So honest question-what exactly is the point of a balance bike?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh wow! This must be proof your kids will get into an ivy, they are amazing!

+1

Wow. Nasty unnecessary replies.

Im a new poster but the OP was super judgemental and totally asking for a topical dcum thunderdome fight.

She is all "honest question" but the admits she knows exactly what they're for but thinks they're dumb and snooty.

My dd had one instead of a tricycle and is easily transitioning to a bike at 4. Call it stupid but whatever, we never had a strike. Worry about your own lives instead of criticizing others.

[Anonymous]

I got one of these because they were suggested to me at a bike shop for my now 10 year old and she and her younger siblings I tried to use it for later all hated it. Much preferred a regular tricycle. I also find them expensive for a bike that actually has less parts, at least for the one we purchased. They learned to ride a 2 wheeler bike at 3.5 and 4 on a regular 12 inch bike that we took the training wheels off of. Like yours , they learned in just a few minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dumb gimmick for parents too lazy to run alongside their kid. It takes like three tries and you let go. They’re off!

One of my kids learned like this. I think it was because his bike was too small for him. It made it easy. My older kids had a harder time because I bought bikes they could grow into. Big mistake.

Balance bikes work because they're so tiny. Every kid is different. Riding a bike is easy for some and not for others.

[Anonymous]

Our daughter had a tricycle and still struggles with her bike with training wheels while the neighbors who had balance bikes are confident on two wheels at age 3. Maybe a coincidence, but if I had to do it again I'd get the balance bike instead. If you're buying them something to ride, you're spending the same money either way, it's a substitute not an extra thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Balance bikes are for 2-3 year olds, not 4/6 year olds. It’s a scooter/tricycle substitute.

This.

Exactly. Why would I wait and until they’re 4-6 to run alongside them huffing? My kid got a balance bike as a 1st birthday gift. Starting riding it at 18 months, then transitioned to a pedal bike at 2.5, with absolutely no help from a parent.

You don’t put a bigger kid on a balance bike. You put toddlers on them, rather than a trike, and then they just move straight to pedal bikes when they outgrow the balance bike. It’s not like they’re pricey. The one given to us was under $40 brand new.

[Anonymous]

Sigh - a balance bike is a regular bike with the pedals removed.

And regular bikes all come with adjustable seats so getting a bike for a 2 year old to use as a "balance bike" that he/she can also use as a 4 year old is easy but maybe the people who can't remove the pedals can't figure out how to adjust the seat height either. My kids have used each of their bikes for about 4 years so this thing about needing to buy a balance bike or lots of bikes for your kids is just parents with more money than common sense.

Leaving that aside the people who teach bike classes for kids spend most of the class with the kids learning to balance, steer and brake on a bike with the pedals removed so it in fact is a great way to teach a kid to ride a bike.

And I know this from experience - my first kid could not ride a bike - we spent 3 frustrating years working on it though it certainly wasn't because it was taxing to run alongside a kid learning to ride. Took the REI bike class with him and he and everyone else in the class (most of whom were there for the same reason I was and this included a couple of kids pushing 10) all rode their bikes with pedals on the first time they tried it after spending a couple of hours doing different exercises on a bike with the pedals removed and my son never had qualms again about getting on a bike.

FWIW his younger brother a couple of years later fell exactly once after getting a shove from me and figured it out after the 2nd shove so I never had to remove his pedals but they are on opposite ends of the athleticism spectrum so how your kid does is probably more a reflection of their abilities than your instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sigh - a balance bike is a regular bike with the pedals removed.

And regular bikes all come with adjustable seats so getting a bike for a 2 year old to use as a "balance bike" that he/she can also use as a 4 year old is easy but maybe the people who can't remove the pedals can't figure out how to adjust the seat height either. My kids have used each of their bikes for about 4 years so this thing about needing to buy a balance bike or lots of bikes for your kids is just parents with more money than common sense.

Leaving that aside the people who teach bike classes for kids spend most of the class with the kids learning to balance, steer and brake on a bike with the pedals removed so it in fact is a great way to teach a kid to ride a bike.

And I know this from experience - my first kid could not ride a bike - we spent 3 frustrating years working on it though it certainly wasn't because it was taxing to run alongside a kid learning to ride. Took the REI bike class with him and he and everyone else in the class (most of whom were there for the same reason I was and this included a couple of kids pushing 10) all rode their bikes with pedals on the first time they tried it after spending a couple of hours doing different exercises on a bike with the pedals removed and my son never had qualms again about getting on a bike.

