Riding a bike is a great feeling of freedom for adults and young kids. Teaching a kid to ride a big kid bike with no training wheels is a right of passage for many parents.
If you learned to ride a bike in the 70s or 80s or before I will tell you now that times and equipment have changed a little bit. There is a newer, easier way to teach our kids how to ride a bike without training wheels. Today I want to share this with you to save you some parenting frustration.
Do You Remember Learning to Ride a Bike?
Your memory of learning to ride a bike might include having a bike with training wheels that held you up but wobbled a little bit. You might remember your parents adjusting those training wheels so that you wobbled more and you learned to balance. Then eventually somebody took those training wheels off and through an afternoon you learned to do it on your own. Maybe there were a few passes down the street with somebody helping you but pretty quickly you probably figured it out. At least, that’s what I remembered.
Times have changed. I guess that somewhere along the way somebody changed training wheels. I never noticed until it was time to teach my daughter how to ride without them.
Here’s how this happened in my house. It was about 10 years ago with my daughter. She suddenly announced she wanted a new bigger bike. The bigger bike would be ridiculous with training wheels. In my opinion, that meant it was clearly time to learn to ride without.
Are These All Your Bikes?
Interesting tidbit, in most houses the dad might be the bike mechanic. In my house, I happen to be the bike lover and mechanic. Where many of my friends will negotiate how much it might cost to redecorate a room in the house–or how much is too much to spend on a designer handbag–my husband and I will discuss how many bikes is too many for me to have in the garage.
This is a long way of saying that when it was time to take off the training wheels my kids came to me… the bike mom.
No More Training Wheels
I remember looking and my daughter’s bike to try to adjust them so she could wobble and they didn’t seem adjustable. I asked my husband to look and he thought the same thing. We headed to the bike store with the intention of having the training wheels adjusted. They said it’s either on or off. We chose off. They sold me a very long handle that attaches to the back of the bike to use to help her balance.
Back home we tried her on the bike with no training wheels and the giant handle. She did not understand how to put her feet down to avoid falling and she was very uncertain because she didn’t like the feeling of having to balance. She was scared. I tried it the old school way, holding onto the seat while running with the bike. It is really hard and uncomfortable to run while bent over double. My daughter and I were fighting. I was hot and frazzled and eventually, we put the training wheels back on.
I mentioned to a neighbor what happened and they loaned me a balance bike to use when it came up again. Honestly, this changed everything and I’d never do it another way. In fact, if I could go back in time I’d have started both my kids on balance bikes and skipped training wheels altogether. I just didn’t know.
The Fastest Way to Teach a Child to Ride a 2-Wheel Bike
A balance bike is a bike that has no pedals and so the child just stands over it and then pushes themselves along. The biggest brand of these is a company called Strider. They balance right away. They learn to steer and move the bike all at their own pace.
Back at my house, I have 2 kids with training wheels and a borrowed balance bike in the garage. The balance bike we borrowed was wooden and looked like it might have even been homemade but it worked. My son is the daredevil of my two kids. He had outgrown his bike and found the balance bike in the garage which he had been zipping around on in the driveway. One day he announced he wanted to take off his training wheels and get a new bike. Just like that. Boom!
His bigger sister did not like this idea at all because she was still on training wheels. I was not looking forward to the day of fighting that it looked like might be about to happen. So, I reminded her that she needed to be able to ride without training wheels before she got a new bike and suggested that she try the balance bike.
I was ready for tears and drama. Instead here’s what happened.
She pushed the balance bike down the block one way. She was kind of walking with the bike. Wobbling and not going very fast. She went a little faster on the way back. Her brother was offering helpful hints that annoyed her greatly along the way.
In the driveway, she told me to take off her training wheels. I did. I didn’t see her go up and down the block again because I was taking off the training wheels. She handed me the balance bike and she got on her bike. She walked a little bit and hit her leg with the pedal… ouch. We talked about where you put the pedals to start pedaling. She did one pedal, then wobbled and stopped but did not fall because she put her foot down. Then she tried again and she rode her bike down the street by herself. She stopped and wobbled when she turned around. She then rode back all smiles. This literally took 5 minutes. No tears.
I ended up buying 2 new bikes that day for my kids. We spent the day out and about riding our new bikes all around the neighborhood. It was a great day.
Some Tips
- If you start a toddler on a balance bike you might never need a bike with training wheels at all. This is honestly what I wish I had done.
- If you have an older child who is trying to shift from a bike with training wheels remember my 5-minute lesson. Try to borrow a balance bike instead of buying one because they learn super fast and sadly they aren’t super cheap.
- If you are looking for a way to entertain yourself for 5 minutes of good fun online, Google the toddler Strider Championships. It is amazing what these little kids will do on their bikes.
