Nightshade

This new product will safely teach your child to ride a bike without the hassle of traning wheels. Gosh! I wish they had this when I was a kid!

https://www.thegyrobike.com/

masiman

I saw that while looking at other Interbike postings. I think it is pretty cool idea.

My guess is that it will cost more than most are willing to invest to teach a kid to ride a bike. Especially since almost all kids learn to ride bikes without the expensive gadgets. I still think it is a cool idea though.

prathmann

Just as fast to teach them using the 'hobby-horse' method which doesn't require any extra gadget.

Lower the seat and remove the pedals so the child can push themselves along and practice balancing without fear of falling since they can always just put a foot down. Best to learn in an empty parking lot so they can go in any direction and just concentrate on balancing for longer and longer coasts between putting a foot down. Once they've learned how to balance you can reattach the pedals but still leave the seat low enough so they can easily prevent a fall. Then gradually raise the seat to the proper height as they gain confidence.

Typically takes well under an hour and usually doesn't involve any falling by the child.

avmanansala

My son and a few of the neighborhood kids learned how to get their balance by riding scooters (like the Razor). Inside of a month they were all pretty much riding their bikes without training wheels.

PRus

Find a large parking lot with a slight slope and get the training wheels of and run behind them.
Taught my two kids and their two cousins. Cousins now 23 and 25 have just recently talked about it.
One of those benchmarks in a child's life. Great booster of self confidence. It only happens once. You got to be there!

unterhausen

Once my daughter had been riding with training wheels for a while, it really only took a very short time in a big parking lot before she was riding by herself. She still resents the fact that she didn't realize I had stopped holding her up until she was on one end of the parking lot and I was on the other.
I had a lot more trouble teaching my son, two trips to the parking lot of about an hour each and a couple hours on our street. In fact, sometimes I wonder if my back has ever recovered. He was 9 before he learned. He probably would have benefited from the scooter approach.

wb_dad

Very cool technology. I agree it's probably more than most would spend, but if a bike club or school or other organization (cub scouts, etc.) bought one for use by members, that might work. Probably too expensive to use on a just one kid, particularly if they learn to ride with the thing in a few hours.

I agree with the others that said to pull off the pedals and find a safe area with a slight grade. A grassy hill is even better than a parking lot, in my opinion, as any falls are even less of a problem and the grass tends to slow the ride a bit, too.

I will say, though, that I tried pretty hard for several years to get my kids to learn using some other techniques (running behind breaking your back holding the seat, etc.) before finally finding the sloping hill method online. After all those failed attempts the "old way", I would have paid quite a bit to get them riding sooner.

MindlessDeviant

This is how I learned years and years ago. My dad also set my bike up on training wheels and had a small hole dug under the rear tire at first to get me use to sitting on the bike and pedaling. Once that was comfortable we dropped the seat and it was off to a parking lot for me to have fun scooting along.