Lose The Training Wheels™ Camp

Ridgeland Recreation & Parks would like to help any would-be cyclists who are looking to lose their training wheels. Ridgeland Recreation & Parks, in conjunction with Lose the Training Wheels and their parent company, Rainbow Trainers, Inc., will offer a special camp for the third year in 2008.

According to the Lose The Training Wheels website, www.losethetrainingwheels.org, “The Lose The Training Wheels™ program works with youngsters who experience difficulty in getting past training wheels -- and onto conventional two-wheelers. It focuses on children with varying forms of disabilities, although able-bodied children can also benefit. The challenge that we face is daunting in a sense. Two issues, issues of image and common belief, directly face us. The first is the notion that persons can be systematically, efficiently, and scientifically taught to ride a bike. This is a notion that is absolutely foreign and contrary to our daily experiences. Our collective experience tells us that people learn to ride bikes by hit and miss, by trial and error, and that falls and injuries are accepted as routine.

Many persons, including children with varied disabilities, can be taught to become successful bike riders, even accomplished bike riders – and without those dreaded training wheels. Heretofore we accepted as chiseled in stone that if a person can’t ride a bike, then that person can’t ride a bike. The truth is, as we will prove herein, that for many persons, the inability to ride a bike was heretofore due to the lack or unavailability of a way to be taught that didn’t end up in crashes and failure.”

The camp uses trained staff, volunteers, and carefully adapted bicycles to assist those learning to ride in a safe environment, without fear or failure and the resulting pain that can result. Campers progress through these adapted bicycles until they are safely riding a two-wheeler without training wheels.

The camp will consist of one 75-minute class per day for 3-5 days for all interested campers ages 7 - 17. Space will be limited to approximately 30 students, and students may be screened based upon need. A fee will be charged for the camp.

Volunteers are needed to assist camp participants. For more information, contact the Ridgeland Recreation & Parks Department at 601-853-2011. For more information on how the camp is conducted, visit the website at www.losethetrainingwheels.org.