The Princess and Her Pony

Well, until recently, two of my three children did not know how to ride a bicycle.  Jack had to learn two years ago for a school trip.  They didn't learn when they were younger because our house was on a street where the speed limit (the sign was in our front yard) was cut down to 30 mph coming out of a stretch of 50 mph.  Except most idiots thought they should be going 60-70.  Do you have any idea how hard it was for me not to stand in my front yard screaming obscenities and throwing bricks at these speeders?  And it wasn't just idiot high school kids.  It was idiots of all ages.

So Jack learned to ride in about 38.2 seconds.  He wanted to do it, had good balance skills from other stuff, and so just got on the bike, wobbled once, and took off.  When some friends moved back to the states, we were lucky to get one of their little kids' bicycles and a set of training wheels.  So Hannah had gotten used to those.  Then John moved them to an angle, so when she was riding properly, they wouldn't touch the ground (and they made a horrible scraping noise, so you could tell when she wasn't properly upright).

So on 5 April 2013, the training wheels came off.  And this is what it looked like:

Prepped with helmet, elbow guards, and very strange multi-colored outfit.

This is, literally, the very first try.  

Going...

Going...

Gone.

She did have one fall, about 15 minutes later, all the way at the other end of the street.  She shed a tear, but had no serious injuries and picked herself up and came roaring back down the street.  Sweet success.

Now...who's that other child that has never riden a bicycle....?