One of our favorite family activities, particularly in coronavirus time, is the neighborhood bike ride. I have taught all four of my kids to ride big kid bikes. Along the way, I learned that there is a hard way and easy way to do this. This post explains how to get the family riding. Note: kid bikes and kid bike gear are normally available on Craigslist and in the preowned department of local bike shops – check there first for deals.
The Hard Way: Training Wheels
Like all kids in the early 80’s, I learned to ride on a bike with training wheels. Not knowing anything else, I put my older kids on cheap training wheel bikes and let them ride around the street. Training wheel bikes do teach how to pedal, but they provide a false sense of stability and interfere with learning how turning and leaning on a bike are related. When you finally take the training wheels off there are going to be afternoons of crashes until the kid understands balance. The training wheel approach will work, but it is a painful, brute force method.
The Easy Way: Balance Bike + Tiny First Bike
For my youngest, we got a balance bike and let her ride it in our house and on our deck. No pressure. Just let it sit there and occasionally encourage them to pick it up. Once they are scooting around, play a game of “I bet you can’t pick both your feet up at the same time.” They will then pick up their feet. Once they are doing short turns with their feet up, they are ready for a big kid bike.
The first big kid bike should be a tiny bike. For my 3-year old, I used a Woom model 2 borrowed from a friend of a friend. This bike retails for $359, which is crazy expensive for a little kid bike. They have a smaller model, the Woom 1, that retails for $199. Still a lot of coin for a little bike. But it’s worth it. Here is what the Woom has that other, cheap kid bikes don’t:
- Its lighter. Little kids have a hard time pedaling up even a slight incline. Lower weight = better pedaling.
- It has a low seat position. Lower seat = feet on short legs can touch ground = riding earlier.
- It has a low center of gravity. It feels like a balance bike, with all the weight down low. This makes the bike easy to balance.
- It has legit hand brakes, so it trains safe braking on big bikes rather than coaster breaks (pedal backwards) which then require relearning braking when the kid graduates to a bigger bike.
On the Woom, my daughter was riding on her own in 15 minutes, without a single crash. The other kids took hours and had lots of crashes. A shocking difference. There may be other kid bikes comparable to the Woom. But I know that the Woom works.
What age to learn?
The balance bike can be introduced shortly after a kid is walking. The first two-wheel bike can be introduced when they have mastered the balance bike and are strong enough to pedal. For most kids this will be around three years old. Until then, there good options for family biking fun.
Ride with Mom or Dad. Little babies (who can hold their head up) love being strapped in a kid seat on mom or dad’s bike and riding around the neighborhood. Love it. We used a seat that fits on a back of an adult’s bike, so the kid is sitting just behind you as you pedal.
These are well-constructed and with the addition of a helmet are plenty safe for cruising. We have also used the on-bike child seats that fit on the handlebar stem. These work but are suitable only for tiny kids. If you have a chubster get the seat on the back. The on-bike child seats are generally better than bike trailers (we have owned both) because you can talk to your child in the seat and they are up high where they can see everything. On-bike child seats are also more maneuverable on crowded bike trails.
The next step up is a tag-along bike which hooks to the seat post of an adult bike. These are awesome. Kids need to be strong enough to hold on and understand directions, so probably at least three. Even if a little kid is riding, the tag along is useful for longer family rides where a little kid might get too tired. The tag along attaches via quick-release, so I just keep the mount attached to my bike.
Go Bike!
Kids universally love riding bikes if biking is introduced in a safe and fun way. There are few family activities with as much bang for the buck as cruising through the neighborhood. So if you have kids but are not biking with them, get rolling!
Vamonos Baby! 