Looking forward to getting my son a pedal bike for his 4th birthday soon. Going to go straight from balance bike and try to skip the training wheels as he’s pedalled plenty of trikes before.
All that he really seems interested in though is having brakes
Now that my first kids are older I look back and wonder why I was so worried about teaching them to ride, balance bikes and all of the techniques.
Really all it took was their desire, my patience and visits to the park with regular kids bikes when they were ready.
Youngest has just jumped up to a 24” Isla Bike. A local town we pass through on the school run is as bad as cycling infrastructure gets in the U.K., so I tow her bike though the mess with our Surly Big Dummy. Once on the wonderful local greenway we unhitch and off she goes.
We have set up little stepped goals. And at each stage of competence she gets little prizes ranging from mudguard stickers, lights, locks etc. We have toured together in Europe but she is keen to be self sufficient, so the holy grail will be a pair of little panniers all of her own. It’s really cute to see her so enthusiastic WITHOUT any hothousing on my part.
I think role modelling is number one. Not only in activity but in attitude. Projecting fun, positivity and personal development over results makes the sport appear more appealing to your kids than the other reality that often exists.
If you can find a youth club that embodies these values and the Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model even better. But if your local youth club isn’t a fun place then it’s better to just ride with your kid IMO.
My 11 year old is having great success at our local velodrome (a rare luxury in NA I know) and is super motivated and enthusiastic about cycling as a result. Big credit goes to the coaches of the youth club for that. But one day we were talking about other kids who had stopped coming and she confided that at one point she was struggling and frustrated and thinking of quitting. But knowing that her dad was capable of riding the track gave her the self-belief that she was too and so she persevered.
Knowing that I’m a role model like that is super motivating for myself to do everything right and to keep training and racing in a positive way.
On the hand our son crashed hard on his bike and decided biking is stupid and would rather play soccer. That’s cool too.
Hello!
I’m a triathlon coach for a large club & have my community bike coach training.
You can turn any bike into a strider by just taking the pedals off!
Start by getting the seat down so his feet can grip the ground. Make sure the bike is the right size.
Then you can go over basics:
look where you want to go is the main one
tilt bike side-to-side
“thumbs up, chains up” ~ chain side up towards sky
yabba-dabba-dooo exercise: two smaller bushes w/ both feet then a biiiig push
start on straight open area (tennis court works great b/c they’re fenced in)
go down little hills w/ feet lifted
Once he’s comfortable with turning while gliding w/ his feet off the ground for 5-10 seconds, you can try putting pedals back on.
I’ve seen kids get so good at strider bikes that they’re putting their feet up on the top tube…
Practice every day.
This is the progression we use when we have kids show up to practice w/ training wheels. They come off immediately along with the pedals.
Hope this helps.
Great post @Jonathan always enjoy your posts with Simon riding on your insta.
Our five year old has been a late starter with riding and me not wanting to be the Uncle Rico type have just let him do things at his own pace. He now loves riding his 16" pedal bike but have the next hurdle of getting him off trainer wheels which he’d pretty reluctant to do. Taking them off and giving him the bike just results in him flat out refusing to get on it. Any tips on that transition from anyone would be great!
Our two year old is now starting out on the balance bike, a Specialized Hotwalk. To be honest we battled with his older brother and now him with the fact that it has the steps for their feet, as soon as they figure this out they just want to put the feet up and have me push them round which isn’t really helping them learn anything. The steering stiffens comment you made is something I hadn’t thought of, and may try adding a bit of tension to the lock nut to stiffen things up, as I can see how having the bars so easy to turn probably doesn’t make it super stable for them.
Looking forward to the future when I can get them both down to the Rotorua trails and shredding!
Well both the post from Maki_NarusawaTrotter
and my earlier one quoted below show a good progression
my daughter really didn’t wanna get off her training wheels, but she’s the type that has to be nudged (sometimes pushed) in the right direction to learn and enjoy things. Taking off the pedals was an easy/cheap solution. What also helped was seeing our neighbours’ kids riding on their pedals bikes without training wheels… although at first she didn’t care, she then realized that she could go faster without the training wheels lol
