Walking the girls to school in the morning, I am often struck by the number of little kids riding bikes. By little, I'm talking three and four-year-olds cruising by on their two wheelers like they've been riding forever. Boulder is a biking town - there are bike trails everywhere and it seems like pretty much everyone is training for a bike race or triathlon. Evie even asked for "biking clothes" for her birthday after seeing so many people riding around in their racing gear. So I assumed that maybe these kids had just inherited their parents' biking skills or else maybe they had spent a lot more time on bikes than most in their three short years.
But then it occured to me that at the park or on the road, I never see tricycles or training wheels. Instead, kids Noni's age learn to ride on "Like-a-Bikes" (or other similar brands), which are basically mini bikes with no pedals. They learn to balance before learning to pedal, and then just learn to pedal on a regular bike. I mentioned my observation to a friend at the park this morning and she offered to give their old one to Noni. I'm looking forward to checking it out because I think it's a great way to teach kids how to ride.
3 comments:
We got our first like-a-bike in Switzerland - they're all over Europe. Ella started riding a regular bike at 4, after just a few months on the like-a-bike. She still uses it sometimes, just to cruise up and down our back sidewalk. ... meg
This worked well for Hugo and I wish we had never used training wheels. I think they just make kids feel unstable and prolong the process of learning....
Kita, did you know that Ronan got a balance bike when he was two? Went straight to a regular two-wheeler, no training wheels (and learned in literally three minutes). Now Bea is whizzing down the sidewalk on the balance bike. I love them!
-Erin
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