Eldest mini-Qtip is 3 1/2. He’s been riding his balance bike for ages and has no problems with his balance at all. I’ve been trying to move him onto his Islabike Cnoc 14 for a while now but don’t seem to be making any progress.

The problem is trying to explain to him how to pedal in circles. He pushes down with his lead foot, but then saws back on the pedals rather than completing the revolution. As such, he never gets up enough momentum for me to let go of the saddle. He doesn’t feel comfortable with the seat higher than the point where he can easily put both feet on the ground, but this seems too low to give him any decent leverage on the pedals.

Any top tips? I’m reluctant to use stabilisers as his balance is so good, but are they worth using just until he gets the hang of pedalling in circles?

He seems to be losing interest in cycling as he finds the balance bike boring unless he’s hooning down a hill, so I’m really keen to get him going on the pedal bike.

Definitely NOT stabilisers, they don’t help (you’ll need to do it all again when you take them off)

Try the CNOC without pedals for a bit, let him get used to the new bike and then introduce the pedals when he wants to.

My eldest was the same, at about the samge age. We would play and show him the movement but we also borrowed the neighbour’s little pedal trike just so he got the feel of pedalling something. It came really quickly when it did.

Pedalling takes a bit to get used to, it’s very common for kids to pedal backwards at first too. Don’t know why, but mine have all done it, as did the neighbor’s kids.

Don’t worry about saddle height, kids are so flexible it doesn’t matter initially, plus being confident is way more important that adult style pedalling efficiency.

As for getting him going, find a nice long stretch of grass and try shoving him off as he sort of pedals, he’ll get it eventually and if he falls off it’s a nice soft landing. Worked for my first 2 and it’s the little ones turn now.

My middle one rode his balance bike until he was 4 and then went straight to a 16″ wheeled bike as he was too tall for the 14″ one.

The eldest got a the balance bike for his 2nd birthday and was riding his 14″ pedal bike by the time he was 3. He’s turned out a bit handy mind

My daughter was a simliar age when she got her first pedal bike.

We had a trike too, it gets them used to pedaling in circles, the balance they have already picked up from the balance bike so they just need to put the two together

Agree with above.

Trike is good for pedals practice.
Don’t use stabilisers.
Also, make sure he’s on somewhere low resistance or downhill ( if on grass) so he has a chance of turning the pedals properly with his little legs.

Saw a couple last year in a campsite desperately trying to encourage their kid to cycle between them. He always started ok, but got half way and then ground to a halt. What they bizarrely failed to realise was they were either side of a shallow grassy dip that he just didn’t have the power the cycle through.

i took the pedals/cranks/chain off my sons first pedal bike and let him use it as a scoot bike for a couple of months. when I put them back on it was only one extra thing to deal with and he picked up the pedalling bit really quick.

crikey bikey worked for us.

Had the very same issue with Minibang, so took him for a lesson at Hadleigh Park.

They popped his bike on a turbo trainer, held the brake lightly to give a little resistance, made him pedal for a minute or two.

Problem solved.

My 4 year old took a little while to progress from his balance bike to his frog 48. We used a trail gator tow bar between him and me which helped him to learn to pedal without any distractions.. it’s also handy for getting longer distances or short road trips to nice places for him to ride on his own..

Jeff

+ 1 for forget the stabilizers, I think that will hold them back.

One day, Daughter begged to have her stabilizers (and pedals, she had been using it as a balance bike) on her Specialized Hotrock (she had been pedaling a bike with stabilizers around Halfords). I couldn’t find where I had put them, so she agreed to try with one pedal at a time (I found a video of this online somewhere), without them.

Within 10 minutes she was pedaling around the tennis courts and has been brilliant since. I’m just glad I couldn’t find the stabilizers because I think it would have held her back.

Maybe 10 minutes demoing bikes at Halfords will be enough to learn pedaling?

I’m not sure I would worry too much, just keep trying occasionally and they will eventually click.

In my extremely limited experience of parenting I have noticed that trying things too soon is a nightmare. When they are ready for it, it will be simple.

Good luck!

Mick

Thanks all. Think I’ll try removing the cranks so he can get used to the bike first. He wants to ride his new bike, but gets frustrated within a couple of minutes and wants to go back to his balance bike (which is fine except that he is getting bored by it and I don’t want him to get bored of bike riding all together). Hopefully the new bike will be enough to recapture his interest even if he’s still scooting at first.

