Anonymous wrote:Another vote for balance bike. Other than not having teach your kid to ride a pedal bike afterwards, it’s just so much easier to carry without those little pedals jabbing you in the shins. And it takes up less space.

This ^

Another vote for balance bike. Other than not having teach your kid to ride a pedal bike afterwards, it’s just so much easier to carry without those little pedals jabbing you in the shins. And it takes up less space.

+1 for balance bike. Transition to the real thing took all of two minutes when the time came.

Anonymous wrote:Ok, I'll be the outlier. I got my kid a balance bike and he hated it. Maybe because he saw his sister pedal and he wanted to be like her...I don't know. But he refused the balance bike. We got him a bike with training wheels and he hopped right on and got riding. We removed the training wheels a few months later and he did great without them.

All three of mine were the same way for some reason. We had a balance bike for our older and he never really took to it so I got him a training wheel bike and it helped him learn how to pedal. He picked up biking without training wheels pretty fast.

I think my kids didn't like that they couldn't actually go as far with a balance bike as with a pedal bike. It takes more effort with putting feet down and up and especially the younger ones wanted to try to keep up with the older one(s).

Balance bike if they will do it. Ours didn't want to. They learned, but I had to help them a lot. In contrast, one day at the park, my daughter was showing how she had learned to ride a bike. Two of her friends who had balance bikes but had never gotten on a regular bike wanted to try. In less than a minute, they were both riding.

Light weight balance bike all the way! Much easier for them to learn to ride (training wheels don't actually help them learn to ride, ask me how I know)

This site has a lot of information and reviews that are super helpful:
https://www.twowheelingtots.com/10-best-balance-bikes/

Ok, I'll be the outlier. I got my kid a balance bike and he hated it. Maybe because he saw his sister pedal and he wanted to be like her...I don't know. But he refused the balance bike. We got him a bike with training wheels and he hopped right on and got riding. We removed the training wheels a few months later and he did great without them.

Balance bike. Absolutely no to training wheels.

My 3 yr old rode his balance bike all over the neighborhood for nearly a year. Then one day he just ditched it and went for the pedal bike and taught himself how to ride it in 2 minutes.

Yup, lightweight balance bike. We had a Woom and it was a huge hit. I recommend checking neighborhood list serves before buying online -- it's worth it to get a more expensive bike because they are extremely lightweight which helps kids learn how to use them and makes it more fun. But you can often find them on list serves at a good discount so I'd check there first. Also just good to reuse them -- our Woom is great quality and could easily be used by multiple successive kids and still look like new.

A sturdy bike like a Trek. Remove pedals to make it a balance bike.
My kid got a strider when she was 18mo. It was awesome and she was 2 wheel biking by age 4, but your kid is bigger and doesn't need to get a single purpose balance bike

I’m the 11:31 PP- just recalling we got both our older kids res bikes with training wheels at 4. But, you could start with an inexpensive balance bike and then skip training wheels when you switch to a real bike!

My 3yo had this balance bike and loves it. It is very similar to Strider, but seems to weigh a bit less (we had a hand me down Strider for our older kids).

https://thecroco.net/collections/balance-bikes

My 3yo has a Strider balance bike; we love it.

Balance bike! So much fun. And also fun for you because your kid will ride a bike with pedals so easily afterwards.

We are ready to graduate from the tricycle. What's best? Bike with training wheels? Balance bike? Best brands?

We just left DC for somewhere very flat, so the hills are no longer an issue, and i feel like he's ready to learn.