584
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by aard to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it's pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that'd be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can't ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning "swimming" made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] itmightbethew@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago

Canoeing. I'm not an outdoorsy guy at all but everytime I see US tourists in a canoe they just spin in circles. It feels like Canadians are just born knowing.

[-] ricecake@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago

That might just be a growing up near water thing. I think that on average, Canadians live closer to larger bodies of water than Americans do, since more than half are within day trip distance of the great lakes waterway, and then there's Halifax and Vancouver.

Growing up in a place with water, basically everyone I know also has at least a passing knowledge of recreational small watercraft.

[-] Skyhighatrist@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Canada also has a strong cottage culture, where families will spend time in the summer at a cottage, or campground, or other, and they are often on lakes (we have so many lakes, they're just everywhere, at least where people live.) I don't specifically remember learning how to canoe, but I think it happened initially on a field trip with school when I was really young. That being said, not all Canadians know how to canoe. I had to teach a friend of mine how to properly paddle when canoeing solo because he had just never been taught. Ironically, it was his canoe we were using.

[-] doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago

Canoeing is definitely a big thing in the US. At least in the east, I suspect it's much less common in the Midwest and desert states. I think that tourists are disproportionately likely to be canoeing for the first time, though.

That said, if you can't figure out the physics of a canoe within the first couple strokes then maybe boating as a while just isn't your thing

[-] Faresh@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That said, if you can’t figure out the physics of a canoe within the first couple strokes then maybe boating as a while just isn’t your thing

I have no difficulty with the "basic" canoes, but I struggle with the long and thin ones, where I can't even keep myself upright for longer than 30 seconds, before capsizing, having tried a few times. Is boating not my thing?

[-] MoodyRaincloud@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
584 points (98.3% liked)

Asklemmy

44157 readers
1317 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS