I just taught a girl to ride a bike, and it didn’t take long at all–90 minutes over two meetings. (OK, the girl was 22, but the steps will be the same. Though with pedal brakes, I heard that kids tend to stick their feet out to the sides when they panic. Might be a little harder w/o hand brakes.) What you have to do is break everything up into small steps. Most importantly, you have to separate pedaling from propulsion until they learn to balance and brake. So find a hill.
First get them to walk with the bike under them on a level surface and test out steering. Explain how the braking works and that the walking they’re already doing requires more balance than riding a bike.
Next try having them sit on the bike to show what happens when balance goes. (They just put their feet down and everything’s OK.)
Then move to a slight incline and try coasting down. Remind them that if they ever start going too fast for their comfort level, they can just brake or put their feet down. You can also run alongside to stop them if need be. Practice this for a while, maybe over two days. It will be tiring for them trying something new (and walking the bike up the hill so many times).
Once they can coast a long distance, get them to try placing their feet on the pedals (but not pedaling).
Have them start pedaling. Explain that the faster they go, the easier it becomes to balance. They’ll abort many times, but eventually get it. When they do, they’ll reach the end of the incline and just keep on going.
Next teach starts on level ground–how to get enough speed to sustain.
After they’re pedaling on their own power, they’ll pick up the rest on their own. Turning, going uphill and dealing with obstacles/traffic will be easy once they love riding.
That’s a good program. Thanks for posting.
We’ve taken a hiatus on the bike riding. Both kids quickly lost interest after I removed the training wheels. They’ve had the rollerblading classes already, so it shouldn’t be hard. The thing I hate about Taiwan right now is that they don’t have much free time to just be kids after all the studying they are doing. It’s elementary school!@ But that’s another rant.
My son rides his trike all around our lake and in the playground.Last week he was fidgeting with some one else’s bike with training wheels and Mr. Grandpa must gave helped him onto it, coz I was talking to my daughter and somebody very family just rode past me in an unfamiliar bike - the son of course. Since he couldn’t pedal all the way round, he was moving by just doing a back and forth/back and forth. He didn’t fall off when making turns, going onto gravel and waving at me. It was super super fab. So now I have got him a used ‘Giant’ bike of the smallest size and another for the daughter (who doesn’t care about riding but well…), The son was fine whizzing around the house today,but here is my question. He is very young and I cannot do the run behind him thingy coz there is no way he will balance that bike. So we get a helmet?? What else?? The whole knee pad, elbow pad thing or is that too much? He will be biking about a kilometre every visit. Any suggestions are welcome.
Oh and also, since the bikes are used, the handlebars are slightly rusty. Do we have to sand paper it or is there sth. new and easy these days. We have oiled up the bikes and they are in good condition, but what else should we check. Brakes?? Should we go to a bike shop or its no biggie.
If they are still young, then get them one of these, no pedals, the kid just scoots along and gets used to balancing on two wheels at low speeds, then also knows how to stop and put feet down
once ready, in theory, they can then graduate straight to pedal-style bikes without training wheels
If training wheels are fitted, they shouldnt be rigidly fixed to retain the bike upright, but allow 5-10 degrees or so of lean - thus the child learns to balance and only errors are corrected
[quote]If training wheels are fitted, they shouldnt be rigidly fixed to retain the bike upright, but allow 5-10 degrees or so of lean - thus the child learns to balance and only errors are corrected
[/quote]
and another for the daughter (who doesn’t care about riding but well…), The son was fine whizzing around the house today,but here is my question. He is very young and I cannot do the run behind him thingy coz there is no way he will balance that bike. So we get a helmet?? What else?? The whole knee pad, elbow pad thing or is that too much? He will be biking about a kilometre every visit. Any suggestions are welcome.