The day my stabilisers came off

During a recent visit to my parents house, mum (as usual) dug out the old photographs, you know, the embarrassing ones. Now I have to admit I do enjoy reminiscing over old family photos but nothing could have prepared me for one of them. Mum had discovered a long lost photo of me riding my very first bike, taken on the day my late grandad removed the stabilisers. Not only did I already have vivid memories of that day, but now I have the photograph to go with them.

The bike was bought for me by my grandad when I was 5 years old, and I rode that thing up and down our road all day every day. I knew at some point I needed to be brave and have the stabilisers removed and by the end of the first week that time had come. Grandad came over spanner in hand and whipped those stabilisers off and I was good to go. I cautiously mounted the bike while mum had hold of the seat and I slowly started to pedal along the path. As I started to pick up pace I hadn’t realised that mum had purposefully let go of the saddle and was running alongside me, and it was only when I noticed her running alongside me that everything got a little wobbly. However, incredibly I didn’t crash and before long I was riding on my own, and the rest as they say was history.

Please feel free to share any memories you might have of your early attempts at riding your first bike in the comment section.