Teaching Kids Balance

[Racey Rider]

For some years I'ld had the dream of seeing my young'ns ride a PW50. At the moment I have a 5y/old daughter and 3y/old son. They are getting to grips well with rideing there bicycles with training wheels on. And this weekend I tried them both on a bicycle without training wheels by holding the seat to support them.
Anyone got any tips on helping kids learn balance/turning skills on bikes so I can get them ready for the joy of their first motorbike?
Is it just a time on the seat thing, and all I can do is hold their bike seat till they seem ready?
Anyone made any mistakes I could learn from in the process?
Thanks.
Racey

[Slipstream]

Anyone got any tips on helping kids learn balance/turning skills on bikes so I can get them ready for the joy of their first motorbike?

Going through the same thing at the mo'.
My 5 year old binned her quad bike, so you can imagine what kinda difficulties I'm gonna have with 2 wheels.
Some parents (like my kid's dad bless him) take the no training wheels approach. My dad taught me balance on a bike, by having one training wheel on at a time...eg left one off for a while, then switch. This is the approach I will be taking.

The idea is, that the kid can feel like s/he is not entirely without control and build confidence. Lean one way and have training wheel support...lean other way and be riding on two wheels. You switch wheels so the kid doesn't favour the one side to lean on...balances. You keep doing this until the kid is not using the training wheel anymore and finds it annoying.

As for getting them ready for a motorbike...way-ull...Just keep taking them for small footpath/driveway rides to get them used to the noise and vibrations of the bike. Some kids love bikes...when they're not on them. No use knowing how to ride a bike if you're to scared to get on one.

[Kwaka-Kid]

Errrm, Youll have to ask my dad, wait no, mum as his memory sucks on exact time but i think when i was about 3 my old man got me on my older brothers bike holding the back and sitting me on, i couldnt use the pedals as they went down way too far, then hed push me a little and id roll down our sloped grass section at our old house, and gentally at the bottom flatten off and i could use the brakes then when i came to a stop i just let it fall to one side and ended up falling off but i do remember repeating this often untill i got my own 2 wheeler that was mini size so i could pedal too.

[Ghost Lemur]

I'd be interested in ideas too.

The punks are two and three now and have both been riding with training wheels for a while now.

Thought about just raising them up, and seeing if they become less reliant on them.

Yet to be confirmed, but I think my father just did the take me to the top of the grassy hill in the back yard and let me go. Don't really have that option down here in flatsville.

[bluninja]

My oldest girl used training wheels, but as soon as she could pedal fast she would lean the bike and pop the rear off the floor. She learnt to lean the bike the wrong way when turning so this didn't happen. So they were removed and the other two learnt, without, on grass and with helmets on.

Teaching them to use the brakes rather than just putting their feet down is a different matter Had to get them to play at doing rear wheel skids so they got use to squeezing the brake hard and having fun. Then stopping the bike and counting to 3 before you put your feet down (they can count pretty damn fast!).

[FROSTY:Me]

im going through the same stuff with baby bikie.
He wants a bloody motorbike buth he can't ride without at least one trainer wheel

[dhunt]

I don't think training wheels help at all as you rely on them for balance. I think for a lot of kids it just one days "clicks" and they get on and off they go. The best method of teaching would be find a nice grassy area and put them on hold them up (by back of seat) for a while, while they pedal round then start letting go of them when they don't notice it. (If they notice they were get concerned and probably bin it). As there confidence gets up they will go further and finally you will become "obsolete".

[VivaVee]

If you use training wheel it will take MUCH longer for the wee one to learn to balance. Now is the time. Take them to an empty soccer/rugby field i.e. large softish grassed area and put them on the bike wihout the trainers. Walk alongside them, holding the set firmly to start with and then with a grip that gets lighter and lighter.

You need to make sure that the gearing on the bike is suitable - if they cannot accelerate properly then they quite rightly get the idea that once the bike starts to go over they can not do anything to correct. Just remember how damn clumsy your bike is at slow speed turning and then think of their puny legs trying to transfer the horsepower to the rear wheel. The smallest bikes are the worst for gearing - the pedals cranks are too short to develop any real leverage. My daughter failed to learn on the micro bike (12" wheels) but got it in an afternoon on a bigger bike. My youngest will be at the local park this weekend. The soft ground, conveniently available at present, will soften the falls.

Oh and keep the missus well away. She just cannot handle the kids getting hurt/upset which is inevitable. But soon the pleasure of riding blots out the memory of the awkward moments.

Good luck.

[750Y]

I can remember my grandfather running behind me holding the back of the seat. we went round & round till he finally let go. I always had confidence on a bike from then on & loved riding ever since.

