Jeffbeerman2

+1

This is very similar to how I taught my friend's daughter to ride. A slightly sloping grassy area. Once she wasn't afraid of falling on the pavement, she learned quickly on the grass. Once she had cofidence on the grass, she was pretty good on the pavement.

mtcougar832

Well my oldest (turns 5 on Monday) has improved in balance and can ride without training wheels (he can't start the bike moving though - still needs a push start).

I took the pedals off his little brothers bike and had him scooter it (I had show him on my old bike). He enjoyed down hills, but we have a lack of grassy slopes that don't end in a lake, so that made it harder.

Tonight little brother wanted his bike back, and the neighbor (rides w/o training wheels) came over, and he wanted to ride with his friend. I put pedals on his bike, his balance is much better after scootering but he couldn't balance alone. I had my hand under his arm and after a few trips up and down the driveway with me running I started letting go. Off he went, made the turn to our drive and stopped (didn't crash) over 50 ft away!

He needs more practice, but I think he will have this down by his birthday. Now I need to get him to look where he is going. Wanted to say thanks to everyone on the forum for telling me how to do this!

gcl8a

We need a "My kid learned to ride" sticky. I love these stories.

</sappiness>

You could have taught him how to ride and swim on the same day!

HardyWeinberg

My 6 yr old has really taken off in the last week, is completely independent to start the bike (I'd be annoyed as heck having to walk the bike forward to get a pedal up in starting position), and able to stop the bike and get off it rather than his previous Kevin-Costner-in-Silverado-style flying dismount. I think there is major synergy from splitting time between the bike and his bday present razor scooter.

Now I'm back to thinking about raising the seat some more.

It's crazy, watching him finally put it all together at the same time our 2 yr old is finally putting all her thoughts and words and stuff together to hold a conversation. Synthesis I guess, taking the accumulated parts and doing something with them.

Fibber

We spent a few hours at the school yard on Sat and Sunday building skills and confidence. She can now start and stop on command, steer around objects, stay straight on a narrow path, and the like.

Tossed into the basement was the Flintstone bike and the training wheels!

Fibber

Last night my daughter officially joined the ranks of family biker. We headed over to a local park where she did 1.4 miles on a path that circles a lake. Her cruising speed was around 4 mph, with occasional 'bursts' over 5 mph. Considering that she is on a tiny 12" tired bike and is spinning at better than 60 continuously, that was quite a feat. I had added a handlebar mounted cage, and we stopped twice for refreshments. Needless to say, she slept well last night. Dad is sooo proud! Mom is giving dad a hard time that she is too young to be on a bike.....

piper_chuck

I had the first such session with my 4.5 year old daughter two nights ago. No grassy slopes nearby, so we used the road, which has little to no traffic. She was quite excited when we managed to get in a few 10-15 foot glides. As she began to realize that daddy was going to keep her from falling, she got more brave with the gliding. If she can't get it within a couple more sessions, I'll do a serious search for a grassy incline. She's already been pedaling and steering with training wheels, so I'm hoping that once she can glide comfortably that I'll be able to put the pedals back on and away she'll go.

bikeabout

The author of this thread suggests that the seat down, push method probably doesn't work better than any other. I have to disagree emphatically! The prevailing training method in Europe is the seat down, push method. There, the average age to learn to ride is about 2 years and usually earlier. In the US, the average age to learn is 4, 5 or 6 years. To suggest that a child will still take a long time to learn using this method is pure baloney. We bought our child one at just 2 years and "got it" almost immediately....within hours with no injuries or false assurances from training wheels. Happy biking!

Fibber

I think a number of us agree with you. I'm loaning my "Flintstone" creation to a friend, and have another one waiting in line for it. I may go hit some yard sales for some junkers, and build up a few more of these and give them out as gifts!

Phantoj

FYI - my local Target sells a knockoff of the "like-a-bike" for ~ $50. I plan on getting one for kid #2.

atbman

Agree about "sticky".

oldskoolboarder

I am a strong believer in the like-a-bike method. I bought one of those bino bikes on ebay for $100 or so last Xmas.

My 4 year old used it sparingly, though I tried to get her to use it more. A few months ago, she could coast for a few seconds on her own w/ me cheering her on. But she still preferred the bike w/ training wheels. Her 2.5 yr old brother also uses it and he seemed to get the hang of it but was limited to the fact that he wasn't tall enough to scoot along.

