Anonymous wrote:DS is 11 and has no interest in riding a bike. He's developmentally totally normal. We don't live in a "kids riding their bikes from house to house" type neighborhood, he hasn't felt an urge to learn and we haven't gotten around to teaching him. At some point we'll probably do one of those REI classes but he hasn't missed it yet...

The older he gets, the harder it will be. One of my friends said essentially the same about her sons, and now at 20 and 18 they still can't really ride a bike.

Four and six for my two kids. Six year old learned the same week my four year old did. Get rid of training, wheels and just go without pedals. The trick is getting the kid to balance without falling over. Then add pedals. There are lots of YouTube videos on how to teach your kid how to ride in a week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never. She also hated the balance bike.

Wut

Her last bike was one with training wheels on it. She’s never asked for a new one. She doesn’t care and frankly neither do I.

Dude, that’s just sad. It’s a life skill that everybody should know how to do.

DS at 4 and change after 2 years on a balancing bike. It took 1 minute for him to get the hang of riding with a push off and about 2-3 days to learn to start and stop confidently on his own. Balance bikes are just awesome.

He had just turned 6 in the spring of kindergarten. We tried a few times drifting down a grassy hill to get the balance part and then went over to the school parking lot. It maybe took 2-3 hrs total.

It's easy to learn to ride a bike if they start on a balance bike at a young age and ride it a lot and then learn to ride a pedal bike at a young age (3-4 best) while they have a low center of gravity. Training wheels are like arm floaties - generally no longer accepted, but a few people still hang on to them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Never. She also hated the balance bike.

Wut

Her last bike was one with training wheels on it. She’s never asked for a new one. She doesn’t care and frankly neither do I.

DS was riding a balance bike for a year since 4, usually on dog walk. He learnt how to slide down the driveway without feet touching ground, essentially self-leant how to balance.

He learnt to start and peddle a real bike under one hour on a fine summer day before he turned 6. Finding a bike that suited his height took longer than he learnt how to ride it.

Anonymous wrote:DCPS has a "learn to ride a bike" unit in 2nd grade, and I've had 2 kids go through it. About half of the students already know how to ride a bike by the time the unit starts.

This is great! We are not in DCPS, but what a good idea.

5 and 6

Age 4. Never did training wheels but had a balance bike starting around maybe 2.5 or 3. Went straight from balance bike to regular pedals. Keep the seat low so they can use feet as brakes until they get comfortable.

DS is 11 and has no interest in riding a bike. He's developmentally totally normal. We don't live in a "kids riding their bikes from house to house" type neighborhood, he hasn't felt an urge to learn and we haven't gotten around to teaching him. At some point we'll probably do one of those REI classes but he hasn't missed it yet...

4 for all 3

Barely 3. Stated on a balance bike at 18 months and rode it all the time. Bought a pedal bike for third birthday (without training wheels) and he literally just sat on it and starting riding. Kid is fearless.

8 and 5. We live in a really hilly neighborhood, so it was a chore to drag the bikes places to practice, so we just never did. We were consistent about it for 3 days in a row for 45 min each time and both learned just fine.