True Believer in the Balance Bike

[yoothgeye]

If you've followed my RRBBO6 build thread you might have seen that I took a few minutes off to build a balance bike for my son. It was as simple as removing the crank from an old bike, but I also cut the seat post shorter and bent the rear stays to run 2 front wheels. This is what I came up with:

I gave the bike to my son (he turned 4 in March):

Then I tried it myself:

He really wasn't sure what to do with it since he had a perfectly good bike with a set of training wheels, but I encouraged him to walk around the yard with it. He hadn't been on it for but a few minutes when he realized that if he pushed off and lifted his legs he wouldn't have to put forth the effort to walk... he was balancing and didn't even know it.

We've had the balance bike at the house for a couple weeks now and he'd get on it every once in a while, but we've been really busy. This weekend we went camping, so there was more free time. I packed the kids bikes and threw the balance bike on the trailer too. We got to the campground and I unloaded his bike with training wheels and he tried riding it around on the dirt roads, but the training wheels would high center him in ruts and really hindered his riding.

Our site was right on the lake, so when the kids started swimming Saturday I brought the balance bike over and showed them they could ride it down into the water. My son got on and coasted about 30 feet into the water without putting his feet down, over and over. So after a while I asked him to come up to the trailer, I removed his training wheels, he got on his bike, I gave him a little push and watched as he rode away yelling "I'm riding with no training wheels!" He rode all over the campsite without me having to chase behind him bent over holding onto his saddle the way I did with his older sister last Summer (back breaking).

So my daughter learned the hard way last Summer when she had just turned 7, my son just learned the easy way at 4, so with this balance bike my plan is to have our youngest riding before she turns 3, and with a balance bike, I have faith it will happen.

So, I'm a true believer in a balance bike, whether you buy one or make one, it's a good investment.

 

[user 135]

Great story. That is how my son learned to ride.

 

[CCR]

learning to ride on a jalopy girls bike !!! how embarrassing !!! :mrgreen:

just kidding man, doesnt look like he cares too much either and an Awesome story, Im all for the back saving parts of it as well, been pushing around a handful of ride on toys for the past year and i could use a break from that :mrgreen:

 

[yoothgeye]

learning to ride on a jalopy girls bike !!! how embarrassing !!! :mrgreen:

Haha, the bars and added front wheel came off a little 10.5" chrome boys bike, I thought about using it, but I liked being able to really slam the seat for short legs on the girl's bike. I might give it a ghetto spray job just to even it up.

 

[CCR]

i think i may need to strike that "embarrassing" comment from the records, i think my fondest memories are from abusing girls bikes as a kid and i never felt embarrassed :lol:

grandmas bike had a basket, which meant you had to fill it full of he-man toys before you ramped it through the ditch ... good times

 

[yoothgeye]

i think i may need to strike that "embarrassing" comment from the records, i think my fondest memories are from abusing girls bikes as a kid and i never felt embarrassed :lol:

grandmas bike had a basket, which meant you had to fill it full of he-man toys before you ramped it through the ditch ... good times

Thinking back, if I could pedal it, I would ride it, didn't care about what it was. There use to be a place back in the woods where there was this deep crater or something, we all called it Disco Ditch, you would drop in on one side straight down and jump out the other side. Probably 10 feet deep at least with vertical walls, smooth in bottom, this was before any of us had ever seen a half pipe ramp. We use to use our BMX bikes in it, but spending the night with a friend, we got up to hit Disco Ditch one morning and I didn't have my bike, rode his sister's 10 speed through the ditch! haha

Kids haven't changed either. I have a pile of working bikes (mostly girls) at the house and the neighborhood kids will come over and get off of their gender specific bikes just to ride my beaters around the yard.

 

[aka_locojoe]

I agree. That's basically what I did with the Grandkids. I put them on a small grassy hill and let them just practice balancing coasting down. I suppose training wheels might aide in a kid learning the pedaling aspect of riding but I'd remove the training wheels asap.

 

[yoothgeye]

I agree. That's basically what I did with the Grandkids. I put them on a small grassy hill and let them just practice balancing coasting down. I suppose training wheels might aide in a kid learning the pedaling aspect of riding but I'd remove the training wheels asap.

My son learned all his pedalling and steering from his big tricycle, but no bad habits of leaning on the training wheels.

 

[aka_locojoe]

I agree. That's basically what I did with the Grandkids. I put them on a small grassy hill and let them just practice balancing coasting down. I suppose training wheels might aide in a kid learning the pedaling aspect of riding but I'd remove the training wheels asap.

My son learned all his pedalling and steering from his big tricycle, but no bad habits of leaning on the training wheels.

True.

I've always had a saying around here with the kids that "training wheels are evil".

 

[yoothgeye]

I've always had a saying around here with the kids that "training wheels are evil".

Agreed. My son fell more because of the training wheels than he has fallen without them. False sense of security and bad physics.

 

[Whitfield]

That is one of the best builds I've seen ~ You built more then just a bike you made a tool to teach the world.

Loose the decals (Acetone) and desert camo the fork and it is good to go...

But your next up is a girl so might better leave it be.

 

[yoothgeye]

That is one of the best builds I've seen ~ You built more then just a bike you made a tool to teach the world.

Loose the decals (Acetone) and desert camo the fork and it is good to go...

But your next up is a girl so might better leave it be.

Yeah, I don't want to make it too fancy since I don't want to make it a bike they want to stay on too long.