They find power in pedaling

Lindsey brushed blonde curls out of her eyes and leaned toward the handlebars, her face glowing as she sped around shouting "Whoa!" and giggling.

She looked like a two-wheeled bicycle pro, but the 8-year-old had only pedaled solo for a few minutes. Living with hearing loss, visual impairment and global developmental delay, the option of ever riding a conventional bicycle was unlikely until her parents discovered a Lose the Training Wheels workshop in Yuba City.

The specially organized five-day camp aims to teach individuals with disabilities how to ride a two-wheeled bicycle. Twenty youth ages 6 to 19 participated, with disability levels ranging from mild to severe.

"I'm gonna practice," Lindsey said. "I want to learn a bike so I don't have to use training wheels ... I think I'm gonna get better at it."

Progress for Lindsey and the other participants proved rapid. They started Monday on specialized training bicycles, pedaled for 75 minutes each day

in circles in the River Valley High School gym, and by Wednesday, many were riding unassisted on two wheels.

When 19-year-old Matthew Smith finally took off, his volunteer spotter chasing as he sped around the gym, a group of parents applauded wildly. His mom, Ali Smith, reached up and wiped tears from her eyes.

"I've been trying for 15 years to get him to ride a bike," she said. "If only I had done this years and years ago."

Matthew is autistic. He's had many bikes but struggled with the necessary motor skills and confidence to master riding them.

"You want your child to be accepted," Ali Smith said. "If I can give him those opportunities to be accepted just a teeny bit more and not be that weird kid who watches people ride their bikes, I think it would be good for him."

Matthew already has big bike plans for Saturday. He told his mother they are going to ride to the park and she can pack breakfast in her basket for a picnic.

"And he said, 'Mom, when I get on my bike for the first time can you take a picture and post it on Facebook?'" Ali Smith said.

The workshop starts riders on bicycles that have a rubber roller instead of a back tire. The first roller is like a thick rolling pin, equal in diameter from end to end, but gradually the rider switches to more tapered tips that make balance critical.

"We don't have to teach them anything," said A.J. Budney, the camp's floor supervisor. "The bike does it all for us."

Participants totter, wobble and occasionally fall down. But it's often with a grin and almost always with fierce determination to get back on the two-wheeled beast and pedal until the task is mastered.

"Everyone wants to ride a bike, it's kind of a rite of passage for children," said camp Director Brian Berg, whose 9-year-old son, Tommy, has Down syndrome.

A longtime cyclist, Berg heard about Lose the Training Wheels about five years ago and has been searching for a local camp, since the nearest he could find was in Santa Rosa. Finally, he decided to put one together locally.

He had to raise $10,000 and gather enough volunteers to provide the budding cyclists with physical support, encouragement and plenty of high-fives. Interest and support was so great, he hopes Lose the Training Wheels will be an annual local event.

"Why do people from this community always have to go to San Francisco or Sacramento for things like this?" Berg said.

Instead, the Yuba City bike workshop attracted people from Yuba-Sutter, Pleasanton and Vacaville, like 8-year-old Lindie Robertson.

"It's fun and I didn't even notice it when I thought I was riding with training wheels but I wasn't," Lindie said.

Pedaling is the easy part, she said. It's the turns that make bike riding a challenge.

"Sometimes it gets wiggly," she said.

Many of the participants have "Training Wheel Syndrome," where they are accustomed to leaning away from curves so they don't tip over, but on two wheels, a cyclist has to lean into the turns.

"You take a lot of things for granted when they come easily to other children," said Yuba City resident Mary Patton, whose son James, 13, was in the camp.

Because of James' learning disabilities and sensory integration disorder, he struggles with some of the fine and gross motor skills necessary for riding a bike. James had tried riding tandem or with training wheels but associated bike riding with a bad fall and admitted he had some fears before the camp started Monday.

"I just put them inside the bike and don't let them come out to my mind," he said, adding that other kids should give cycling a second chance. "Tell them to just practice and do your best. Sometimes it takes your life to learn a sport."

After mastering two wheels on the gymnasium floor, participants took their bikes outside for large loops on the asphalt. The national nonprofit has an 80 percent success rate.

"This is one of the things you wait for forever," said Yuba City resident Lisa Triplett, watching as her 8-year-old son, Tanner, pedaled determinedly.

On the first day, volunteer Kellie Loomis ran backward in front of Matthew Smith for 70 minutes as another volunteer supported him from behind. By Wednesday, the Gridley resident was running after the racing teen as he delighted in his two-wheeled freedom.

"We had to keep telling him, 'Eyes up,' and 'You need to push those legs,'" she said. "Now we need him to slow down."