Poll: Can you swim and/or ride a bicycle.

[dangoball]

I can both swim and ride a bike. Not that I'm much good at either.

Riding a bike was never a favorite hobby of mine, always preferred walking as my means of transport. More time to check and enjoy surroundings. And you can't have much of a conversation with your co-biker, either.

When I was still a little kid, helper wheels fresh off, I was riding down a little hill in our street and my older brother was riding from the other side. I took my feet off pedals since it was an old style bike it's pedals kept spinning. I completely lost control yet managed to avoid falling to the ground by steering from side to side. Which made it impossible for my brother to avoid me. The impact of our bikes clashing sent me flying over his head, he went straight for the gravel. The fun thing is that he was the one yelled at by parents, even though it was all my fault.

As for swimming, I was a competitive swimmer for a few years. The one at last three position in any race, but hey, someone has to be last, right? At least I know all swimming styles (I was actually considering butterfly as my secondary style) and considerable lung capacity.
No fun stories with swimming I can think of, so no spoiler tag here.

 

[omega 616]

I can ride a bike but I can't swim.

I can't swim because I find myself unable to float. I can't trust the water to support me. I try but I feel myself start to sink and then I panic. I can't stop myself. I just can't do it. I recall one time as a child I learned how to float in the sea once, but I've never been able to do it before or since. I think it might have something to do with the fact I'm skinny as shit.

I did have swimming lessons as a young child though, kind of. It was a traumatic event. I was always bullied at school and having to expose myself like that just made things worse. People just laughed at how useless I was. The "teacher" was fucking useless as well. They gave me next to no instructions at all. They just told me to try and float. Well I fucking couldn't, and just telling me to do it won't fix anything. Fucking stupid *****.

So I can't swim and I have no intention of ever learning.

Riding a bike is a different story. I picked that up really easily as a child. I remember the first time I was able to ride a bike by myself I spent some time simply going around in circles. I was trying to turn in to my lean to right myself, but I didn't realise that I was leaning because I was turning. I was stuck like that for a little while.

In secondary school I used to ride my bike to school every day and one year I joined in with everyone who was getting in to mountain biking. That summer was damn fun. Did some crazy shit. Since leaving school my bike just collects dust in the garage though.

Not to be a douche or anything but swimming and cycling are pretty much the same. Trying to float is like trying to stand/sit on a bike without moving it ... takes a bit of skill. Sure you can tread water but that is basically swimming on the spot.

When your moving is when it is easy, when you ride you can keep your balance and when you move your arms and legs you float. If you ever change your mind and decide to try and swim again just keep it in mind.

On topic. I can do both, didn't want to learn how to swim but got forced to and I wanted to ride a bike so I did that at a pretty young age.

Don't do any of either at the moment, although I want to start riding again, to try and lose a little weight.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Being Dutch, I can naturally do both.

I don't think there's a single Dutch child, without a serious medical condition, that does not learn these things.

On top of that basically everyone owns a bike at all times here.

wait, why does Dutch=great at swimming and riding a bike?

OP:I like to work out, so naturally I can do both.

 

[Angry_squirrel]

I'm an alright swimmer, I can do distance but not speed.

I used to be able to do all kinds of tricks on a BMX, until I broke my collarbone a few years back. I can still ride a bike, but I get scared doing anything where there is a chance I might hurt myself. Riding on steep hills, busy roads, or god forbid ramps and the like, freaks me out now.

 

[Broken Blade]

I can do both, but I haven't for a long time.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

I can't swim, but I can ride a bike.

Spoiler: Because...

I was born with a perforated eardrum that never really healed (I had an operation to fix it when I was 11), so putting my head under water caused me a lot of pain. Because of this, I always stayed in the shallow end.
A few times I'd end up underwater anyway and it would hurt like someone pouring acid into your brain. Like, a kid held my head underwater in the ocean once on a school trip, only for a few seconds but it was enough. Another time I was at a friend's birthday pool party and I was sitting on a little float and someone who didn't know about my ear pushed it over. Because of all that I got incredibly stressed around water when I was a kid. We did try earplugs but they kept falling out.
Oh yeah, and I very nearly drowned one time because my mum was off with my sister doing something and me and my sister went into the deep end and then they turned the waves on and I lost my grip on the side of the pool and went under. So generally water is not my friend.

I never had any trouble riding a bike. I used to go everywhere on my bike.
Damn, I want another bike.

I may learn to swim, but I may not. It's not really a massive thing in my life, so I'm always surprised how shocked people get when I say I can't swim.

I can understand your pain - I had ear surgery when I was young causing the same kind of pain with water you describe. But they also gave me some sort of plastic ear covers that I could put on when I went for a swim. They were molded after my ears so they fit perfectly .

I'm Dutch, so I'm born being able to swim and cycle ;-) .

Being Dutch, I can naturally do both.

I don't think there's a single Dutch child, without a serious medical condition, that does not learn these things.

On top of that basically everyone owns a bike at all times here.

Ah, another Dutch voiced the same thing ;D

 

[Hjalmar Fryklund]

I can do both. Bicycling is my preferred mode of inner-town transportation.

It was a quite a while since I was swimming though.

