rzsionak

I'm looking to get my son a 20" bike as he's outgrown the 16" bike he has. The issue is he still riding with training wheels and isn't willing to take them off yet (I've tried other techniques to teach him, but he won't do them).

My question is if it's a good idea to get him a multi-speed bike instead of a single speed. There are quite a few hills around us and he has to push his current bike up some of the bigger ones, so a single speed won't be useful much longer. My concern is him still learning to ride and balance on a multi-speed that has more vulnerable parts than a single speed.

dabac

Training wheels don't really work.
Kids generally don't have the ability to use the training wheels only to keep from tipping over. They ride training wheel bikes as if they're big trikes, and don't get any balance training at all.
Pulling the pedals off and using the bike as a straddle/run bike generally have kids balancing by themselves within 30 minutes.
Similarly many kids find it real difficult to remember to change gears. Their bikes get left at whatever gear it's in and ridden like that.
Expect to have to holler at him when to change gears pretty much all the time.
A cheaper, simpler and more functional option might be to lower the gearing to something more hill-friendly. Many sprockets are real easy to swap.

rzsionak

I learned to ride as a child on training wheels, but the key was they were set up to keep from tipping, not to ride on. Once I realized I didn't need them, I had my parents take them off.

My son won't do the pulling pedals off. I've tried that and holding him up from behind. Neither technique he wants to ride with.

I think he'll do ok with gears. He's the type you can give him directions and he'll follow well - e.g. put in gear 1 or 2 for hills.

Shelly81

I told my son who was 6 at the time he couldn’t get the next size up with gears unless he could ride without training wheels. We worked on the balancing without pedals for a few weeks, probably 5-10 minutes a day. He wasn’t happy about it at the time, but now less than a year later we take 10+ mile rides he otherwise couldn’t have easily done on a bike with training wheels. He loves biking now. I’d encourage your son to learn before buying him another bike.

jimmie65

Try these.
My grandson is a big 4 year old and has moved up to 20" bikes, so we had to find larger training wheels. I also put these on my mom's cruiser when she was "worried" about falling (didn't get her to ride but that's a different story).
One plus is that they are very adjustable - you can set them for almost any height. We've got them set about 2" off the ground so he feels like he has training wheels but they don't do much but keep him from tipping over.

As for multispeed, how old is your son?

rzsionak

He's 6 and will be 7 this winter.

jimmie65

I'd go with multi speed.

fietsbob

take the cranks off and the chain, then its functionally a balance bike, that trains his brain to balance the bike,
separately from working the gears ...

fietsbob

..at the other end of life, saw a Harley Davidson motor cycle with 2 stabilizer wheels, because the old guy still wanted to ride..