Family Cycling: How Huma learnt to cycle anew alongside her children

“I would like to share my cycling journey with Women on Wheels because I think it may be inspiring for some people.” Read on and learn how Huma regained her cycling confidence and got her children cycling from scratch.

Picture: Huma with her sons and daughter ready for a cycling session

When I was younger I knew how to ride a bike however as I got older I did not practice so I was not confident with it at all. I always wanted my kids to know how to ride as I knew it was a great skill to have, I did not know that there were classes for cycle training, in my mind I thought it was something you had to learn by yourself. Then I found out about Women on Wheels, a place where children and women could learn how to ride from scratch.

I got in contact with Katherine who was super welcoming and friendly, she told us all about it in a great way, the first call we received was so nice that we knew that this was going to be for us. She told us to come to the open day for a trial to see if we liked it or not. My sister who had took a couple of sessions before, also told me about the open day which sounded intriguing. When we arrived at the open day the set up in Queen’s Park was amazing! There were cycles and people riding everywhere and my kids were very excited, then I went to Katherine and completed the form.

Before we knew it, it was time to ride, my 2 younger sons went with one instructor while my daughter and I went with our instructors, my kids had no clue how to ride. Soon our time was up and we had to go, after getting some more information we left and soon made a decision that we would like to go again as this was an amazing experience for me and my kids. Katherine accommodated us because in the holidays we were fine with timings and days however after school started we were only able to ride on weekends, Katherine was extremely helpful in arranging manageable timings for us and booking us in every week which really made it so much easier for us.

As for our lessons, my children learned how to ride from scratch and with the support and encouragement from the staff it wasn’t that hard to do, we are still learning every week to build up to a phase where we can ride on roads independently. The instructors are really encouraging like Tilly, Gemma, Eilidh and Pippa who were with us all the way and still are. They are some of the best people to work with which makes this a wonderful experience for me and my kids.

Now we will work hard to achieve our next goal which is riding on roads independently, with some more classes I think that we will achieve this goal with the help of Women on Wheels. I just want to thank Women on Wheels for all the support.