Just after the Little Mr. turned 4, a few weeks after we started our 5-10 minute daily biking activity, he was able to bike on 2 wheels all by himself!
How do you teach a toddler how to bike without training wheels?
It seems to be pretty common knowledge nowadays that the best way to learn to ride a bike is by first using a 2-wheeler with no pedals, or a balance bike / strider. This is because they can start to learn how to shift their own body weight to balance on 2 wheels rather than relying on a training wheel to catch them when they lean too far one way or the other. Once the training wheels are removed, they'll have to re-learn how to balance again because balancing on a bike with training wheels is very different than balancing on one without training wheels.
Once my toddler was able to balance well on his balance bike, I wasn't sure how to transition to balancing while pedaling on 2 wheels, and I found this excellent video that I used to learn how to teach my firstborn how to ride a bike. In addition to the suggestions in the video, I wanted to note down my own steps in teaching Little Mr. how to bike so that I remembered for teaching Copycat when he's ready.
I've known several 3-year-old's that are able to bike on 2 wheels already, but at first I couldn't fit biking into our daily routine simply because I couldn't leave 1-year-old Copycat unattended while I focused all my attention teaching 3-year-old Little Mr. to bike. But I was able to start teaching my eldest to bike once the pandemic hit as my husband was working from home: so everyday while my youngest was napping, I was able to take my eldest out to our relatively long driveway to practice biking before his nap.
Step 1: Balancing on the balance bike / strider
DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONE REACHED: Can stand up, can sit on the balance bike while walking
DURATION: N/A
MATERIALS USED:
Position the balance bike / strider seat such that your child is flat footed with their knees bent as shown in the first picture (the balance bike) here.
Once your child can push off and ride the balance bike for a few meters without putting their feet down (for both going straight and turning), they're ready to try a pedal bike.
This was just a developmental stage that I was waiting for my son to be able to do, so I didn't have any 5-minute activities leading up to this. The video said that kids usually have the ability to start learning to bike around 3-4 years old. Whenever my son would choose to go on his strider, I would see if he could balance or not. One unfortunate thing about living in a snowy climate is that the roads are unusable for the winter months, reducing the amount of opportunities he had to ride his balance bike. Little Mr. ended up balancing by himself down the slight downhills around our block once the snow had melted, about a month before his 4th birthday.
Unfortunately, I never took a video of the Little Mr. balancing on his strider before he could ride a bike. However, he did have to re-learn how to ride a 2-wheel bike after being unable to bike on icy roads during the winter months. Riding the strider again was part of the re-learning process and I was able to get a video of him balancing (despite the fact that the strider was sized for his 2-year-old brother!). Once your toddler is able to control his balance on his strider both while going straight and turning, like Little Mr. in this video below, they're ready to start trying a 2-wheel pedal bike:
Setting up the pedal bike:
Bike seat height: Even though it isn't ideal posture, when Little Mr. first started biking, he was only comfortable if he could be flat-footed when he was stopped on the bike, even if that meant his knees were coming up higher than they should while he was biking. I tried to make the seat higher a few months after he learned to bike by himself, and it actually turned him off from biking for a while. Once I lowered the seat again he would be much happier riding, so I kept the seat lower until his confidence increased. I didn't find this guide on bike seat heights until after I had already taught him to bike, so hopefully it can stop you from making the same mistake I did of putting the seat too high too soon.
Bike size: If you'd like a general idea on what size bike wheels to get for your child, you can use this guide on bike sizes. However, I still recommend your child actually trying it in the store before buying it because the lowest seat heights for the suggested wheels sizes may still be too high.
Step 2: Balancing while pedaling
DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONE REACHED: Can balance on the balance bike while going straight as well as turning for a few meters without putting their feet on the ground.
DURATION: 4-6 minutes
MATERIALS USED:
2 wheel pedal bike
2a) Help them transition from balancing without moving their legs to balancing while pedaling.
Put the pedal in the 2 o'clock position for them, then help them start pedaling.
Help them balance on the bike while pedaling by holding their torso under their arms, like the video shows. We did at least 3 laps of our driveway for our 5-minute activity, but you can choose whatever 3 repetitions best suit your teaching environment. During Little Mr.'s off days we would do just 3 laps, but the days when he was enjoying himself (especially when he was starting to really get it), he would want to do 11 laps before heading to nap time and I'd need to say "1 more lap then we're done, OK?".
2b) Have them position the pedals by themselves and start good starting position habits.
