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.

    • grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So it will snow at night but warm up during the day so you’re dealing with icy conditions that have a layer of melt water on them. Or freezing rain that flash freezes at dusk to black ice. And so on.

      • GingerPale@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And for people who don’t know, black ice isn’t actually black (unless is filthy with dirt). It’s ice clear enough that the black asphalt underneath shows through very clearly. This make it so you’re on ice and don’t know it because it just looks like regular road.

    • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Fairly certain the shoulder here is referring to the season. The in-between fall and winter and winter to spring.