Any tips of things to try to make the learning / relearning as fun and as pain free as possible (he’s generally quite fearful of hurting himself)

He’s just got a decathlon rockrider 520 small adult as he’s very tall for his age however it’s 3 years since he last rode a bike which had stabilisers.

Grass going down a slight hill.

Go for it.

Bribery and blackmail should work for you.

Isn’t the standard answer to remove the pedals/chainset? Or is he past that stage?

How tall is he ? He must be bloomin tall if he’s fitting an adult bike !

My son is very tall for a 7yr old and I wouldn’t put him anywhere near an adult bike.

To be honest if it is big you are going to struggle to get him to ride and enjoy it.

He’s over 5 foot (size of a 12-13 year old). The XS adult or kids bikes don’t leave him any growth room so pretty certain we’ve got the right size for him.

Will see how he gets on on a small grassy hill and decide if we need to take the pedals / chainset off or not.

Take the pedals off, teach him to scoot around. When he is comfortable lifting his feet up for long glides reintroduce pedals, teach him how to set off and stop. Job done

Haribo

I followed the Isla rowntree YouTube video with my 7 year old – worked really well, though the final breakthrough was on grass, going slightly downhill!

The Islabike video is very good. The main mistake I see is parents holding on to the bike rather than the rider when helping with stability, which just confuses the rider.

Get them balance biking it first, then try pedalling.