Teaching my daughter to ride a bicycle... a novel ;-)

Jobst Brandt wrote:

...
The other problem is that the classic tricycle is pretty much gone, it
being too dangerous in the eyes of many parents. I think these
parents equate skinned knees as a failure on their part to look out
for their children. I believe otherwise. A skinned knee in early
youth is part of what teaches people their limitations and protects
them from doing far more seriously damaging things later....

This Danish company seems to think that tricycles are good for small
children: http://www.a-winther.com/pages/products.php.

--
Tom Sherman - Earth (Downstate Illinois, North of Forgottonia)

Tom Sherman writes:

The other problem is that the classic tricycle is pretty much gone,
it being too dangerous in the eyes of many parents. I think these
parents equate skinned knees as a failure on their part to look out
for their children. I believe otherwise. A skinned knee in early
youth is part of what teaches people their limitations and protects
them from doing far more seriously damaging things later....

This Danish company seems to think that tricycles are good for small
children:

http://www.a-winther.com/pages/products.php

Wow, those are miserable and miniature tricycles, guaranteed to not
exceed 5mph for safety. I'll stand by my earlier contention that the
tricycle is dead. That manufacturer is condescending as you can get
with that product line.

wrote:

Wow, those are miserable and miniature tricycles, guaranteed to not
exceed 5mph for safety.

They're small becuase the kids that ride them are small. And given the
pedals are connected to the axel, they're the same speed tricycles have
always been.

Our kid's two. We looked at trikes this weekend for him. He rode one
at the LBS when I was picking up a new tube and he loved it. I'd have
probably implulse-bought it if it had been assembled properly (turning
the handlebars didn't always turn the front wheel!). We looked at
another at Target and he loved it, although he didn't quite get the
pedal thing. When it gets warmer, we'll for sure get one.

And there were some Grandparents there looking at trikes for their
grandkid as well.

So they're not quite dead yet....

Rich

wrote:

That manufacturer is condescending as you can get
with that product line.



Now if THAT isn't the voice of authority...

Rich A? writes:

Wow, those are miserable and miniature tricycles, guaranteed to not
exceed 5mph for safety.

They're small because the kids that ride them are small. And given
the pedals are connected to the axle, they're the same speed
tricycles have always been.

That's odd. The children on my block can handle a far larger front
wheel than the ones pictured. Tricycle speed is largely dependent on
wheel size. The ones on that web site show children in the saddle
with their feet on the ground and a pedal stroke less than 3". I
think you haven't seen a useful child's tricycle or maybe children are
getting smaller in this part of the world.

Our kid's two. We looked at trikes this weekend for him. He rode
one at the LBS when I was picking up a new tube and he loved it.
I'd have probably impulse-bought it if it had been assembled
properly (turning the handlebars didn't always turn the front
wheel!). We looked at another at Target and he loved it, although
he didn't quite get the pedal thing. When it gets warmer, we'll for
sure get one.

Maybe you could give us a link so we can see this tricycle. I haven't
found any advertised that I would buy for a child.

And there were some Grandparents there looking at trikes for their
grandkid as well.

So they're not quite dead yet...

Good luck!

wrote:

Maybe you could give us a link so we can see this tricycle. I haven't
found any advertised that I would buy for a child.

I dont' have a link. But it looked pretty much like this one.

http://www.a-winther.com/pages/mini-...tri_442.20.php

Small legs require a short pedal stroke, and two year olds have small
legs. I also have fond memories of standing on the platform with one
leg and pushing with the other. I'm guessing he'll only use it for two
years and then we'll get him on a bike. I've seen some real small kids
riding some real small bikes.

Rich

Rich A? writes:

Maybe you could give us a link so we can see this tricycle. I
haven't found any advertised that I would buy for a child.

I don't have a link. But it looked pretty much like this one.

http://www.a-winther.com/pages/mini-...tri_442.20.php

Small legs require a short pedal stroke, and two year olds have
small legs. I also have fond memories of standing on the platform
with one leg and pushing with the other. I'm guessing he'll only
use it for two years and then we'll get him on a bike. I've seen
some real small kids riding some real small bikes.

You'll notice that the tricycle pictured could have a wheel twice that
size for the leg length. If the saddle were moved forward, the wheel
could be even larger. The tricycles in my family were from 2-3 foot
diameter main wheels and were able to go fast enough to make
tricycling down the block faster than walking there, and of course
easier. There should be some return for this mechanism, not just the
novelty of having wheels. We have wagons for that... oops they're
also scarce. Of course you know wagons are dangerous because with the
handle turned 90 degrees the wagon can tip over if you happen to be
sitting up front.

I recall how children automatically found a way to hitch their wagon
to the back of a tricycle and truck their friends around the block
without adult assitance.

Jobst Brandt wrote:

...Tricycle speed is largely dependent on wheel size....

My tricycle has a high gear of 116 gear inches with an approximate
20-inch diameter drive wheel.

--
Tom Sherman - Earth (Downstate Illinois, North of Forgottonia)

Jobst Brandt wrote:

...
Maybe you could give us a link so we can see this tricycle. I haven't
found any advertised that I would buy for a child....

Here is a tricycle suitable for a larger child:
http://www.ice.hpv.co.uk/trikes_pixie.htm.

--
Tom Sherman - Earth (Downstate Illinois, North of Forgottonia)

In article ,
wrote:
I recall how children automatically found a way to hitch their wagon
to the back of a tricycle and truck their friends around the block
without adult assitance.

Memories! More fun, though arguably more dangerous, was to hitch a
wagon to the Pletscher rack on the back of the Raleigh Twenty our family
had. The lower hitch point allowed for harder braking without
jacknifing. We even tried hooking up two wagons in tandem, attaching
the handle of the following wagon to the rear axle of the leading. Of
course we had many spills, scrapes and train wrecks as we learned the
hard way what would and wouldn't work. At the time the city (Palo Alto,
CA) had recently cut ramps in the curbs along some of the major
arterials to enable a city-wide bicycle plan, so we could do more than
just ride around the block.

Of course you know wagons are dangerous because with the
handle turned 90 degrees the wagon can tip over if you happen to be
sitting up front.

Not only that, but the clearance between the front wheels and the wagon
pan was usually tight enough that simply tilting or shifting one's
weight in the wagon might cause one of the front wheels to scrape the
underside and cause a momentary loss of control. The latest RadioFlyer
designs seem to allow more clearance above the front wheels.

http://store.yahoo.com/radioflyer/steelandwood1.html

It was under such hazards that a friend and I talked my dad into driving
us up to a local park in the nearby hills (Foothills) whereupon we
mounted the wagon in tandem and descended the wrong-way down a paved
one-way road (very little traffic) with a couple steep drops near the
bottom that got us up to about 25 mph--faster than I had ever been on an
HPV, whether two, three or four wheels, although it seemed much faster
at the time. Braking was with the soles of our shoes. I can still
remember that first thrill of speed and how I once almost lost control.
(I was sitting in front, holding the handle forward between my legs.)

--
Bill Bushnell
http://www.pobox.com/~bushnell/