouraging that medical science can not as yet nor in the immediate foreseeable future do anything to fix the issues that plague me.

I wonder sometimes if they did find a "cure", would that take away the gifts I have received from my autism too: the focus, the incredible memory for facts, the immense vocabulary, and apparently higher reasoning power than many people, and (most importantly to me) my songwriting talents? I also wonder what it would be like to suddenly be able to read that 90% of meaning I have allegedly been not receiving from other people all my life. What's it like? I could sure do with some relief from the sensory issues though. That alone might be worth losing everything else for.

I can't ride a bike. When I asked my consultant about riding a bike some years ago, he replied with "just watch out for the buses".

I learned when I was 5 or 6, but I don't remember exactly what it was the helped me learn. My dad had tried teaching me, but that jackass would get pissed off over just about anything, so the lessons never lasted long and I'm sure I did whatever I could to get off that bike and away from him. Sometime after moving to my grandmother's house (age 5) my uncle taught me to ride in the grass and it's been smooth sailing since then.

I learned to ride a bike when I was a kid, but it wasn't easy. I spent close to a year before I managed to ride without falling, after a rather patient older cousin of mine had been training me every time I was there on vacation. I can still remember it; she used to run behind me holding the bike so I didn't fall, and that time she let go and didn't even run after me in case I fell. I was pretty mad when I stopped the bike and realized she was twenty meters behind me, but after that I didn't need help and didn't fall.

I don't remember when I learned as a kid - I'm sure I did ride, but I don't remember it. I have very patchy memories of most of my childhood.

It had been a long time, though, when I signed up to do a triathlon last year with Team In Training (they help fundraise for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society), I was really scared on the bike. I got over it quickly, though, and while I did crash during the season, I was no worse off for it.

I finished the triathlon last year and have signed up to do another, longer one this year!

I think part of what helped me was that it was a mountain bike. I'm a big gal, and the idea of trying to balance on a road bike (skinny tires) scares me.

I answered yes, because I have been able to ride one - with practice. It took me a long time as a child to learn to ride a bike, and I was never as confident on one as my siblings. Then I went without riding for a long time. Later I tried to ride one and kept falling off - this was in my early 20s. They say you never forget how, but apparently I did. It was rather embarrassing, because I was on a date at the time. I didn't try again for some time. Later, after I married, in my late twenties and early thirties, I was able to relearn to at least stay upright. The effort this took puzzled my spouse no end!

I realized at some point that there are some types of bikes that I can't ride. The frame has to be a particular style - a mountain bike is more suited to me than a racing style frame.

But I don't bother trying to ride a bike anymore. I'm 55 and not a person who enjoys the indignity of a public display of clumsiness.

I'm quite efficient at walking.

Whilst I can ride a bike, for some reason I have always found it much more tiring than everyone else. Im not a big fat guy or anything like that (Im like 155lbs 5'10) but it just wears me out really quickly and always has. I remember when I was a kid going on bike rides with my friends and they would all rocket off ahead and id be stuck playing catch up. Then theyd stop for me and be totally fine, not worn out at all after like 3 miles wheras Id be sweating buckets and hyperventillating. I prefer running or walking. Or driving

I learnt to be able to ride a bike without stabilizers when I was about 5 years old. Ever since then I've never had trouble with it - and I've got Dyspraxia.

I've been learning that if the subject of bike riding comes up in real life I should just keep my mouth shut. In my experience if I tell real life people that I can't ride a bike they are baffled by this because "everyone" can do it and they'll not believe me or tell me I never tried.

That's how people react when I tell them that I can't drive a car. Riding a bike works well for me, but it took me unusually long to learn and I have to pay attention that I don't zone out when I'm driving.