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Afternoon all,
Just looking for some advice on how to teach our Grandson to ride a bike,
Basically he's 8, suffers from austism and has never had the available space to be able to learn.
He's now mixing with other kids who can ride and wants to learn, which I suppose is a start.
We bought a tag-a-long at the weekend to he can get the hang of peddling and the sensation of speed, and he has a bike which in his fathers wisdom has had the stabilisers removed,
I'm guessing a good start would be to replace the stabilisers and go from there..... but has anyone any other advice for older kids?
balance bike - remove the pedals from a normal bike and learn the balance bit on slightly downhill flat bits
Pedalling requires not much skil tbh but blance is hard to learn. Stabilisers just teach you to not balance IMHO
he will learn pedalling from tag a long
there are quite a lot of adapted cycles for people with disabilities if he does not get into 2 wheels.
get a frame the 'right size' for him remove the cranks and front chainring and let him learn to 'scoot' the bike around, this will teach him how to balance the bike when going down slopes etc. Once he has done this put the cranks etc back on and the transition to full riding is usually pretty quick, hope this helps.
Some good advice I had at Islabikes was to hold them under the armpits, so thay can feel themselves falling & counterbalance. I would imagine this could be quite difficult with an 8yr old because of their physical size & weight. Stabilisers are the work of the devil, but I'm lucky to have gone down the balance bike route.
I would follow this route & build him a balance bike, albeit a big one. Size him for a simple bike, no suspension & some smooth tyres. Then remove the cranks, chain & pedals, gears. Let him get the hang of scooting along & he should eventually be lifting his feet as his balance is learnt. Then introduce a chain & singlespeed it until he's ready for gears.
damn must type faster, but advice is the same so it must be good 🙂
Thanks, I'd previously removed the pedals but convinced myself it was a bad idea. Think I'll take them back off and see how he goes, I even put him on an exercise bike to show him what to do! Worked suprisingly well...
Like the idea of a slope as there is a perfect one near us, I guess it's just a case of being patient with him.
+1 for everything above.
Another tip - my eldest daughter just learnt the basics. She found riding up the gentle slope better. I suppose that having something to push against made it easier to balance?
[hijack] Paul, did you get my email? [/hijack]
Sorry for disturbing!