After a few sessions, have them position the pedals in the right place by themselves: in the 2 o'clock position. Even though pushing off to get the bike ride started by themselves isn't the goal yet, as he got better at pedaling I started to go through these steps every time we started from a standstill. I still needed to hold him under his arms for these steps, but I wanted to start preparing him for eventually starting by himself. Tell your child to:
Put the toe of their shoe on the 2 o'clock pedal.
Push off the ground really hard with the foot on the ground.
Use their hands to control the handlebars to keep the front wheel straight.
*If you have pedal brakes instead of hand breaks, for the child to put the pedal in the "right place" (2 o'clock position) by themselves, the child will need to walk their bike forward while pushing the pedals forward, which differs from the video (where you just move the pedals backwards as it uses a bike with handbrakes). This is more difficult than having hand brakes, so if you have a toddler bike with hand brakes, awesome! But we were able to do it with pedal brakes so it's definitely still possible without hand brakes.
Step 3: Learning to stop the bike by themselves
DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONE REACHED: Can pedal on their 2 wheel bike while balancing by themselves
DURATION: 4-6 minutes
MATERIALS USED:
2 wheel pedal bike
Once my child could balance and pedal without me needing to hold him under his arms, I next taught my toddler how to stop the bike by himself.
For pedal brakes: push backwards slowly, then stop.
The video has good advice for bikes hand brakes. We had pedal brakes though, and the biggest challenge with these was Little Mr. just wanting to just put his feet on the ground to stop the bike (like he did with his strider) rather than push his pedals backwards. With the increased speed he got from pedaling, trying to stop a moving bike by just putting your feet on the ground was obviously a very ineffective bad habit. Pushing the pedals backwards too suddenly also shocked him, though he like the sound it made. So the best way I found to work on how to stop the bike with him was to say "backwards slowly, then stop":
"Backwards slowly" means push backwards on the pedals slowly.
"Stop" refers to when the bike is slow enough to make balancing difficult: your child should put their foot down on the ground to stop.
Step 4: Learning to start by themselves
DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONE REACHED: Can pedal on their 2 wheel bike while balancing by themselves
DURATION: 4-6 minutes
MATERIALS USED:
2 wheel pedal bike
Once they can balance while pedal as well as stop, it was time to start focusing on the most difficult part: starting on their own. While you technically help them learn this step every time you try biking, I found that it took them the longest to learn because it requires the most simultaneous steps:
Pushing off the ground with one foot while pushing the pedal with the other foot.
Getting the foot used to push off the ground onto the pedal
Doing that all while keeping the front wheel as straight as possible.
When learning to start from a standstill, focus on gaining confidence with each step before moving onto focus on the next step.
So first have your child focus on pushing off the ground really hard while still you're still holding them under their arms to help. Then once they consistently have a good push off, have your child focus on putting their foot on the moving pedal after pushing off (again, while you're still holding them under the arms). Once they're better at putting their foot on the moving pedal, you can now get your child to focus on keeping their front wheel straight. Eventually they'll get it without you needing to hold them under their arms anymore!
Tips:
Even with the pedal in the 2 o'clock position, it's easier to get momentum from pushing off the ground compared to pushing on the pedal with a small (12" wheel) bike: when they just push the pedal down, the distance moved with a 12" bike is so small that they don't get as much speed or have as much time to get the other foot on the pedal. So instead of focusing so much on pushing the pedal down to start the bike moving with a small 12" bike, focus more on pushing off the ground as hard as you can.
It's also important to tell the child to use the handlebars to keep their front wheel straight when they first push off the bike, because it will tend to turn right away. So right before my son would push off the ground, I would say "Remember to keep your wheel straight! It's going to be silly and want to turn!".
A few weeks after we started our 5-minute daily biking activity, just after he turned 4, he was able to ride all by himself!
Last tip:
Once they can bike, tell your child that when they want to rest (if their legs are tired, or to prevent their legs from getting tired), they can balance, just like they did on their balance bike (or strider, as we called it), where they're just resting their feet on their pedals without pedaling. I didn't realize this was important until my 4 year old got tired while biking around the block, needing to stop to rest before continuing. He was pedaling quickly the entire time as he thought he would fall otherwise, so I needed to point out that he could balance while biking to rest, then just start pedaling again once he slowed down enough.
Activity length:
Our first few biking sessions were on the order of 5 minutes long as he practiced pedaling and balancing while I was holding him, and then learned how to stop by himself, and then how to start by himself. For each of those stages, we would do 3 laps of our driveway, which would take about 5 minutes or less (though there were days where he would ask to do more laps so we would spend more than the usual 5 minutes on those days).
But as he got more consistent in starting and stopping by himself, the activity got longer because I started biking with him. First we biked together around a small block, and then later bigger blocks, taking advantage of the time I had to focus on just my eldest.
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