Jibe wanted to create a set of videos which demonstrated all the basic steps to teach an adult how to ride a bike. It’s different with kids - generally, you provide minimal instruction, run alongside for a while, and boom, they’ve got it. Adults are different. First you need to respect their concerns: past experience, health concerns, cultural norms. Then break everything down into logical comfortable steps. Anya, Deanna and I have taught several in-person rounds of Adult Learn to ride and think we’ve got a really good teaching strategy. We have a very high success rate. Anya wrote draft one of the script. We edited together for a couple of weeks. In the end, the words had to sound like they were coming from me. After delays due to my cold, then the weather, this Tuesday had to be the filming day. A series of storms would begin on Wednesday. We met at Wild Rose Park. Ellen/filmmaker and Sean/assistant. Sean is holding the teleprompter – the script was 6 pages long – I did not want to memorize it (was that even possible?).

There were unavoidable delays: many planes overhead, pedestrians on paths playing music or talking on phones, 30 minutes for a gardening crew on the other side of the canal to finish mowing and blowing, asking people who want to play basketball “Please be quiet. Thank you so much.” Here, I had to read the teleprompter for one camera then, at a specific point, turn toward Ellen to finish the sentence.

There will be 3 videos, each about 3 minutes long. It took six hours to complete the filming. We’re almost done here, using a downslope, both pedals are on the bike. Our light would soon fade.

Success! Done. Thanks so much to Anya for taking all these pictures and being so supportive. Fun experience.