Secrets of Chicago's Bike Whisperer

Burrel said, from his own experience, “parents seem more willing now to outsource the kind of things that we think parents should traditionally accomplish. I see both parents sharing duties, I see both working, and as much as they want to do this, time is now the biggest factor. But I also hear from parents who can’t run alongside a bike. Parents who have back issues. Maybe they don’t have a great relationship with the child. They would rather pay someone to do in 30 minutes what might take them three hours to fail at.” He said none of his students have crashed yet. He claims a 100% satisfaction rate.

His secret is no secret at all, he said.

He tries not to touch the bike. (“I want them to feel like they are in control the whole time.”) He likes to position himself to the left of the bike and touch a student’s right shoulder as they peddle, building a sense of security, a bubble around the student.

The summer tradition of riding a bike as soon as school lets out has taken hits in recent years: A 2019 study by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association said the number of American children who rode bikes at least 25 times a year fell by 1 million from 2014 to 2018. Other studies suggest those statistics have climbed upward since the pandemic. But realities remain: Bikes are costly, social media and video games have an outsize role in kid’s lives, and parents simply don’t let children roam like they once did.

As Burrel sees it, without the motivation to ride, learning to ride becomes less urgent.

“I was the youngest of three. I was trying to keep up. There was a lot of crashing into park benches and lampposts, but also my big brother saying, ‘OK, get up, we’ll clean off that scratch at home.’ My parents helped, but the real motivation was to just keep up.”

After a couple of preliminary rides around the parking lot, Alex Winter stuttered to a stop before her father. “She has a good foundation, I can tell,” Burrel said. “We’re two minutes in and I can tell it’s going to be a good lesson, Dad.” Kevin White looked relieved.

Alex pushed off and Burrel jogged beside her.

But as she made the last curve, her handlebars locked up and she pulled hard to the left and started to fall and threw a leg sideways, to the ground, but Burrel was there, righting her again.

“No problem,” he whispered. “Happens. Happens. You’re getting it. Almost there.”