Teach Your Child to Ride a Bike Without Training Wheels
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more details, please see our disclosure policy.
This is a tried and true method for teaching a child to ride a bike — without expensive equipment, hair loss, or tears.
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I'll send you time- and money-saving tips every week!
We’ve had SIX children learn to ride a bike without training wheels. Our firstborn, of course, was our guinea pig. And as with many things, he was treated to the traditional approach.
In this case, we took off the training wheels and ran along beside, etc. It took about a week, in part because he was mad that we took off the training wheels. It was definitely a push-me, pull-me experience.
With our second son, we heard about this other method. And wow. It’s amazing.
Take off the training wheels AND the pedals.
I read about it in a magazine and told FishPapa about it. Hmmm…. let’s see.
The theory is that without pedals the kid learns to balance. He’s not so focused on pedaling to distract him from balancing. Learn the balance and then the pedaling part will be easy.
This has been amazing with the five kids we’ve used it on. A few runs down the driveway balancing and the kid is ready to get the pedals back on. Each kid has been off and riding in less than an hour.
This is a practically pain-free way of learning to ride a bike without training wheels.
This is exactly how we just taught my son, it really is the best way. He learned to balance in our back yard and once he had that he started pedaling and he had it instantly!
I think this is a great idea. Thank you for sharing it. I am going to tey it in the spring with my daughter who is very fearful of her two wheeler at 6. Thank you for the idea.
I wonder if this works with girls. I bought a $5 bike at a garage sale and it had no training wheels. I was hoping to find some that would work but had no luck. So now I have a 7 year old daughter and a bike and she’s too afraid to ride it. We will try this and see if it works on a girl. Boys are daring by nature and will attempt something like this but I don’t know if my shy littl girl will be so bold.
I think that really depends on the kid. Let us know how it goes!
Kara, I learned to ride as an adult and this was the method that the teacher used. The trick is to get the seat low enough so that her feet are flat on the ground to begin with. This gives her the confidence that if she feels like she is about to fall, she can put her feet down. As she feels more comfortable, you can raise the seat.
My second child (6yo) taught my third child (5yo) how to ride a bike without training wheels a few months back. He just had his brother get on HIS bike (the one without training wheels) and he held on and taught him–on our back patio–within 1-2 hours. Chances are pretty good that he’ll teach his other younger siblings, too! But if that doesn’t work, then we’ll try your method.
It was pretty amazing to walk outside and see what they were doing together!
That’s awesome. Good for big brother!
For crying out loud! I’m a PT and had not put this together. I struggled as a kid trying to learn to ride without training wheels. My oldest will be 5 yo soon and we’ll definitely try this. It makes so much sense from a motor learning stand point. Very nice timing on this post btw.
Yeah! I’m so glad “a pro” was able to chime in. Even if it was news to you… 😉