Learning to ride opens up horizons

By Ted Villaire

Larry Mysz is moved with emotion when he thinks about all the people – particularly the adults – who he taught to ride a bike.

“It almost brings tears to your eyes the first time a person realizes they are riding on their own,” said Mysz, a League of American Bicyclists-certified instructor who lives in Chicago Heights. “Learning to ride gives people a great sense of freedom and opens a world of opportunities. People can use a bike for a variety of utility purposes – while feeling the breeze and smelling the flowers.”

Those of us who regularly ride our bikes easily forget about our first turn of the pedals – how joyful, difficult and scary it was. We forget about the feeling of freedom that comes with learning to ride and we forget that it requires determination and guts – especially for adults and teenagers who face social stigmas for not knowing how to ride. Adults and teens also know that the act of falling is no longer as painless as it once was.

A courageous act
When adults and teens haven’t learned how to ride a bike, it’s often viewed as a dirty secret, said Dave Glowacz, former education director for Active Trans (when it was the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation) and author of Urban Bikers’ Tips and Tricks.

“People usually feel shameful about never learning to ride,” he said. “When an adult makes the leap to learn to ride, I view it as a courageous act.”

After Glowacz taught Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell to ride, Mitchell authored a column where she confessed that she hid her inability to ride for many years, and was convinced it was a skill she’d never learn.

“The moment I was actually bicycling around the parking lot, I wanted to cry. I had not expected that emotion,” Mitchell wrote in her column. “It was as if the motion had opened a window to my past. For a moment I was a child again. I leaned into the wind like a 6-year-old kid would have done and let out a victory whoop.”

Pedaling to empowerment
Alex Wilson, founder of West Town Bikes and Ciclo Urbano, has taught many kids and adults to ride over the years through the bike education programs at West Town Bikes. One of his most memorable experiences as an instructor was teaching a 14-year-old girl with a physical disability.

In preparation for teaching the student to ride, Wilson spent time customizing a bike to accommodate the girl’s special circumstance of being born without a left hand.

At the end of her single day of instruction, Wilson’s student wrote in her journal, “Today I learned to ride a bike – it’s the best day of my life.”

“Her sense of self confidence grew enormously,” Wilson said. “Because of her disability, she was left out of lot of childhood activities. It’s very empowering to learn to ride, especially if you didn’t learn as a child.”

A new way to explore the city
This sense of empowerment was what inspired Hyde Park resident Angela Gugliotta to seek out someone who could teach her three daughters – ages 16, 18, and 20 – to learn to ride.

For many years, Gugliotta and her husband Michael wanted to teach their daughters to cycle, but it never happened, largely because the family lived in places that were unwelcoming to young kids on bikes.

“Riding a bike has always been something that I really loved doing,” she said. “It’s a basic pleasure that I wanted my girls to experience. I wanted them to have that.”

Recently, there was an added motive for teaching cycling to her daughters. After battling breast cancer for nearly a decade, Gugliotta learned last year that the cancer had spread throughout her body. Her doctors gave a dire prognosis, saying that she would likely succumb to the cancer in February, 2010.

Despite this turn for the worse, Gugliotta has held on.

Early this year, Gugliotta contacted Active Trans to ask for help in teaching her daughters to ride. Jason Jenkins, Active Trans education specialist, donated his labor for three lessons for Gugliotta’s daughters in February.

“It was challenging teaching three people at once, especially during the colder months because I had to teach them indoors,” Jenkins said. By the final lesson, all three young women were riding.

Gugliotta was overjoyed. Since they learned to ride, the daughters have been out on their bikes a handful of times, and Gugliotta is confident that they each will develop a fondness for this new activity.

While continuing to battle the cancer, Gugliotta keeps looking toward the future and thinking about ways to spend time with her daughters. Lately, she's been considering buying a new trike so that she can accompany her daughters while riding, and not have to worry about falling down.

"We all love the city,” she said. “Biking will allow us to spend time together and explore the city in the best way.”