Children learning to ride

In the current issue of Cycle, Chris Juden says the best way for kids to
learn to ride a bike is with no stabilisers and no pedals so that they
can learn balancing, steering and braking first. Once they have got
the knack of that, pedals are added.

When I got a bike for my 3-year-old, I just put stabilisers on it
without thinking but I think I'll give Chris' sugesstion a go.

Anyone got any experiences they would like to share?


Ian


--
wheelsgoround

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 20:50:43 +1000, wheelsgoround
wrote:


In the current issue of Cycle, Chris Juden says the best way for kids to
learn to ride a bike is with no stabilisers and no pedals so that they
can learn balancing, steering and braking first. Once they have got
the knack of that, pedals are added.

When I got a bike for my 3-year-old, I just put stabilisers on it
without thinking but I think I'll give Chris' sugesstion a go.

Anyone got any experiences they would like to share?


Chris is right. It works.

--

Cheers,

Al

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 20:50:43 +1000, wheelsgoround wrote:

In the current issue of Cycle, Chris Juden says the best way for kids to
learn to ride a bike is with no stabilisers and no pedals so that they
can learn balancing, steering and braking first. Once they have got
the knack of that, pedals are added.

When I got a bike for my 3-year-old, I just put stabilisers on it
without thinking but I think I'll give Chris' sugesstion a go.

Anyone got any experiences they would like to share?

My first kid learned in an afternoon by going to the local waste-ground
which had a smooth shallow grassy slope and starting at the top, riding
down until she fell off, and then getting back on and doing it again.
No stabilisers, no bike before that, she was about 5 or so. The middle
one magically taught herself somehwhere along the line, I can't remember when
but she was 5 or 6 as well.

For the last one I used the pedals off no stabilisers thing which worked too,
but slower because it's difficult to know when to put them back on again, and
because I didn't want to take them off once they're back on (because I'm
lazy) I tended to leave them off for probably too long. She too was 5 or so.

It undoubtedly depends on your kids and how much they will be self-motivated.
I tend to want mine to just get on with it and figure stuff like that out
themselves, so I'd prefer to leave the pedals on, no stabilisers (none of mine
had them, because I refused to let themi :-). I only took them off for the
last one as an experiment because I too had heard of the technique, and also
we now have a longish steep drive which I thought might be easier to roll down
if there were no pedals. I'm not convinced it was the right thing to do,
though.

I can't imaging stabilisers help in any real way, because they have to
behave so differently when turning because the bike frame can't lean as
much. They might as well learn the correct riding technique to start with
rather than having to relearn it later.

Having said all that, A *3* year old might benifit from having no pedals,
because it does mean they can scoot along more easily, and the pedals are
relatively wide compared to their leg length at that age. Take the
stabilisers off, though!

--
Trevor Barton

wheelsgoround wrote:
In the current issue of Cycle, Chris Juden says the best way for kids
to
learn to ride a bike is with no stabilisers and no pedals so that
they
can learn balancing, steering and braking first. Once they have got
the knack of that, pedals are added.

When I got a bike for my 3-year-old, I just put stabilisers on it
without thinking but I think I'll give Chris' sugesstion a go.

Anyone got any experiences they would like to share?

My experience is that stabilisers don't actually help a child to learn
to balance, but they do help a child learn to pedal, steer and brake.
My daughter spent a couple of years on a bike with stabilisers. What we
did to get rid of the stabilisers was take them off (obviously:-), drop
the saddle down as low as possible (so she had confidence she wouldn't
fall over) and take her to a field. It took maybe half an hour of
wobbling about before she got the hang of it, and she's never looked
back.

My son, after about a year of pedalling about with stabilisers, is
going to get the same treatment this summer, if only because his
stabilisers are now broken and I don't want to buy another set!
Steve.

"Al C-F" m wrote in
message ...
On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 20:50:43 +1000, wheelsgoround
wrote:


In the current issue of Cycle, Chris Juden says the best way for kids to
learn to ride a bike is with no stabilisers and no pedals so that they
can learn balancing, steering and braking first. Once they have got
the knack of that, pedals are added.

When I got a bike for my 3-year-old, I just put stabilisers on it
without thinking but I think I'll give Chris' sugesstion a go.

Anyone got any experiences they would like to share?


Chris is right. It works.


Our oldest started with a scooter and when she could balance on that it only
took a few minutes for her to get the hang of cycling in the local park.
Same principal I suppose as Chris is suggesting.

Tom.

wheelsgoround:
Anyone got any experiences they would like to share?