Recently, my 4 year old's friends/neighbors were starting to ride 2 wheelers. I figured that "jealousy" would motivate her. Eh, kinda. But then I saw my son continue to use the bino bike. He's gotten taller and he now "gets" it, he can MOVE and coast VERY fast. Of course, I'm beaming cause I can see him ride a 2 wheeler by Xmas. Last Friday my boy is tooling on the Bino bike so I offer my girl that I'd remove the training wheels and she can scoot like her brother, so she can learn to ride the 2 wheeler. My fear was that he would learn before her, and that would be a problem of EPIC proportions.

I take off the wheels and she wants me to hold her bike, she doesn't want to scoot. Oh great, I think, here we go at square one. She starts to pedal, after 10' I gently let go. She rides her bike solo!!!! She literally "got it" in 20' or so. Talk about a proud cycling dad moment. She's got the hang of it and can ride on her own in the driveway. Still needs some practice starting from a dead stop but that'll come. She's psyched and so am I.

Fibber

Excellent! Hope she is heavily padded. By that I mean sneakers, long pants, elbow pads, gloves and helmet. If it doesn't hurt, they don't mind an occasional brush with the pavement. My girl now rides regularly, and has gone down a few times. She gets up, laughs it off, and keeps going.

I just looked up Like & Bino - basically what I did with stripping down a kids bike, with the exception of limiting the steering angle. That's a very good idea.

Anthony C

I took my 4yr old son's training wheels off last weekend and it went great! This is his second summer riding with training wheels and he could ride a razor really good so I figured it was time. I lowered his seat, but left the pedals on. We started in our back yard, and the first try I supported him under his arm pits. He went all the way to the end of the yard without much help. We turned around and then he told me to "Get Off" so I let him go and he made it all the way to the other end. The only problems he had was getting started, and remembering to put his feet down when he stopped. We later moved out front in our circle, and by the of the night He was racing me the other kids around. He is a little hot head when he can't figure something and I couldn't believe how smooth it went.

cristy

This thread makes me so jealous b/c I can't get my dd4 to ride a bike, even with training wheels, for very far. She is doing much better now than earlier in the spring but she still gets very frustrated with starting off when the pedals aren't positioned so that she can push forward on them easily. She also gets a little freaked out if the bike is on a slight incline and begins to roll backwards...she just screams and holds on--refuses to use the brakes! She'll be 5 in October and I was so convinced that we'd be buying her another bike by Christmas but I'm not sure it's going to happen. I bought a trail a bike off of craigslist to see if it'll help her feel more comfortable w/ a bike but it's been in the high 90's to 100 degrees for the last week and half so we haven't been out at all! I see other kids her age riding around easily...I think the key might be to get her around some other kids who ride...perhaps she'll get jealous enough to really put some effort in?

Fibber

Seeing what others can do, Cristy, is a great motivator. My oldest basically taught herself how to ride. She and her best friend were together at an afterschool program when she was in kindergarten. Her best bud could do the razor scooter, so she mastered it. Then when Julie showed a few weeks later that she could ride a two wheeler, my daughter just got on it and did it (!!!) just to prove that she could do anything that Julie could do. Imagine my amazement when I got there to pick her up that evening. She wasn't terribly stable, but the smile on her face was a killer.

orange leader

perhaps your driveway isn't long enough. a looong straight line helps if I remember correctly (about 30 years ago for me).

mtcougar832

The neighbor's son didn't start riding until a 16" bike was left at his house this summer by my son, he prefered that to his 12". He (the neighbor) turned 6 last month and is very stable w/o training wheels.

My oldest (just turned 5) was motivated to keep up with the neighbor boy, that is part of the reason I got him riding w/o training wheels.

My 3.5 yo has the same problem starting to move as your daughter, I may try taking him to a paved parking lot (empty of course) to let him ride around. I'm not sure what else to do for him other than follow along and push if he gets stuck.

B0rn2pedal

Our son is 7 years old and still dependent on training wheels. We're going to try the "remove pedals, lower seat" and just let him go on a gentle, grassy slope. I just would like to add that our son's confidence was a little dampened when he was riding with his father on a trailer bike and were hit by a careless driver in a parking lot, no less. My son had to get stitches in his knee, but other than that both riders and the bike were ok. The car had most of the physical damage. I think the emotional damage was more severe. Hubby was thrown over the hood of the car but was completely unhurt. (Helmets were on both riders!)

Despite the accident, I would advocate starting children on a well-constructed/designed trailer bike so that they can feel the wind in their face (isn't that what inspires us all?) and get the feel of sitting on a saddle. They enjoy being a companion to mom or dad, even if their "contribution" to the ride is nonexistent. (You don't have to let them know that their pedaling isn't making a difference.) But you *can* tell them to be the "spotter" for the ice cream store.

So glad I found this forum!

