Here's an interesting thing I've been reading about lately: for adults who never learned to ride a bike in childhood, or who haven't done so in such a long time that they feel wobbly, there are training bikes that are basically a bicycle minus the pedals, and set up so that the rider's feet easily touch the ground. You "scoot" and lift your feet as you feel confident, and put them down again when you don't, and in this way gain a sense of balance.

It is almost exactly like the bike's first precursor, the Pedestrian Curricle, which I came across in my Regency researches.

I understand that this type of bike is becoming the standard for training newcomers to bike-riding (rather than "training wheels" which don't serve much purpose).