Viewing 28 posts - 1 through 28 (of 28 total)
  • Proud dad moment….or how I now rate balance bikes.
  • rockhopper70
    Full Member

    So chuffed today. Rock Jnr went to the park this weekend with his pedal bike after using a balance bike since 3. Couldn’t believe that he nailed it straight away and rode around. 4yrs 4months and away. Thinking he might be coming to Morzine with me next year…. 😛

    anotherstan
    Free Member

    congrats. balance bike worked a treat for my daughter also. little bit older than rock jnr tho, so well done to the little fella.

    juan
    Free Member

    Well I was quite chuff that juan’s SO’s wee one manage to get on the bike after a few month (before I shag his mum he only rode 3 time his spider bike). Made a balance bike from the spider bike, bought him something decent a decathlon balance bar and after a couple of time of he went 😀
    Now he actually like riding his bike, specially to the café down the street and he actually enjoyed coming back by night as well. It’s just a pity I can’t let him ride around in the garden 😀

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    swiss
    Free Member

    i had a proud moment today when my 2 year old used his balance bike on his own

    crotchrocket
    Free Member

    proud dad moment: left my kid at Greensands bike park for the afternoon with a couple of his pals. I returned to find out he can now clear the tabletops. nice.
    Not bad for a 12yo – only problem is I now ‘have’ to learn how to do it or he’s gonna rub my nose in it every time I swing my leg over a bike :/

    chriswilk
    Free Member

    First offroad for my youngest this weekend. Balance bike at Glentress – Buzzards nest to skills area and a bit of playing round there. Not bad for two and a half!

    Tenuous
    Free Member

    They’re great. My 3 year old was whizzing around Swinley on his today, wanted to join in the race up at Surrey Hill :p

    jonny-m
    Free Member

    same here my lads been on a balance one since his 2nd birthday and now hes 3 he’s pedalling away on a 12″ bike like a little nutter. even negotiating his first drop off today allbeit a kerb!

    mefster
    Free Member

    Great to hear your little on has cracked it, Rockhopper. Our eldest is 3 next month. He’s had a balance bike since before his 2nd birthday (it was way too big then). He’s still not cracked it; he tends to stand up and shuffle on his feet rather than sitting and scooting. He’s got a 3 wheel scooter (2 front wheels: lean and steer) which he’s really clicked with this past few weeks. Scooting around at quite a pace.

    Mrs M thinks we should get a pedal bike with stabilisers as she feels he’s missing out on a usable bike with his balance bike. I do feel he is missing out a bit but am really keen for him to get to grips with his balance bike.

    Any tips for coaching him? Grass or tarmac? high or low saddle? pushing him holding the bars saddle? Feel I really need to crack it but don’t want to be a pushy Dad!

    Surf-Mat
    Free Member

    Got one for our 2 year old. He loves it!

    juan
    Free Member

    Any tips for coaching him? Grass or tarmac? high or low saddle? pushing him holding the bars saddle? Feel I really need to crack it but don’t want to be a pushy Dad!

    Well not grass and not tarmac. Not gravel either. You need to find some hard soil, like forest footpath or similar. If you can’t then second best is tarmac (altough falling hurts).
    What bike is it? If it’s a decathlon you can buy balance bars to put instead of stabilisers. The problem with kids bike is they all oversteer. And a lot. Which mean that Jr will kiss the ground a lot at the beginning because they are a bit wobbly and the bike doesn’t forgive it enough. What you could try ot do is fit a widder hb…

    EDIT it’s probably shit english or gibberish. I’ll correct it tomorrow it’s bed time here…

    richcc
    Free Member

    Mefster – what balance bike did you get. Saw one in Halfords last week which is huge – can’t work out what age it is pitched at. My little lad started on a Rothan and is doing well. We just ride on local pavements – he has a few crashes but usually dusts himself off and gets on again. Would like to get him a cnoc next and see if he can get pedalling without stabilisers.

    MoreCashThanDash
    Full Member

    Babyswadey has cracked it this week on a Rothan we borrowed off a friend – she finally mastered the scooting action and the balance bit just came naturally once she got some speed up. We’d borrowed a cheap Halfords balance bike for swadeyjnr and got to say that the Rothan is light years ahead in terms of design and quality – we got what my mate paid for!

