When I was 23, I made a friend at work who lived a mile away and rode his bike to work. Somehow the topic came up in conversation, and he offered to teach me. This is what I learned about cycling, and about myself, over the course of a month, both in words and in practice:

1. You will fall. You will only stop falling as you practice more and more, because your body must learn to match bicycle theory to movement. So first, learn how to safely fall off a bike, and how to safely lose your balance on a bike.

2. Level straightaways are the best for learning. Roads are curved up at their centers and sloped toward the gutters, and are not level straightaways. Sidewalks have driveways. Parking lots are best.

3. You only feel your balance on a bicycle when you are losing it. It takes practice to learn to feel the edges of balance without losing it.

4. Cycling is not sitting down and pedalling. Cycling is to walking what multiplication is to addition. Cycling is standing on one foot, over and over again on different feet.

5. I initially had no symmetry; I could start cycling on my right foot, but not my left. Each side of my brain had to learn how to cycle on its own before both could work together.