How long does it take to learn? THE ANSWERS

About two weeks ago I posted a question how much time people required
to learn riding. That thread had a massive response and is still
active. New entries remain welcome.

I have analysed the first batch of data and you will find the results
here <www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/agelearn_short.htm>. You are bound to
find a few surprises!

You can also download a spreadsheet to forecast the required time in
case you or a friend might want to learn.

Another spreadsheet (to calculate your talent level based on time
required to learn ride 50 metres) is still in the making. ETA next
week.

Hope you appreciate it!

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict

The most common name in the world is Mohammed.

Wonderful analysis Klaas. Thanks. I can see my own dot there and I’m proud to be on the high end of the learning curve, but for the statistical outliers.

I think you mean “moral” not “morale”. :slight_smile:

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

Thanks, I’ve corrected it.

Klaas Bil

Good job Klaas. Well done. I can see my dot too. Give yourself a pat on the back.

David.

Thanks, Klaas. The “typical” fit: is it a least squares fit to some common function? The shape is indeterminate unless it’s some high order polynomial. What is it?

I gave you wheel sizes for the people whose data I provided (including myself) but didn’t see it in the tabulated data. Do you need it again?

Klaas,

Great work on yet another really interesting analysis. We all appreciate it.

Andrew

I wish I could remember how long it took me to learn to ride. I remember very very little of my learning process. I know I learned sometime during 7th grade but I can’t remember how long it took and I can’t remember if I learned by trial and error (no instruction) or if I managed to pick up Jack Wiley’s “The Unicycle Book” sometime before I finally learned to ride. I know I was using Jack Wiley’s book when it came time to learn to free mount.

(Quoting from the web page) The blue line in the picture is a ‘typical’ fit, based on another bit of unconventionality involving weighted median values of logaritmically distributed bins. (I have favoured this approach over e.g. a least squares fit of some sort, to lessen the influence of the few people who required very long or short times to learn. I think such cases could have appeared at any age.)

I have received your wheelsize data but after the ‘deadline’ for batch 1 processing. They will be included in the next batch. I don’t know yet when that is, probably at least months. I don’t expect large shifts in the results.

Klaas Bil

Re: How long does it take to learn? THE ANSWERS

On Wed, 16 Apr 2003 22:15:50 GMT,
klaasbil_remove_the_spamkiller_@xs4all.nl (Klaas Bil) wrote:

>You can also download a spreadsheet to forecast the required time in
>case you or a friend might want to learn.

I found out today that some systems open the spreadsheet within the
browser window if you left-click the link. But that makes it
non-functional: it displays the sheet but no entries or calculations
are possible. So you need to right-click the link, Save As and then
open the saved file.

Of course all of you knew this.

Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict

Nearly 85% of the people killed by lightning are male.