FWIW his younger brother a couple of years later fell exactly once after getting a shove from me and figured it out after the 2nd shove so I never had to remove his pedals but they are on opposite ends of the athleticism spectrum so how your kid does is probably more a reflection of their abilities than your instruction.

Your kids must have been small to be able to use the same bike from 2 to 6. That is quite a large size difference there. My ds had a balance bike, then went to a regular bike at 5, then another bike at 8, then another bike at 11, and now another bike at 15. There is no way he could have ridden a toddler size bike at 5, nor could have ridden a bike for a 5 yr old at 2. Even if he had had a toddler bike at 2 1/2 instead of a balance bike, he would have needed a different bike at 5 anyway.

[Anonymous]

Well, my DD who had a balance bike learned to ride a regular bike at 5. Our neighbor who used training wheels didn’t learn until 8. Same for one of her bfs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh wow! This must be proof your kids will get into an ivy, they are amazing!

After the balance bike, it only took a minute for my kids to learn a regular bike, not five minutes. Therefore they will get the ivy slots, not OP's kids.

[In case it's not clear, this is a joke.]

[Anonymous]

Neither of my kids learned how to ride a bike using a balance bike. I just never saw the need to spend the extra money when we could take the pedals off their bikes. We never did though, and they both learn how to ride a bike the same way the generations of kids learned how to ride.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sigh - a balance bike is a regular bike with the pedals removed.

And regular bikes all come with adjustable seats so getting a bike for a 2 year old to use as a "balance bike" that he/she can also use as a 4 year old is easy but maybe the people who can't remove the pedals can't figure out how to adjust the seat height either. My kids have used each of their bikes for about 4 years so this thing about needing to buy a balance bike or lots of bikes for your kids is just parents with more money than common sense.

Leaving that aside the people who teach bike classes for kids spend most of the class with the kids learning to balance, steer and brake on a bike with the pedals removed so it in fact is a great way to teach a kid to ride a bike.

And I know this from experience - my first kid could not ride a bike - we spent 3 frustrating years working on it though it certainly wasn't because it was taxing to run alongside a kid learning to ride. Took the REI bike class with him and he and everyone else in the class (most of whom were there for the same reason I was and this included a couple of kids pushing 10) all rode their bikes with pedals on the first time they tried it after spending a couple of hours doing different exercises on a bike with the pedals removed and my son never had qualms again about getting on a bike.

FWIW his younger brother a couple of years later fell exactly once after getting a shove from me and figured it out after the 2nd shove so I never had to remove his pedals but they are on opposite ends of the athleticism spectrum so how your kid does is probably more a reflection of their abilities than your instruction.

This is not true. It has to be small enough to easily put their feet down on the ground. A two year old and a four year old are different sizes. Buying up in size for a kid learning to ride a bike is a mistake, in my experience, and bad advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh - a balance bike is a regular bike with the pedals removed.

And regular bikes all come with adjustable seats so getting a bike for a 2 year old to use as a "balance bike" that he/she can also use as a 4 year old is easy but maybe the people who can't remove the pedals can't figure out how to adjust the seat height either. My kids have used each of their bikes for about 4 years so this thing about needing to buy a balance bike or lots of bikes for your kids is just parents with more money than common sense.

Leaving that aside the people who teach bike classes for kids spend most of the class with the kids learning to balance, steer and brake on a bike with the pedals removed so it in fact is a great way to teach a kid to ride a bike.

And I know this from experience - my first kid could not ride a bike - we spent 3 frustrating years working on it though it certainly wasn't because it was taxing to run alongside a kid learning to ride. Took the REI bike class with him and he and everyone else in the class (most of whom were there for the same reason I was and this included a couple of kids pushing 10) all rode their bikes with pedals on the first time they tried it after spending a couple of hours doing different exercises on a bike with the pedals removed and my son never had qualms again about getting on a bike.

FWIW his younger brother a couple of years later fell exactly once after getting a shove from me and figured it out after the 2nd shove so I never had to remove his pedals but they are on opposite ends of the athleticism spectrum so how your kid does is probably more a reflection of their abilities than your instruction.

This is not true. It has to be small enough to easily put their feet down on the ground. A two year old and a four year old are different sizes. Buying up in size for a kid learning to ride a bike is a mistake, in my experience, and bad advice.

+1. I have one and had success and there is no way my DD could have used her new 16 inch wheel regular bike when she was using her balance bike. The seat at its lowest is higher than the balance bike at it's highest. Unless your kid was freakishly tall at 2 and stagnated for four years, or is very short and didn't grow than I can't see how you could possibly use the same bike for 3-4 years in a row.

[Anonymous]

What the heck is a balanced bike? Off to google.