    She is adamant that she is not riding a bike with pedals until the day before her 4th birthday! Which is a bit of a nuisance, as she doesn’t know that on 19th December she will be having her first ride in a plane to go and see the Real Father Christmas in Lapland!

    aracer
    Free Member

    Our eldest is 3 next month. He’s had a balance bike since before his 2nd birthday (it was way too big then). He’s still not cracked it; he tends to stand up and shuffle on his feet rather than sitting and scooting. He’s got a 3 wheel scooter (2 front wheels: lean and steer) which he’s really clicked with this past few weeks. Scooting around at quite a pace.

    Mrs M thinks we should get a pedal bike with stabilisers as she feels he’s missing out on a usable bike with his balance bike. I do feel he is missing out a bit but am really keen for him to get to grips with his balance bike.
    I reckon you have to just let them get on with it and work it out themselves – it will come. Just make sure he has lots of opportunity to practice. You’re going the right way with the scooter – mini-aracer was borrowing one of those to have a go on before he was 2 and got one for Xmas a month before his 2nd birthday, and got going well on that long before he sussed the balance bike – it did wonders for his balance.

    As for surface, mini-aracer learnt on the block paving outside the front of our house (it’s a big area shared between 11 houses where the kids all play). He’s fallen over and hurt himself a few times using various forms of transport – cries a bit, but it’s never serious. Saddle height so he can just get both feet flat on the floor – allows him to scoot, but encourages him to use the saddle (I’m assuming you’d call that high).

    At only just 3 I wouldn’t get too stressed about a bike with pedals just yet. It’s not like he’s really missing out compared to other kids. Maybe when he’s 3.5 next spring – if he’s riding the scooter now, he’ll probably have sussed the balance bike by then.

    rockhopper70
    Full Member

    I don’t there is any hard and fast rule for coaching. Rock Jnr had a ridgeback scoot. Everyone seems mad keen on the Islabike rothan but the scoot was soooooo light and strong had could handle it well on the lawn and no real problems if he dropped it.
    He got to the point that he could push off, lift his feet and balance and steer until he came to a stop.
    The pedaling was done on an empty tennis court. I tried teaching on grass with the girls but it was too hard going to pedal so a bit disilluioning for them. Hard pack forest track sounds the ideal compromise but finding an open space would prove tricky.
    Just watching vids taken today and still so chuffed for him.

    igm
    Full Member

    Any tips for coaching him?

    Relax and let it happen. Some of them ride at 3 some at 6. They get it in their own time.

    And don’t think progress will be linear or even always forward. Our wee boy James did a full kilometre at 3 years 4 months, but fell off a couple of weeks later and it’s taken him the best part of a year to get back to the same level.

    Final thought – the lad next door who is about 3 years older has always been better at teaching James to ride than we are – even though he couldn’t ride until he was just turned 6. Something to aim at that is only a little better than you are now can be a real help.

    aracer
    Free Member

    Final thought – the lad next door who is about 3 years older has always been better at teaching James to ride than we are

    On that thought, I should point out that it was actually the mum next door who first got mini-aracer riding a bike with pedals and no stabilisers (whilst I did some maintenance on her bike so she could go out riding with her daughter). He was much happier to listen to her and do what she said than he is with me (I reckon he gets that from his mum 🙄 ) This was at the point where I’d removed the stabilisers and was refusing to let him have them back as he was riding so fast with them that he kept falling off going round corners – I was sure he could ride without them when he decided to, given he was so good on the balance bike.

    6 weeks later http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/anybody-want-to-see-a-3-year-old-riding-off-road 8)

    Tenuous
    Free Member

    Mine struggled initially to get any real scooting going, but I raised the saddle up a bit so that he had to stretch a little to get it going and he then naturally lifted his feet and scooted when he got some speed up.

    igm
    Full Member

    aracer – where was that track in the video? I think that or something similar might benefit our little boy who is mad about skills areas, bombholes and 4X tracks when he’s out on my bike. (Mainly Dalby and Les Gets since you ask). I think something similar that he could ride would be good for him – but I can’t think of any like the one you shot in this area.

    anotherstan
    Free Member

    Any tips for coaching him?

    not really tips, but this is what i did.
    bought a spesh hotrock 12″ with stabalisers. little’un was flying with the stabalisers on, but was way too scared to try any forward movement at all without. even with me holding the seat/ or using the old broom handle technique. i think stabalisers hinder progress as they don’t allow any ‘leaning’ everything is upright, especially cornering. so i removed the crank set and bb, hey presto, balance bike. within a week she was scooting round with her feet up and managing to turn/ lean the bike no problems. i also think that this helped with her understanding of brake use as she was getting up quite some speed.
    so, put the bb and crankset back in. our driveway/ shared courtyard has a slight slope from the entrance back toward the house. only about 30m long, but this is where she mastered the art of ‘proper’ cycling. a slight slope helps them to set off, which is probably the hardest bit.
    nowadays she’s riding a mile each way on the tpt to the pub with daddy on a saturday evening, and for the last few weeks we’ve rode the 2.5m home from school along bridleways/ tpt on a friday evening.
    that’s what worked for us anyway. hth.

    chriswilk
    Free Member

    best thing I did was to lower the saddle, much lower than you think.
    I set it up so she had flat feet on the floor with slightly bent knees when sitting on the saddle.