NO need to remove the cranks, just take off the pedals. My boy never had a balance bike, just his Cnoc with pedals removed. Once he’d got the balance bit just put pedals back on and it took a few goes for him to get the pedalling “thing” and he was fine (his issue was pushing forward with the pedals, not down, so his feet kept slipping off and he’d get a pedal in the calf). Don’t sweat too much about him getting pedalling, they all advance at different ages/times. Somebody will have a two yr old pedalling off 12″ drop offs and someone else will have a 5 yr old struggling to get the hang of it. Matters not, he’ll be ready when he’s ready

It seems a bit scary but avoid grass for the first attempts, find a nice big empty car park. Lack of resistance is king. I took this advice from Islabikes so it must be true (and it did work for me).

We had the same problem with one of kids, tag-a-long solved it in one ride. Didn’t have to concentrate on pedaling and balancing at the same time. Loads of places rent them or borrow one

I caved and put stabilisers on, he could pedal fine but always looked down and would either crash into stuff or fall off. He’s told me he will take them off when he is 5, so I will be holding him to that in May.

I also bought him the bike he wanted, which he loves, but weighs more than my bikes put together

We had a ride on pedal tractor, basically to learn to pedal without thinking about balance.

Transition from balance bike to pedal bike (ensuring a slight downhill to start with) was about 10 minutes.

Little legs really need a slight DH & a hard surface (asphalt for us & covered knees/elbows) to make pedaling really easy at first.

Yeah same for my boy. He was adept on a balance bike and could pedal a tractor / trike so the transition to a cnoc didn’t take long at all. We have a fantastic safe flat space outside our house – perfect for learning on. I think grass would make it much harder.

If he’s sawing the pedals, I’d be inclined to leave them on; he’ll probably click and get the hang of pedalling quicker than you think.
I think you’ve identified one of the problems when you say he’s uncomfortable with the saddle height. Put it down initially, so he can get both feet flat on the ground and manage his balance confidently.
There’s a trick to setting up stabilisers correctly. You’ll need a spanner. Carefully loosen the bolts attaching the stabilisers to the bike. Fully unscrew them and carefully disengage the stabilisers. Now pick them up, walk to the bin and drop them inside.

My lad was very confident on his balance bike, and had independently learned pedalling on a ride-on tractor, so aged 4 made the transition pretty easily. He has been riding for about a month now, and this was him at the weekend

In general the question is what is good for road or MTB.
There are pro’s and con’s to both balance bikes and stabilisers but I think in general for MTB it’s different.

Lots of companies that sell balance bikes sell them as “better” rather than “different” but in many way’s they are solving a problem that doesn’t really exist.

The big sell is stabilisers won’t teach them balance or leaning into corners… but they don’t say they teach the kid to sit when they should be standing on the pedals or brake. With road not a big problem but with MTB you see many kids who when faced with a challenging feature for them try to put their feet down and/or sit down.

This seems (based on observation) much harder to overcome than steering… because it is mainly a instinctive reaction to being a bit scared and I’ve seen it persist for years. (My son likes pointing out the balance bike kids at races) It’s like the difference swapping your brakes around… in the car park or messing about it’s all fine then in that “panic” moment that you really need them instinct just takes over.

On the other hand learning to lean the bike is or seems to be more linear… it’s a slight struggle but once its overcome then they don’t regress. Balance and leaning can easily be taught or acquired on a scooter.

So anyway…. you went down once path so where to from there?
I’d worry less about pedalling initially than getting them comfortable standing on the pedals if it’s for singletrack as the consequences of trying to put feet down are unpleasant vs just having to push them up a hill or two.

The pedalling will probably just come by itself … if you just choose somewhere with a flat section at the bottom.

When she kept looking at the pedals, I told her to look where you want to go. The bike knows where you are looking and will go that way. 🙂

Agree with some of the advice above. Both my boys went onto 16″ wheel bikes but with the pedals removed for a few weeks so they got used to the size/balance of it.

Then when the pedals went on, we used a nice gradual grassy slope, pushed them down it until they got the idea. I reckon both buys took no more than 1 1/2 hours to get the pedaling thing.