Teaching a Kid to ride a bike
Forget training wheels. They take forever and they don’t teach your child the essential requirement of riding a bike: balance.
To teach your child, use the method taught in Bicycling Magazine. It is a surefire, no brainer that teaches your child what it feels like to balance and allows them to do what their body wants to do. My son started with training wheels at 3 years old and always complained of not feeling right on the bike. He struggled to ride even though he wanted to very badly. I saw the article in Bicycling Magazine and implemented it the next day. That very day he was riding on his own, no training wheels needed. I still needed to help him get started, but it wasn’t long before he didn’t even need that help.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:06 am
Hmm, seems like the Bicycling article is gone. Here’s the way this works:
1. Lower the seat down so the child can comfortably put both feet on the ground.
2. Remove the pedals
3. Instruct the child to sit on the bike and use their feet to propel themselves
4. When they feel comfortable, have them lift up their feet and glide.
5. If they feel uncomfortable with their feet up in the air or are about to tip, simply tell them to put their feet down. This is pretty natural for kids anyway.
This teaches them the feel of balance on the bike, without the complication of pedaling. Once they get this down and can glide for good distances and do some steering, you can add back in the pedals and raise the seat.