 

[Flizzick]

I've always been able to do both pretty well. They're very worthwhile skills, but I guess I can understand if somebody never learned how to do either.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I can do both! I used to be a pretty good swimmer when I was younger... I was 11 when I was in the swimming club (this was after leaving swimming lessons with all of the kia-ora/kellogs badges that were availiable) and I was the second fastest there in the competitions! (Not bad for the youngest in the class I was in!)

Unfortunately my 11 year old brain decided that it was boring having enforced swimming for an hour every week, and with no more awards (read: acheivments) to gain, I decided just to stop!

I can still swim, but I am no longer anywhere near as good as I was 13 years ago, and my lung capacity has dropped since! I now get out of breath very easily when swimming! :/ If I get posted somewhere near a pool I will definitly start up again!

Riding a bike on the other hand I have never really liked, although I can do it! I am a motorcyclist primarily now, but still have an old push-bike kicking around...

 

[SausageAssassin]

The thing about swimming is most people look like they are trying to escape a sea monster when they do the front crawl. It can be quite embarrassing watching people try to do it without a small bit of training.

 

[Crimson Lucario]

Being Dutch, I can naturally do both.

I don't think there's a single Dutch child, without a serious medical condition, that does not learn these things.

On top of that basically everyone owns a bike at all times here.

wait, why does Dutch=great at swimming and riding a bike?

OP:I like to work out, so naturally I can do both.

Half our country is beneath the ocean, some schools even make swimming lessons mandatory at your primary school (age 4-12).
Also in the Netherlands bicycle roads are much more common and are also used a lot more then in most countries.
So both things are sort of expected of you and learned to you at young age, so we naturally have more experience because we start early and do it a lot, which makes us good.

OP: I can do both, cause I'm your average Dutch person.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Learned to swim before I can remember, apparently I used to love it when I was a kid. Not so much now.

Learned to ride a bike when I was about four. I have a very vivid memory of crashing very hard into a tree on our driveway the first time the stabilisers came off.

 

[namhorFnodroG]

I can both ride a bike, and swim.

I'd say that I'm not the strongest swimmer, I'd say a bit below average. But i sure can ride a bike. I just love riding throught the forest in full speed on my mountainbike c: It's truely fun as hell.

 

[Hagi]

Being Dutch, I can naturally do both.

I don't think there's a single Dutch child, without a serious medical condition, that does not learn these things.

On top of that basically everyone owns a bike at all times here.

wait, why does Dutch=great at swimming and riding a bike?

OP:I like to work out, so naturally I can do both.

Maybe not directly great. But at the very least competent.

It's our culture really. Swimming lessons are mandatory in primary school, at least they were, so pretty much every child learns how to swim. Probably on account of half our country being below sea level and all. Not to mention that our country is riddled with rivers, most of our big cities are build next to one.

And, likely due to the relatively small size of our country, bikes are a very dependable way of transportation. Everyone grew up having a bike, so they make sure their kids have them as well. And by the time kids reach high school they're usually no longer picked up by parents so they need a bike to get to and from school, with the exception of special buses for handicapped children I don't think we have school buses.

One thing you always hear foreigners remarking on after having visited the Netherlands is that there are freaking bicycles EVERYWHERE.

 

[Sonicron]

Excuse me... aside from being physically prevented by a disability of some kind, how in the world is it even remotely possible that anyone can't both swim and ride a bike?? I mean, fine, if you have no sufficiently large body of water or access to bicycles whatsoever in your area I can understand, but otherwise it is unfathomable to me how anyone could be lacking these basic motor functions.
I learned both when I was four. No water wings or training wheels - these things are detrimental to the learning process, as my parents well knew.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

I can swim, but not that well.
I can ride a bike though, even though I only learned a few years ago.

 

[DaWaffledude]

Swim a bicycle? What is this madness?

Jokes aside, I can do both. Been able to ride a bike since before I can remember only learned to swim last year-ish

 

[MetalMagpie]

Swimming lessons are a compulsory part of state education in the UK (or at least were when I was that age) but my parents paid for me to have lessons before that anyway. It seems like a pretty essential life skill to me.

Learning to ride a bike was just "one of those things you have to do", which seems silly now because I'm really not that fond of cycling (and don't own a bike). Then again, I can also drive a car despite not liking it or owning one. The useless skills I acquire...

 

[Vegan_Doodler]

I can do both, so I guess I'm the ultimate survivor now, that that Bear Grills.

I can do both so that makes me some sort of superhero right? Means I can rescue anyone at land or sea.

After reading this I could only think of the one superhero you could possibly be....

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Maybe not directly great. But at the very least competent.

It's our culture really. Swimming lessons are mandatory in primary school, at least they were, so pretty much every child learns how to swim. Probably on account of half our country being below sea level and all. Not to mention that our country is riddled with rivers, most of our big cities are build next to one.

And, likely due to the relatively small size of our country, bikes are a very dependable way of transportation. Everyone grew up having a bike, so they make sure their kids have them as well. And by the time kids reach high school they're usually no longer picked up by parents so they need a bike to get to and from school, with the exception of special buses for handicapped children I don't think we have school buses.

One thing you always hear foreigners remarking on after having visited the Netherlands is that there are freaking bicycles EVERYWHERE.

Ok, that makes sense now. Perhaps the US should be like the Netherlands and bikes should become more popular over here so we can solve our obesity epidemic.

haha, dangerous bicycles huh? That reminds me of a Danish comic [http://satwcomic.com/this-is-bikeland].