How (not) to teach your kid to ride a bike..

Couple of weeks ago, finally, the time had come: To pop the training wheels off of M’s bike.

I was dreading the whole back-breaking balance training thing.

I did not want run behind her, holding her seat, straining my back, urgh!

However I read that there is ANOTHER way using the so-called Balance bikes.

Which are just fancy European contraptions of bikes without pedals.

The idea is to let her/him just coast to practice balance i.e. let the kid learn to balance on their OWN.

Then apparently, it is just a matter of trying that trick on the real bike.

Now these Euro gizmos cost over $300! And the cheaper Chinese knock-offs cost $100.

Fundamentally, I refuse to accept that bike-without-pedals should cost more than bike-with-pedals!

So ,  I figured that using an older 10″ bike and popping the pedals would recreate the same concept. Hence, we tried that route.

And here are the results:

We took M out exactly TWICE on the balance bike for 10 mins each time  –she got the hang of scooting around pretty much immediately. But she got bored with the whole no-pedal scooting because she saw other kids of her age-group riding bikes (aka pedaling).

Yesterday she insisted that we let her ride her bike sans training wheels.

Now, I was NOT really looking forward to holding her seat and running behind her in a bent position. And I was not sure that she had mastered the balance thing yet.
She stepped on the bike, I gave her a push and off she went. Literally!

She just rode off!

Of course I did kinda walk/run behind her (not holding her but within short distance) in case she fell off.

But that was not necessary.

She is still a little tentative i.e. cannot start or stop on her own — she needs a push start and stops pedaling to come to a halt.

I guess balance is inherent thing — it has to click for you, individually.

And this balance bike does teach or let the kid figure it out on her own.

But couple of caveats:
1. the kid will not have the traffic sense or riding sense e.g. M starts staring at some random kid in the park and of course the bike veers in that direction 🙂
2. she does not have the sense to gauge other’s reaction (there were some dogs)
3. you will still have to run/walk partially behind her — in case she falls.

4. turning is a whole another issue 🙂 it will come rather quickly but again it has to be learned.

Verdict:

1. Concept works.

2. No need for German engineered high-end balance bikes –kids will get bored in 1/2 hr.

3. Just get a cheap, small bike of craigslist or friends, pop the pedals, let the kid have her/his way on it a couple of times.

That’s it.

Then let ’em out on their real bikes without training wheels. Chances are they can balance right away. The rest is just practice.

As we knew it

Today is a new begining…in many ways.

There is a new President in the White House, there is temporary peace in Gaza, and I caught myself saying the fateful words of my parents, “in my youth we used to do it this way”..

So I thought it was fitting to capture the thoughts, opinions of our generation and those past, on topics ranging far and wide. For, while we may not have the immediacy of youth, we have the wisdom of our past and present (I might add).

This blog is not dedicated to politics, or technology or food or entertainment, though we may ruminate on every one of these topics.  It is not a site to gather public opinion or start flame wars. This is simply a collection of ideas as we knew it..