Learning to pedal a bike

yellow hen

My son has issues with balance and coordination and has never really shown much interest in pedalling a bike and I have never pushed it. He's 4 and 3months now and i bought him a second hand bike with a push handle just to get him used to the idea of pedalling. So far he's loving his bike and can pedal backwards but his body just can't coordinate itself to pedal forwards. A few friends have told me that all their kids pedalled backwards for a while and forwards just came naturally after that. Does anyone have any tips of how to help him? I don't want to make too big an issue of it and completely turn him off the idea.

Yourmama

Hey, if he cant keep balance yet, it's too early for pedal bike. What I did was I took off pedals and lowered saddle to make comfy balance bike out of it. Let the kid play with it until you see he can keep balance over couple of meters. Put the pedals back on then and he will know he needs to pedal forwards since he had to push forward to move on balance bike. 15 minutes after installing pedals you will have cycling kid. The most difficult part is the balance and this will take couple of days.

uck51js9zml2yt

Mine was 5 before he took​ to his bike. I pushed him along with him cycling and then eventually let go without him knowing.
Next job was to learn to start off himself.
He couldn't get his balance before then.

I did it in a pedestrian area in the phoenix park.

Big Bag of Chips

Mine were late cyclers. All 7 and 8. It took one of them in particular months to get it. I mean MONTHS! I used to bring him out to a park with a long straight path for over an hour ever week and it took months for it to click with him. Once it did he was flying.

He will get there. But it might take longer than you think.

A balance bike (or his own bike with no pedals!) might help him to just get used to the sensation of moving and balancing without his feet on the ground.

shesty

I am so glad to see this....although my daughter is considerably younger (well, 3) she can pedal a trike backwards and that's it.She has a balance bike but doesn't really know what to do with it-like she doesn't get she has to sit on the saddle and push with her legs.She was never one for pushing herself along on little trucks or anything so it's not surprising, but I am glad to see that you have to work at it with them. she is strong and a great runner/climber/jumper otherwise. It's trying not to make a huge deal out of it is my problem too!!I suppose I thought it would just come naturally to them

yellow hen

Yourmama wrote: »

Hey, if he cant keep balance yet, it's too early for pedal bike.

Do you really think so? He had a balance bike and refused to go near it- I think it challanged his balance too much and that's why he refused. Where a child is on stabilisers is there that much balance required? I've tried to put the bike up on blocks and want my husband to take the chain off so there's no resistance so all he has to concentrate is getting his legs to move if that makes sense?:o Has anyone tried that?

Fyi, he has a scooter and loves it and his balance has vastly improved by using it. He still can't balance on one leg though

bp

We started with a smart tryke whereby she had her feet on the pedals while we pushed. Our two are the same age and while she is fine with stabilisers we wouldn't dream of taking them off yet - very fearful or any slope or road

Toots

yellow hen wrote: »

My son has issues with balance and coordination and has never really shown much interest in pedalling a bike and I have never pushed it. He's 4 and 3months now and i bought him a second hand bike with a push handle just to get him used to the idea of pedalling. So far he's loving his bike and can pedal backwards but his body just can't coordinate itself to pedal forwards. A few friends have told me that all their kids pedalled backwards for a while and forwards just came naturally after that. Does anyone have any tips of how to help him? I don't want to make too big an issue of it and completely turn him off the idea.

Just keep at it and you'll probably find that he'll start to do it naturally himself. When I bought my son his first bike, the guy in Halfords basically said to me even if he's able to pedal his trike, he'll take a while to learn on the bike and that the backwards pedalling is something every kid does, so not to worry. I had the push handle too, and sometimes if I was out and my husband or one of my parents were with me, they'd help move his little feet in the right direction for a minute, just so he'd see. Eventually he just started doing it himself. He'll fly along on flat surfaces, but still needs to build up the strength for going up hills.

beauf

One of ours was very late learning to cycle. Found a park with a slope and just keep going back to it. The younger ones had balance bikes.

seamus

Yeah, the backwards pedalling thing is very normal. It's the direction with no resistance. My daughter used to do it and then get really frustrated that the bike wouldn't move. What worked for her was taking the pressure away - so pushing the bike for her, meaning that she could pedal forwards with no resistance. Still took her a couple of weeks to get it right, and then a couple of days to get used to actually using the pedals to push the bike.

At 4.5 she doesn't really use the bike a lot - when the kids on the road are playing they're constantly on and off the bikes, so by the time we get it out of the shed they've moved onto some other game. And our road is on a slant, so there's a lot screaming and complaining about having to go uphill, so she gets annoyed quickly.
We'll get her using it more again this Summer in parks and such, and she's gotten stronger herself so hills are starting to present less of a problem.