Balance bikes. Say goodbye to training wheels.

Post Reply New Topic

Research has shown the balance bikes (bicycles without pedals) are better for children learning to ride a bicycle than training wheels. According to research, training wheels can slow down the learning of balancing a bicycle because children become too dependent on them. Balance bikes are better and are starting to replace training wheels for beginning bicycle riders.

TBH, that's kind of weird. My nephew had essentially a balancing bike, but the whole concept is purely down to psychology. People don't balance bikes, once bikes are moving quickly enough they balance themselves. The issue with learning to ride a bike has always been getting comfortable enough to move quickly enough for the bike to self-balance.

Personally, I had a hand me down bike that was much too large for me, with training wheels. Within about 10 minutes of riding on a bike that was my size without the training wheels, I had it figured out.

As far a the dependency issue goes, I don't buy that, it wasn't the case with me and if that is an issue, that's more of an argument for training wheels with more adjustment. By the time the training wheels are up far enough to allow for a 45 degree lean, they're high enough to probably never actually hit the ground.

In Germany, they make balance bikes for grownups.

Back in the 19th century adult sized balance bikes were relatively common. They probably do have some application, but the lack of gearing makes them sort of an odd choice. It would be kind of cool to have a series of rope tows around to pull them up hills though

The dandy horse was common in the 19th century. It was before the modern bicycle came to be.

Nowadays the dandy horse (which is now called a balance bike) has made a comeback for children learning to ride bikes as an alternative to training wheels.

That is very old news which has been known about for a long time! The major down side to balance bikes is when one has learned to balance, one is stuck with a balance bike. Cash strapped parents would get stabilizers instead as it is a lot cheaper to do it that way and take them off than buy two different bikes (Even though by nature balance bikes will be cheaper than ordinary bikes).

If one wants a fairly good quality childs starter bike go for a lesser nown bike brand and whatever you do, AVOID anything Disney as they are the cheapest quality bikes that I have ever seen and are boarderline to just about (And only just) being able to pass a safety inspection PDI sheet, and that is when they were set up from the box by time served cydle mechanics who knew the tricks needed to get them to work in order to try and make them just about passable as "Safe". Ig a child wants Disney buy another different brand of bike (ANY OTHER BRAND OF BIKE!), then buy Disney stickers and cover the bike with the Disney stickers!

I've never heard of a balance bike and I don't know what it is.

I learned to ride a bike when I was about 5 years old and I remember it being not easy. I'm pretty sure I started out with training wheels.

I never learned to ride a bicycle and I'd like to know what sadist decided that by the age of five we're all supposed to be balancing on two flimsy, skinny wheels, one slip and half of your skin is gone.

I have seen adult three wheel bikes, but if I owned one I don't know where I would keep it since there is no garage or storage area in the apartment building I live in. And I doubt I'd get to use it much in the winter.

My nephew had a "balance bike" but it was just a regular bike without pedals. They just installed the pedals when he was ready.

The bigger issue was his mother scaring him about falling.

Personally, I still think training wheels are the way to go.

No one needs to be a sadist to recognize that learning to ride a bike is well within the abilities of the average 5 year old. Like many tasks, there's a risk of getting mildly hurt at first but we heal pretty quick, especially at that age. Getting hurt and getting over it is part of normal human development.

'Half of your skin gone' would require enough speed that the bike would be easy to balance, greatly reducing the chances of falling in the first place. They're only hard to balance at very low speeds.

As for three wheelers, why wouldn't it get much use in the winter? You can ride a bicycle all year round, a trike should be even easier to ride in the snow.

A lot of your fears seem rooted in the perspective of someone who can't ride a bike. Anyone who has ridden a bike would know they're not realistic fears. (Well, except for no where to store it, that one seems pretty reasonable.)

The whole point a balance bike is that you learn to ride them down inclines steep enough to get you going quickly enough the bike balances itself.

Learning to pedal a bike isn't the hard part, learning to deal with getting them going quickly enough they balance themselves is the main skill a brand new rider needs to learn.

That sounds like the exact opposite of useful. The difficulty of riding a bike is doing all of that together along with braking. Properly adjusted training wheels still require some balance, and at least you're learning to use all of the controls at once.

The balancing happens on it's own at speed, the rest doesn't just happen.

Considering it took me all of 10 minutes to learn to ride without training wheels, this seems like more of a failure of the adults around these kids to take the training wheels away quickly enough or to properly adjust them. If the kids are just moving back from one side to the other, that's a failure of teaching, not the training wheels.

Training wheels don't teach you how to balance a bike and they basically let you cheat and just ride it as a three wheeled vehicle. You seem to be acknowledging that but not really acknowledging how that undermines their ability to teach proper technique. One doesn't even need to countersteer to turn with training wheels, meanwhile that's literally the only way to make a bike turn. The pedals aren't even significant for control outside of them being the means to add forward momentum.

Considering balance is the primary skill one needs to develop (the pedalling will develop much quicker and isn't something that will require extensive practice, it's pretty much intuitive) and a balance bike forces one to learn it properly from the get-go, I struggle to see how it would be a worse learning tool than the one that doesn't really teach proper balance at all.

I haven't really anyone make a positive case for them as a learning tool but I've heard strong cases for balance bikes as a superior way to learn. Perhaps you've encountered different credible lecturers discussing the topic, but I've yet to encounter a solid argument for training wheels being superior.

It's unclear how generations children could learn to ride bikes with training wheels just fine, but now it's an issue. Balance bikes aren't superior for learning if they were training wheels would never have been invented. It's a lot cheaper to buy a bike with no pedals to learn on than to mess with training wheels.

As why training wheels are better, just because they're on doesn't mean they have to touch the ground. The first drills prospective motorcycle riders do here is use it as a balance bike. The training wheels don't prevent that. But they do provide a little extra support to bridge the gap, it if the bike is a bit too heavy.

In other words, the issue isn't the training wheels it's that people are teaching kids to ride that don't know how to teach it. Anything shy of a big boy bike with hand brakes and gears is similarly cheating by your definition. It worked for me in a matter of minutes and I likely would have been able to earlier had my parents been able to afford an appropriately sized bike.

Unless riding a bike is a fairly easy skill to learn, even if they were held back by the first bike they rode.



Unless training wheels were marketed as a superior training method. They don't need to actually be better to be marketed as better.



It sounds like you're saying the problem isn't with training wheels, it's that no one uses them properly. They can't be that good if they're so easy to misuse in a way that makes them no longer contribute to learning. The fact that they enable poor technique makes them a less effective teaching aid, even if it's ultimately because no one uses them right. How they end up working in practice is what matters, not how well they work in some hypothetical ideal situation.



No actually, you're just strawmanning my position because you lack a solid retort. My position is that literally any proper sized bike that doesn't have training wheels is superior to any bike with training wheels for learning to ride a bike. That includes balance bikes that don't have pedals.

Many bikes don't even include multiple speeds so why would someone need them to learn to ride? Are BMXes and fixies not 'big boy bikes' for you? They certainly are for me.



I think this supports my hypothesis that riding a bike isn't actually that difficult, rather than that training wheels are a good method of learning.

A balance bike just teaches a kid to do what everyone on a bike does at very low speeds, placing their feet on the ground. When they get some momentum it's just like coasting on a regular bike. At no point does it teach bad habits the kid will need to unlearn when riding a real bike.

How do the balance bikes move the bike if those bikes do not have pedals? Are the adults supposed to push the bikes forward the entire time?