Originally Posted by
smashndash
The physics and intuition behind staying upright and turning are identical between a scooter and bicycle. You cannot refute this. The positions are different, but less so if you stand on the bicycle, which I would argue is an essential skill to biking.
The main reason why I suggested the scooter, though, was because the OP stated that the bike wasn’t his. A scooter would be a relatively cheap investment if he wanted to try practicing his skills on his own time. A scooter is lower maintenance and is easier to bail out on. I’m not going to pretend that there is a direct transition from a scooter to a bike, but if you can’t see the extremely obvious similarities between the handling of a scooter and a bike, I can’t really help with that.
Because of the higher center of gravity, the bike is actually easier to balance. If you push a bike without a rider, the bike actually balances itself as long as it's going fast enough. I don't believe you can do that with a scooter. As a kid, I was proficient on a bike long before I became so on a scooter. There's a reason balance bikes are bike shaped. You're just adding a level of complexity and an unnecessary piece of equipment to the process of learning.
There's a superficial similarity, but what you have to do to propel and balance a scooter are most definitely not the same things you do on a bike. Bikes are much easier to balance.