    This is on a Rothan, but just ‘cos I got it cheap second hand.
    I’d reccommend one with a steering limiter as there has been a few times she’s looked behind her and hit the limiter.

    Best surface I’ve found to start on is very slightly downhill tarmac.

    yossarian
    Free Member

    my eldest had a rothan from age 2. It took him a while to get the hang of it but once he did he was OFF. We got him the cnoc 14 on his third birthday and he learnt to ride it properly by 3 and a half. His little bro now has the rothan and has picked it up really quick. He’s not as tall as his brother and I think he’s going to have a frustrating wait to grow big enough for another cnoc 14.

    Aren’t islabikes great? 🙂

    EDIT: my two have been taking their bikes offroad for a while now – lots of woodland single and double track nearby and seem to love it. Theres also a skatepark nearby and they’ve had a little go on some of the small stuff (with limited success and highly amusing results)

    aracer
    Free Member

    aracer – where was that track in the video?

    Down the far end of this field http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=rushwick&sll=52.188076,-2.266574&sspn=0.009485,0.019248&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Rushwick,+Worcester,+Hereford+and+Worcester,+United+Kingdom&t=h&layer=c&cbll=52.179136,-2.258599&panoid=eydT3yPEUGZxEPAoI6XT3g&cbp=11,42.2,,2,-1.8&ll=52.179136,-2.258602&spn=0.002145,0.009624&z=17
    (it’s so new that it’s not on any overhead images I can find – and I don’t think that bit of track is even on this SV image!)

    Looks like it’s just a little thing which the local kids have carved out.

    Strange – they appear to have built some of the playground there whilst the SV van was driving down the lane!
    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=rushwick&sll=52.188076,-2.266574&sspn=0.009485,0.019248&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Rushwick,+Worcester,+Hereford+and+Worcester,+United+Kingdom&t=h&layer=c&cbll=52.179367,-2.258799&panoid=osnm8kcEYEtCdt1o4ZzkPQ&cbp=11,47.87,,0,2.66&ll=52.179366,-2.258795&spn=0.002145,0.009624&z=17

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=rushwick&sll=52.188076,-2.266574&sspn=0.009485,0.019248&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Rushwick,+Worcester,+Hereford+and+Worcester,+United+Kingdom&t=h&layer=c&cbll=52.179757,-2.259235&panoid=2pMy4MsBL5nS52pboFAIrw&cbp=11,74.66,,0,1.36&ll=52.179754,-2.259235&spn=0.002145,0.009624&z=17

    Harry_the_Spider
    Full Member

    Any tips for coaching him?

    Somewhere quiet and flat with a smooth surface for my lad. The sea front at Spittal was where it really clicked.

    http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/proud-dad-moment-islabikes-content

    Now he’ll have a go at almost anything…

    …apart from long grassy climbs (the git).

    Surf-Mat
    Free Member

    Aren’t islabikes great?

    Yep! 😀

    Loving these pics – really inspiring!

    crotchrocket
    Free Member

    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8B-z425XDQ[/video]

    NB: this is self taught, any tips greatly appreciated – I haven’t a clue how he does it with half the speed it takes me :/

    mefster
    Free Member

    Thanks for all the advice guys. Sorry for the hijack rockhopper!

    Little Mefster has an Islabikes Rothan, so hopefully that will give him the best start. I’ll re-check the saddle height so his feet are flat on the ground and just stick with it. I just need to get him to sit down and scoot rather than ‘waddle’ with it between his legs: that’s when the bike ends up falling over and he gets frustrated.

    I’ve shown Mrs M the thread (especially the photo of Harry_the_spider Jr- great shot!) I think she still thinks I’m being mean not buying him a ‘proper’ bike but I think I’ve won a stay of execution!

    takisawa2
    Full Member

    My two on the Islabikes test track. Was there to try the eldest on a Beinn. The youngest has his eyes on his brothers Cnoc.

    [video]http://www.vimeo.com/15807249[/video]

Viewing 28 posts - 1 through 28 (of 28 total)

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