Balance bike and my 2 year old son

[dasgeh]

Where are you based? We’re in Arlington – my kids are often at Hayes Park or Central Park (the one by the Central Library) on their bikes – my 2.5 yo on a balance bike – and they’re rarely the only ones, especially at Hayes. In fact, the thing to do seems to be to bring a kid on a balance bike to ride around Hayes Park, and to teach an older kid to ride without training wheels at ASFS across the street. Their preschool, AUCP, has a set of ride on toys that all the kids use, including scooters and balance bikes, which they set up daily in the parking lot.

I was considering doing a bike show-and-tell (maybe coupled with a shorter ride) for an Kidical Mass Arlington ride this summer. We’ve considered doing it at Phoenix bikes and having a retail shop come to sell helmets and seats/trailers and probably kids bikes. May would be awesome for my personal schedule, but probably not doable logistically… It will definitely be advertised on this forum, and on the normal Kidical Mass Arlington routes (web, facebook, twitter, yahoo group)

[hozn]

I wouldn’t worry too much about it; I think the important thing is for the kids to get comfortable with the bike (weight, how it moves, steers, etc.) and that may take awhile before he gets on and rides off. Make sure seat is high enough so that he can walk it effectively while on the saddle. If you push him around while he’s sitting on the seat he’ll probably figure out that this is a potentially faster way to move with the bicycle than walking alongside it. Or send him off down a hill. Just kidding, don’t do that. My older son straddled it and walked around for a few months before it clicked and he actually started to ride it. He didn’t have any examples; that might have accelerated the process, though I think it was really just about him learning the bike. And now, fastforward a couple years, he can ride his pedal bike for a few miles which starts to really open up the possibilities.

My youngest son is starting to be interested in his balance bike, but he doesn’t ride it. Just gets on, takes a few steps and gets off. And he has his older brother giving him demonstrations. But he’s stubborn. He loves walking around with this helmet on, though, so I guess that’s something. I’m sure eventually he’ll figure it out. (But at a little over 1 1/2 he’s quite young still, probably not enough motor skill maturity yet to ride anyway.)

[btj]

My three year old always wanted me to push her and never wanted to ride on her own. Until… I showed her a few YouTube clips of kids her age on balance bikes and she immediately wanted to go try it on her own.

https://youtu.be/1pckVJs4GpI
https://youtu.be/xz6zG9EYOKI
https://youtu.be/hDY5ipGHseE

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