There may be nothing more experiential than learning to ride a bike. Because most people try it as a child, it’s formative. Often it’s a memory seared in the brain, most likely due to the fear, frustration and eventual elation around the challenge in childhood.
No one can do it for us. Parents can’t read their child a book about biking and expect success. Learning to balance, then pedal, steer and climb are purely legs-on experiences. They watch. They try. They learn.
But there’s one approach that does far more than demonstrating how to mechanically maneuver a bike: living a biking lifestyle. That may mean having the whole family onboard, choosing to commute by bike, fixing your own bikes, planning trips and outings around bike-related activities, making friends via bikes, and generally defaulting to two wheels for function and fun. Kids mimic what the see, but they may embrace more deeply what they experience in enthusiastic practice, on the daily.