Yup - very recent experiences too, and I can really vouch for the
pedals-off-scooting method. It took me a total of about three hours of
teaching, spread over a few sessions, to get him from being terrified at the
prospect of riding without stabilisers to where he is now, which is being
desperate to go out and ride his bike at every opportunity, pedalling away
minus stabilisers. He still needs to hone his bike handling skills a bit -
especially braking - but he's improving all the time.

The most important advice I could give you would be to make sure you find a
good open space to practise in - I can't overstate the importance of this.
It made a /huge/ difference when I took my son up to the local sports field
rather than trying to teach him on the narrow pavement outside our house.

Try to find a good surface to practise on too - our local sports field has
an artificial cricket strip, which was perfect, especially as it has a
slight end-to-end slope (so he could concentrate on getting his balance
while freewheeling down the slope, without having to worry about propelling
himself forwards).

The best advice for teaching him to balance was picked up from urc - when
you feel like you are falling over, turn the bars in the direction of the
fall. It really works.

You'll also need to be extremely patient and really careful to avoid forcing
your child to do anything they don't want to do - this will be especially
true if you are trying to teach a 3-yr-old (it's much easier to communicate
with a 6-yr-old, though I'm all in favour of teaching these things as young
as possible, so go for it!). I had to take my son out /with/ stabilisers and
carefully persuade him to just give it a go /without/ (I took my tools along
with me so I could remove stabilisers and pedals when we got there),
promising that I would put the stabilisers back on immediately he asked me
to. As it happened, within five minutes of scooting up and down the cricket
strip he was no longer interested in stabilisers.

I let him get used to riding the bike like this with odd bits of practise
fitted in wherever time allowed over a week or so. Then I put the pedals
back on, and took him over to the park for a practise. I told him to put his
feet on the pedals and practise his pedalling motion while I pushed him
along. After about, ooh, 30 seconds at most of this, I just let go and off
he pedalled into the distance.... I'll never forget the look on his face
when it dawned on him that I wasn't holding on any more - I had expected him
to be anxious but it was more like "Wow! This is brilliant! I'm riding my
bike all by myself!" A truly wonderful moment.

So, he went from being a non-cyclist to a cyclist in the space of about two
weeks. And he loves it.

Good luck with your little one.

d.

Trevor Barton:
It undoubtedly depends on your kids and how much they will be
self-motivated.

This is so very true - no two children will adopt the same mental attitude
to something like learning to ride a bike. Some will just pick up a bike and
get on with it. My son was the opposite, hugely lacking in confidence and
needing a lot of gentle coaxing, despite the fact that in other areas of
life he is brimming over with confidence. And when I say gentle coaxing, I
mean gentle - I didn't want to force him to do anything he didn't want to
do, but it still didn't take long to teach him to ride.

I can't imaging stabilisers help in any real way, because they have to
behave so differently when turning because the bike frame can't lean as
much.

I think they are horrible things. I would much rather my son ride a proper
trike than a bike with stabilisers.

d.

davek wrote:



The best advice for teaching him to balance was picked up from urc - when
you feel like you are falling over, turn the bars in the direction of the
fall. It really works.


Yes, cracking bit of advice, this. I read this, then *ding* went the
lightbulb, and now I know how to make the bike fall to the side I want
when I stop... I turn *away* from the side I'm putting my foot down on :-)

Gem of info that's instinctive to some but a real help if you've not
quite got to that stage!

--


Velvet

"wheelsgoround" wrote in ...

In the current issue of Cycle, Chris Juden says the best way for kids to
learn to ride a bike is with no stabilisers and no pedals so that they
can learn balancing, steering and braking first. Once they have got
the knack of that, pedals are added.

When I got a bike for my 3-year-old, I just put stabilisers on it
without thinking but I think I'll give Chris' sugesstion a go.

Anyone got any experiences they would like to share?


Ian


I described on the "no stabilisers, no pedals, extra low seat" approach to
the parents of a very active 3 year old, who tried this approach with their
son. In spite of being very active, and possessing better balance and motor
skills than most children his age, this child was unable to ride a bike w/o
stabilisers. Younger children tend to be a bit more top-heavy than older
children, which makes balancing on a bicycle quite difficult. Back to the
stabilisers, and his parents will try again next spring.
--
mark

Thanks all; food for thought there.

Generally, I think, a thumbs up for the no-stabilisers approach but with
limited success for very young children.

On my 3-y-o son's bike, even with the seat right down, he can't get both
feet on the ground so I think I will give it a year or so before trying this
approach.

Ian