{"id":105918,"date":"2019-08-23T14:08:50","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T19:08:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=105918"},"modified":"2026-03-13T08:18:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T13:18:45","slug":"how-to-teach-a-kid-to-ride-a-bike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/relationships\/fatherhood\/how-to-teach-a-kid-to-ride-a-bike\/","title":{"rendered":"How to \u201cTeach\u201d a Kid to Ride a Bike (Without Having to Teach Them at All)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Father<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a rite of passage every child goes through: learning how to ride a bike. My son, Gus, learned a few years ago. My daughter, Scout, learned how to ride a two-wheeler six months ago. <\/span><\/p>\n

I thought this was going to be a rite filled with scraped elbows, bruised knees, and a lot of tears. I thought I\u2019d be frustrated trying to explain to my kids how to pedal, balance, and steer a bike. Because that\u2019s how I remember learning how to ride a bike as a kid: me being hurt and my parents being frustrated. <\/span><\/p>\n

But none of that happened with my kids.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead we sort of stumbled into a protocol that turned out to be highly effective and managed to make the process practically pain, anxiety, and parental-intervention free. A method where our kids learned how to ride a bike naturally and on their own.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s broken into three phases in which you introduce a series of multi-wheeled conveyances, that allow your kids to progressively learn new skills, until they\u2019re ready to take off on a real bike.<\/span><\/p>\n

Phase 1: Three-Wheeled Scooter + Tricycle<\/h3>\n

By the time my kids were two or three, they were zipping around on plastic three-wheeled scooters. They\u2019re a safe way for your kids to learn how to balance on and steer a moving object — two skills required for riding a bike. <\/span><\/p>\n

Get your kid on a scooter as soon as you can. They\u2019re pretty dang cheap, which is good, because you\u2019ll likely go through a couple as he hits growth spurts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides the scooters, also get your toddler a tricycle or \u201cBig Wheel\u201d so he learns how to pedal. <\/span><\/p>\n

Phase 2: Balance Bike + Training-Wheeled Bike<\/h3>\n
\"Kid<\/a>

This is a balance bike.<\/p><\/div>\n

Balance bikes did not exist when I learned how to ride a bike, and these things are a game changer when it comes to teaching your kid how to ride the real thing. A balance bike is just a bike without pedals. Your tyke sits astride it with her feet touching the ground, and uses those feet to propel herself. When the bike gets some momentum going, your kiddo lifts her feet for a smooth glide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Befitting their name, balance bikes teach what is probably the most important skill for riding a real bike: <\/span>balance<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Because they lack training wheels, balance bikes allow your kid to take sharper corners, and feel what it\u2019s like to lean to the side when taking a turn, but not fall over. (Something you can\u2019t achieve to the same degree on a bike with training wheels.)<\/span><\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t introduce Gus to the balance bike until he was five because they weren\u2019t yet on our radar. If they had been, I would have introduced it earlier. It was definitely the thing that made bike riding click for him. We introduced the balance bike to Scout when she was three or so. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now you could just go from the balance bike to a regular bike, but the transition is not completely seamless; while a kid who\u2019s been practicing with the former knows how to balance, he hasn\u2019t yet tried his hand (and foot) at pedaling upright and braking.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s effective to have your child use a balance bike <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> a regular bike outfitted with training wheels at the same time (well, not exactly at the same time; that would be a circus-worthy act). Our kids would toggle between the two (and Scout would also return to her scooter and Big Wheel), depending on their whim that day. <\/span><\/p>\n

Phase 3: Two-Wheeled Bike<\/h3>\n

After cutting their teeth on scooters and Big Wheels, and then playing around with balance bikes and training-wheeled bikes, both kids just naturally reached a point where they felt ready to put the former aside and take the safety net off the latter. <\/span><\/p>\n

The transition to riding a regular two-wheeled bike was seamless for both of our kids. I didn\u2019t hold onto the seat or handlebars, run alongside the bike, or really provide much in the way of coaching. Gus and Scout just jumped in the saddle, and started pedaling away on their own. No crashing. No tears.  <\/span><\/p>\n

If all that seems like a lot of little vehicles to buy in order to get a kid riding a bike, keep the following in mind:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Your littlest ones should be out on scooters\/tricycles anyway. What\u2019s a better form of play than being active outside? For that reason, all human-powered vehicles have been some of the few \u201ctoys\u201d we\u2019re willing to spend money on. And again, scooters are pretty cheap.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Spending dough on balance bikes (which aren\u2019t cheap) can seem like a tough nut to swallow, since your kids are quickly going to outgrow their use. However, because of this, lots of people with older children have them lying around unused; we borrowed ours from relatives. There are also likely to be good, high-quality models available on the cheap from Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. <\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Training wheels are also cheap, and also something people often have lying around and are happy to part with. We got ours at a yard sale.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. You\u2019re going to get the two-wheeled bike that the training wheels attach to anyway.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In other words, the only \u201cextra\u201d equipment you need for this process — the stuff you wouldn\u2019t have gotten anyway — is the balance bike or the training wheels (you pretty much need one or the other to teach a kid to ride a bike), and if you ask around you\u2019ll likely find someone willing to lend or give you this equipment.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Your kids will have plenty of reasons to play outside as they have fun on multi-wheeled rides, and will easily take to riding a two-wheeled bike; you\u2019ll need to do little to nothing to get them to that point. It\u2019s a win all around. <\/span><\/p>\n

    If there\u2019s one downside, I almost kind of feel gipped out of a quintessential Dad experience! But I wouldn\u2019t trade this process for a bumpier one.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It\u2019s a rite of passage every child goes through: learning how to ride a bike. My son, Gus, learned a few years ago. My daughter, Scout, learned how to ride a two-wheeler six months ago.  I thought this was going to be a rite filled with scraped elbows, bruised knees, and a lot of tears. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[253,6,42285],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-105918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fatherhood","category-featured","category-relationships"],"featured_image_urls":{"medium_large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Teach-Ride-a-Bike-BLANK-768x429.jpg","large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Teach-Ride-a-Bike-BLANK-538x280.jpg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Teach-Ride-a-Bike-BLANK-372x230.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Teach-Ride-a-Bike-BLANK-320x179.jpg","reactor-640":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Teach-Ride-a-Bike-BLANK-640x357.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105918"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122276,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105918\/revisions\/122276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105918"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=105918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}