The “Mark III” my sons first bike build

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My 3 year old son shreds his little stacyC electric bike like a pro. He’s been riding since he was two. But it’s made him bicycle lazy😂 “Why learn to pedal a bicycle when I can twist a throttle?” I know from riding that a solid bicycle foundation makes you a much better motorcycle rider. Time to take a step back! Like his sister, he’s grown up in the garage, so I figured a project all his own would give him some added incentive to learn how to ride a bicycle. Once again we started with these great little frame and forks from streetlowrider.com.
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next we stripped another donor bike (these little purple ones are a dime a dozen around here)
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Used an old face mask to reupholster the donor banana seat.
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Got some wheels off eBay and sprayed some old tires to create whitewalls and slapped it together to see how it looked and felt.
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the idea was to have him use it as a strider before putting the crank and pedals on, but even with the seat mounted directly to the seat tube it was still a bit too tall. Luckily, I found a set of ten inch wheels to serve in the meantime.
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When deciding on a paint colour, we decided that the bike paint looked a little like his favorite superhero so I went spray crazy.
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Not great work but I 10-4 ew they would be temporary anyway. Next came bars
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then we test fit it and and made some adjustments. He was completely blown away when we assembled it.
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We called it the Mark 3 as an homage to the IronMan suit evolution and his age. I think for his 4th birthday I’ll gild the forks and it’ll become the Mark 4 😎 He was helping through every step of the process and learned a lot about patience, expectation, care and effort. We really enjoy our time together and this will be the first of many I’m sure. I realized along the way that If he wants to be IronMan, He must first become Tony Stark.
 
Yeah man the striders are a great learning tool. My little guy has run a few heats down at the BMX track on his, they're so good for building the love of rolling on two wheels. Even though he's moved on to pedals, he still drags out the strider for stunts and shredding curbs and stuff. He actually rides off a small ramp on it, which to me seems incredibly painful as without pedals, he has to be sitting to do it.
 
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