Teaching Kids to Ride
By Philbo
@Philbo (578)
Canada
June 21, 2009 5:34pm CST
Time to teach another one how to ride a bike. Wesley is our youngest at five years old and we've started working on getting him riding on his own. We used training wheels with a few of our older kids but I'm not a great fan of them. I have his seat down as low as it will go so if he is determined he can scoot along until he get a little confidence in his balance. Got a cute shot of him being helped by his older sister. Anyone have any tried and true methods for teaching their youngsters how to ride? This only gets frustrated easier than his siblings and it may take a little longer.
2 responses
@Troublegum (641)
• United States
21 Jun 09
My three year old has training wheels on right now and is a terror on them. My next step is going to be to put him on a "trail-a-bike" which attaches to the seatpost of my bike. If you haven't seen them, they are like the back half of a bike. They have pedals, a rear wheel, and handlebars that don't steer. The adults rear wheel take the place of the kids front wheel and you basically make a tandem. I am hoping that this will be fun for him and give him a feel for the balance.
After that it will be off to a grassy field to learn by falling down. (probably a couple years off)
1 person likes this
@Troublegum (641)
• United States
21 Jun 09
oh and a picture is worth a thousand words
http://www.goosecreekcyclecart.com/ProductDetails.aspx?PLU=058817766596%20&d=290
1 person likes this
@Troublegum (641)
• United States
22 Jun 09
See, now rather than taking that as a cautionaly tale, you got me thinking. Can I cut off the down tube, remove the front fork, and tread the seatpost of one bike through the headtube of another and make my own. hmmm
1 person likes this
@Philbo (578)
• Canada
22 Jun 09
I've seen the trail-a-bike but it reminds me too much of some cycling trauma from back when I was in the ninth grade. My older brother mated two adult bikes together in that same manner With spare parts from another derelict bike and some hose clamps he managed to mate the drive trains. We're not talking high tech here but he managed to make the thing work. He talked my younger brother into riding with him and they went booming around all over town racing everyone in sight. Beat almost everyone. That's when my brother realized the school's annual bike race was only a week away. I think deep down he knew by himself he couldn't do better than second place. His classmate Steve Bauer was expected to win (and did). You can look Steve up he is only the most accomplished Canadian professional cyclist ever. My brother believes he can win now if he only has a bit more power. My little brother was an eleven year old weenie at the time. You have to know I was not going to have very much choice in this. He managed to shanghai me into "training" back and forth to school on this thing. It was a terror to ride. Extremely unstable was a mild description. Not used to riding as a team plus our sizes didn't help with that at all. My older brother was 6'4" at the time and weighed in at 205 lbs. I was 6'4.5" and about 170 lbs. We escaped a rather spectacular crash into a ditch on the way home from school and I absolutely refused to get back on it. I don't think honestly we would have done better than my brother could have done alone. He should have raced and didn't. I don't think there would have been any shame in coming in second.
@adam1980 (516)
•
21 Jun 09
every child is different and develops at there own pace, once he has enough confidence he will pick it up on his own, i think it is a great way that you are teaching him i never thought of this both my girls have stabaliser wheels on there bikes, might try this with my eldest who has just turned 6
1 person likes this
@Philbo (578)
• Canada
22 Jun 09
I'm not too worried about him. He'll get it before long. His sister learned at five. She was riding with training wheels and we were planning a tour. I did not forget touring when my twin boys were on training wheels. They got more scrapes and bruises because of the training wheels and we really did want to go that route again. I took her training wheels off and turned her loose in the back yard. She figured it out within a couple days.
