4Real Forums: Bike-Riding for Pre-schoolers

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Nurturing the Years of Wonder
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Topic: Bike-Riding for Pre-schoolers

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SuzanneG
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Posted: Sept 14 2009 at 11:40am \| IP Logged

I posted on my blog about Bike Riding for Pre-Schoolers...which has been so helpful for us! Introducing a COASTER BIKE to the pre-schoolers makes the transition to a 2-wheel-bike easier, earlier and less painful....and without training wheels!

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Suzanne in ID
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motherly loving
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Posted: Sept 14 2009 at 11:52am \| IP Logged

This is great. Unfortunately I still haven't figured out how to teach our oldest - 3 year old son (turned 3 in July) - how to ride a tricycle. He has a radio flyer one we got at a consignment store that he is now able to reach the pedals. I have tried but failed to teach him. I try not to push it as you said, but he seems interested but just gets frustrated and gives up. Any advice?

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Robina
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and part-time veterinarian
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Mimip
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Posted: Sept 14 2009 at 11:59am \| IP Logged

THANK YOU!!!!! My 3 1/2 year old refuses to use training wheels but desperately wants to ride a bike. This will work wonderfully!

BTW I have been following your blog for a while and never connected that you were that Suzanne on the 4real forums

Great Blog!

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Mimi
Wife of 16 years to Tom, Mom of DD'00, DD'02, '04(in heaven) DS'05, DS'08 and DS '12

MaryM
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Posted: Sept 14 2009 at 12:39pm \| IP Logged

- way to go. It looks like such a great system and totally makes sense as to why it works so well. Wish I still had a little one to teach that skill to.

Robina, you might consider just jumping to this idea and focusing on the balance aspect. Really, pedalling can be challenging for many young kids and frankly, I think tricycles are not that easy to ride in general - something about having the pedals in front so you are trying to push forward as well as coordinate the alternating force. Pedals straight down from the feet like with a bike are often easier when that time comes.

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Paula in MN
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Posted: Sept 14 2009 at 3:35pm \| IP Logged

Wonderful idea - I'm going to use it on all the young'uns in the family.

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Paula
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SuzanneG
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Posted: Sept 14 2009 at 5:22pm \| IP Logged

motherly loving wrote:

Unfortunately I still haven't figured out how to teach our oldest - 3 year old son (turned 3 in July) - how to ride a tricycle. He has a radio flyer one we got at a consignment store that he is now able to reach the pedals. I have tried but failed to teach him. I try not to push it as you said, but he seems interested but just gets frustrated and gives up. Any advice?

I, too, think that a tricycle is HARD! I'd try the coaster bike instead....more fun, not as frustrating, uses a different skill set and different muscles. It's worth a try. My girls all ride the tricycle for a very short time....then once then can balance on the coaster, it's never the riding-apparatus-of-choice.

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Suzanne in ID
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kingvozzo
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Posted: Sept 14 2009 at 8:50pm \| IP Logged

That's funny...I just had my 8 y/o AND 5 y/o make the transition to 2 wheels in the last 2 weeks with the revelation of coasting. We didn't take the pedals off (hadn't thought of it

) but I did tell them to forget about the pedals and just focus on balancing.

I've become convinced that training wheels are handicapping.

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Noreen
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Nique
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Posted: Sept 14 2009 at 10:03pm \| IP Logged

Thank you, thank you!!

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Olivia
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Posted: Oct 29 2009 at 2:39pm \| IP Logged

I loved reading your post on this idea. Will try to remember it for when my daughter is older.

robynallen
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Posted: Oct 30 2009 at 10:41am \| IP Logged

This does work. We did this with my oldest, now 7.5 and it worked wonders. In fact our balance bike taught 2 other boys on our street to ride as well. They were all riding their own bikes in a matter of a couple of weeks. And everyone loves the balance bike. There was a bit of refereeing needed amongst the boys as to who got to ride it next.

SuzanneG
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Posted: Sept 23 2010 at 9:18am \| IP Logged

Bumping this, as I've seen MANY more "Glider Bikes" (like this one) on the market these days. It's really getting to be the more standard (easier

) way to teach a child to ride a 2-wheel-bike. They are $100 on average....but ours are much less!

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Suzanne in ID
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Grace&Chaos
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Posted: Sept 23 2010 at 9:46am \| IP Logged

Thanks for bumping this. What a great idea. My ds is turning 4 in a couple of weeks and yes riding a two wheeler is his top priority. I'll mention this to grandparents

. If that doesn't work, your idea can't be beat. We'll have to that for him. Just yesterday I saw him on his brothers small two wheeler just sitting. You could see that he was trying to process how do pedal and balance at the same time but just wasn't ready for all that at once. Later I saw him zooming in the tricycle

.

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Jenny
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