...My 5 year old binned her quad bike...

hmmmm...
My girl is five next month & getting a quad too...
My boy is 1 and he starts cocking his leg the minute he gets within a fifty yard radius of anything with wheels, even my Hilux Ute is not safe from that kid, he climbs adult ten speeds at the second hand shops and screams when i drag him away. he'll be on the quad too once he's smart enough to learn the brakes.

[jrandom]

My boy is 1 and he starts cocking his leg the minute he gets within a fifty yard radius of anything with wheels, even my Hilux Ute is not safe from that kid, he climbs adult ten speeds at the second hand shops and screams when i drag him away.

Sounds a lot like mine.

18 months old. Fearless. Enjoys climbing up onto the edge of things (our bed, the dining table, whatever he can drag things over to and mountaineer up onto the surface of) and bouncing on his toes on the edge, grinning as his mum shrieks and runs to grab him.

I've given up and resigned myself to a decade or two of broken bones.

His sister is a delicate, paranoid wee thing though. :spudwhat:

[vifferman]

Depends on the kid, to a large extent, I guess. I just got on and rode the very first time, same with a m/cycle.
With my 3 boys, they all started off with training wheels on their bikes, but like others have said, they tend to lean on them, so they learn to go around corners leaning away from the corner, so it's a habit they'll need to break (which, incidently, they do VERY quickly). The advantage of the training wheels is the kids are independent - don't need you running alongside, which gets tiring.
The points about wheel size / crank size are good too - the larger wheels act to provide more gyroscopic effect, so make the bikes easier to balance. Also, on uneven surfaces, the smaller wheels/cranks make the bikes harder to pedal, so if you're getting the kids to learn on grassy surfaces, make sure the grass isn't long or the field/lawn boggy, cause it's very hard for little legs to exert enough pressure to pedal. (Kind of defeats the purpose of having a 'safe' surface to crash on though, dunnit?)

[Ghost Lemur]

Sounds a lot like mine.

18 months old. Fearless. Enjoys climbing up onto the edge of things (our bed, the dining table, whatever he can drag things over to and mountaineer up onto the surface of) and bouncing on his toes on the edge, grinning as his mum shrieks and runs to grab him.

I've given up and resigned myself to a decade or two of broken bones.

His sister is a delicate, paranoid wee thing though. :spudwhat:

Be thankful for that paranoid wee thing.

I've got two of the fearless. And with them being so close in age, they're already constantly trying to out do each other.

One jumps off the seat of the couch, so the other will jump off the arms, etc, etc. I see multiple visits to the emergancy room in my future.

I have a feeling my parents would call that karma, for the dozens of hospital visits I made them do.

[TwoSeven]

when i was a kid I used to bend the training wheels up slightly - so they were of use only when I lost my balance or came to a stop and forgot to put my feet down.

[riffer]

I've been through this in the last couple months with Tim.

He will be five in three weeks. He's absolutely bike mad and has been riding with training wheels since the age of 2 and a half.

We took his training wheels off at Easter and he just didn't want to ride at all. We tried everything, including the whole push him from behind, but he just didn't want to know and we despaired of him ever getting it.

Of course he really wants a motorbike like Dad, and he's fallen in love with the PW50 in particular.

So we said to him that a) he had to master a bike with no training wheels, and b) he had to loose the pull-ups at night.

He had the pull-ups sorted within a week, and started pestering me to have a go on the bike.

So in the end, Tim and I went to the park and I pushed behind him while he rode for a good hour. And after about an hour he just got it. So I took him to the netball courts where he spent the next hour practicing his turns. By the end of the hour he was turning and leaning at will. It took him a couple more hours to learn stopping and taking off from a standstill, but its amazing the progress since.

In the six weeks since he learnt to ride his confidence has amazed me. He is absolutely fearless, and now attempts jumps, wheelies, slides and as I mentioned on a previous thread, is giving his Dad a real hurry-up on the BMX track. I would add he can also highside without hurting himself too, something I haven't managed to work out in my 37 years on this planet...

I reckon - take the training wheels off the bike and just spend an hour with your kid - you might have to do it a few times but when they get it its amazing to watch - that look on their face when they realise they are actually riding is priceless.

Now to find that PW50...

[speedpro]

My small boy decided he was going to ride the bike at play school. Evidently he kept at it for 2 days till he had it sorted. No trainer wheels, they don't help them balance they just hold them up. That was at about 3.5yrs old. The PW took about an .5 hour and he was going round the house on his own. That was about 4.5yrs old. Funnily enough he doesn't seem that keen on riding it except for very short bursts, except on the kart track.

Thankfully he has forgotten about trying to get his knee down when cornering which caused a huge crash at the park on his pushy. Amazing how far over you can lean on that shredded rubber playing surface though.