Mary

Handyman

I'm 2dl (too darn lazy) to search for what BF Method means (Balance First? Bicycle Forum? Big Fantastic?). Anyhoo, way back when my daughter was learning to ride we started her out with the same old way we learned how to ride - training wheels. Every little imperfection in the riding surface seemed to come at the precice time that she was leaning the wrong way and the result was repeated falls and continuous frustration. A week of this "fun" was about all either of us could handle. I yanked the training wheels off and explained that I was not trying to kill her, but that she was going to learn to ride differently than other kids did. The first step was to walk along astride the bike, next was to coast the bike with one foot on a pedal and using the other to push along, then both feet on the pedals. This seems like a lot of instruction for a 4 year old to remember but she didn't have much time to forget. After 20 minutes or so she got tired of pushing with her feet and was pedaling around the yard and driveway, never needing any helping hand for balance. When it came time for our son to learn the training wheels got tossed in the trash right out of the box and he learned to ride in about 30 minutes without any more balance help than holding the bike up for him to get into place.

Spills and scrapes happened, of course, but riding basics came almost as if by magic. No slope, no need for pavement, no running alongside to help balance. The key was simplicity, I think. Pedal one way to go and the other way to stop.

littlewaywelt

had a great day today. just a few months after the removal of training wheels my 5yo became a bike commuter this morning as he road 2m down a MUP to his first day of kindergarden. The plan is to let him ride everday, unless it's raining. It was just awesome.

Garandman

+1 on the two wheel scooters. We started our kids on the three wheel Razor scooters. They come with bushings on the wheels instead of bearings, so I bought a sleeve on ABEC5 skateboard bearings (same size) on eBay and upgraded them. They switched to the two wheelers at around four.

Daughter #1 started trying a bike at age 6 and didn't want to fall or be embarrassed. She required many sessions of driving her down to a local track that had a soft surface. In the meantime she started using the Razor a lot. One day she just got on and rode off.

Daughter #2 was five, we took her to a paved school courtyard and on her third try she was off to the races - so she could keep up with #1!

Learning to ride a bicycle is very trying - for parents!

bikeabout

Some great points made here. Obviously, different children excel in different areas (so some methods work for many kids, but not all). My husband and I just returned from Europe and it was amazing to see all the young toddlers riding around on the balance bikes. To look at some of these young'ins...some of which couldn't have been older than 18 months) was eye-opening to say the least. What I realized was that the balance bikes on the market are really just toys to really young kids (2-year olds). They enjoy them because they're toys, not because their parents say, "ok, johnny...today we're going to develop your sense of balance and coordination". If kids enjoy them as toys, they're more apt to stick with it. And, they learn balance and coordination in the process! It was amazing to see so many young (toddler) children riding bikes at such an early age. It's got to be the training method.

OK, but that seems to apply to 18 month olds thru 3 or 4 years. For older children (maybe 5 and above), the "flintstone-balance bike" method is probably much less appealing as evidenced by the testimonials here. For them, perhaps the best methods are from the school of hard knocks.

rusto

My 6 year old soloed two days ago.

She and I were doing the "Daddy holds bike seat and runs alongside like a neanderthal" method for about a half dozen sessions in an empty parking lot. She loved this, but it was killing my back! While she got used to the handbrake (bike has both coaster and rear caliper), she was having trouble getting the proper feel of keeping her body in line with the bike as she leaned it into a turn.

So we borrowed a Razor scooter which she spent the next week or so tooling around and getting the hang of the lean-thing.

When we returned to the bike, I continued to run alongside but did not hold the seat, instead I merely put a little pressure on her bum to maker her believe I was holding it. Also my hand was ready for a quick grab of the seat in case of a major wobble. This we did for a couple more sessions and then I would trot alongside and show her BOTH my hands to prove she was doing it on her own.

Next thing you know, she's starting/stopping/turning on her own.

One major stumbling block she had along the way was getting the bike going. She was very fussy that the left pedal be the one she started out pushing down on and would spend a lot of time stumbling along getting pedals oriented just so. If she rotated them too far, I simply could not convince her to then just start out pushing down on the right pedal.

Somehow something clicked in her brain that let her know if she gave just the slightest push off with her ground-based foot, that gave her enough speed to get BOTH feet on the pedals and go regardless of the pedal position.

HardyWeinberg

whew, 2 wks ago, before vacation trip, 6 yr old finally established complete independence; he'd ditched the training wheels at beginning of summer, but periodically asked for a push start or whatever, maybe a mid-block flying dismount, but not that day. And again today, 1st day of school, just hopped on his bike and rode there. I think he's done it! Long trail-a-bike outing in traffic yesterday running pre-school errands, he liked that too.