The Secret to Teaching Your Kid to Ride a Bike? Remove the Pedals.

Sequence of images of a child learning to ride a pink bicycle without pedals outdoors.

When you effortlessly excavate an old skill from your memory bank, you might exclaim, “It’s just like riding a bike!” But do you remember how you learned to ride a bike in the first place? If you were born before the year, say, 2000, you likely have memories of wobbling on a heavy bike with rickety training wheels.

You may also remember a terrifying moment when, post-training wheels, your parent let go of your bike seat for the first time. Suddenly, your body and brain were forced to rapidly synthesize the disparate skills of balancing, pedaling, and steering.

Now, experts largely agree there’s a better way to learn. The balance bike method has become popular in the US in recent years and is poised to be a multibillion dollar market in the next decade. It’s proven to be intuitive, empowering, and accessible for most kids.



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