Taking the stabilisers off - tips?

Teuchter

My partner's youngest (almost 5 yrs old) is looking about ready for losing his stabilisers. I've already raised them up as high as they'll go a month ago and now he's rattling along with both stabilisers off the ground for much of the time so we figured he's ready.

Next weekend we're taking him to a closed off section of disused road nearby. No traffic and loads of space to wobble around (we used the same area to teach the older ones road and junction skills).

I figure the main thing to work on is getting him into the habit of puting his feet down when he stops and getting him to make a nice positive move off.

Never done this before (wasn't on the scene when the other two did it) so any tips?

bryanm

Stick him in the middle of a big empty grassy park with short dry (ha! ha!) grass. That way he can wobble round in all directions whilst he gets the idea without coming to any harm. If he does fall off the grass will make a softer landing.

garon

If you take the pedals off as well as the stabilisers he can scoot around touching the ground. Then he's worked out how to balance and you can put the pedals back on. (Even better just to start off like this and skip stabilisers altogether!)

Fab Foodie

garon wrote:

If you take the pedals off as well as the stabilisers he can scoot around touching the ground. Then he's worked out how to balance and you can put the pedals back on. (Even better just to start off like this and skip stabilisers altogether!)

Seconded, this is the way to get young 'uns cycling at a young age.
No pedals and let'em scoot.
After a while, stick the pedals on. The kid has learnt to balance by now so just has to get the hanh of pedaling.
Stabalisers just extend the learning period.

Teuchter

garon wrote:

If you take the pedals off as well as the stabilisers he can scoot around touching the ground. Then he's worked out how to balance and you can put the pedals back on. (Even better just to start off like this and skip stabilisers altogether!)

That is a cool idea!

Mike Healey

Teuchter wrote:

garon wrote:

If you take the pedals off as well as the stabilisers he can scoot around touching the ground. Then he's worked out how to balance and you can put the pedals back on. (Even better just to start off like this and skip stabilisers altogether!)

Can confirm that this works every time. The shortest period at our club was 5 minutes - for a three year old. Once he'd shown that he could then ride with his re-attached pedals, his parents put him and his bike into their car and we never saw them again.

That is a cool idea!

mountaincarrot

Hi.

Sorry to say this, - it's too late for you now of course, but for anyone new reading this, just don't put the stabilizers on in the first place. In fact I think they are so bad they should be called de-stabilizers!

My daughter is 4, and the only kids we see who ever fall off their bikes are the ones with those horrible little wheels (even while they are still fitted).

You need to completely re-learn the method of steering a bike after removing stabilizers. A bike with stabilizers is steered like a car. - Turn right by steering right. A bike without stabilizers is ridden completely differently. - To turn right you momentarily steer left (yes- try it and think about it). This makes the bike lean right, and then the natural stability of the steering self-steers the front wheel in the turn direction.

So kids who learn with stabilizers just can't easily re-learn. Stabilizers are so daft and pointless, and make them fall off. Get them a scooter bike without pedals when they are little, and you'll never look back.

My 4 year old daughter learnt to ride her real pedal bike (with pedals) in about 1 minute flat when we first put her on it (She's been scooting like a mad thing on a wooden bike for the last 2 years).

Teuchter

Thanks for all the tips. Stabilisers and pedals will be coming off tomorrow! I'll post here how we got on after the weekend.

Good point about steering! Pushing the bars away from the direction you want to lean/turn (countersteering) is a key skill that I take for granted being a motorcyclist but a couple of years ago we went quad biking with work. It was a nightmare - everyone expected me to be good at it being a biker but I was terrible! I just couldn't get to grips with having to steer the handlebars to turn corners and with the thing not leaning into turns!

Teuchter

Success!

5 minutes without the pedals then I put them back on and that was that. Another 20 minutes to get him moving off properly and he was away! Couldn't believe it was so easy!

Thanks for the tips.

Skid Solo

Just tried the no pedals with my 4 yr old, 20 minutes later put pedals back on and she just pedalled off, had to run to catch her. Brilliant solution. Thanks

HJ1976

Cool, I will have to give that a try when my 4 and a half year old gets back from her dads. I haven't spent as much time as I should have trying to get her to ride properly (too busy with her riding horses and being a prima ballerina!!!)

trailtrash

It's late, I was bored, I was looking through some new forums (fora?) that I wouldn't normally look at and for some reason I looked at this one. Now I can't stop trying to think about turning left to go right. I'm not going to go for a ride at midnight just to work it out, so if I dream about this I'm not going to be very happy! I'm going for a ride tomorrow and now I'm probably going to fall off trying to steer the wrong way! Does anyone know which stabilisers to fit to a Trek 4500? :?

fossyant

Good idea about the scooting - my son just panicked with the stabilisers off..

But six months ago (he's 6 years old) he just said "Dad, I don't want my stabilisers any more" - so off they came and he was off. No looking back at all !

We tried it a few times but backed off as he wasn't ready - we left it to him.

Must say he has his dad's sense of balance - I can't go no handed even after all these years with some seriously nice bikes :twisted:

Teuchter

trailtrash wrote:

It's late, I was bored, I was looking through some new forums (fora?) that I wouldn't normally look at and for some reason I looked at this one. Now I can't stop trying to think about turning left to go right. I'm not going to go for a ride at midnight just to work it out, so if I dream about this I'm not going to be very happy! I'm going for a ride tomorrow and now I'm probably going to fall off trying to steer the wrong way! Does anyone know which stabilisers to fit to a Trek 4500? :?

Yes, countersteering does sound strange when it's described! In reality you're not actually pushing the bars the opposite way to steer - you turn a corner by leaning the bike over in the direction of your turn. Pushing on the bars on the side you want it to lean to just makes the bike lean over in that direction.

This doesn't apply at very low speeds where turning is done upright - steer the bars in the direction you want to go in that case!

hooker1uk

my son and his freind was easy to teach

put them on the bike, put mum or dad up other end of area.
then it gets fun i told both the kids i taught to pretend that there is a scarry monster about to eat mum or dad if you dont get there and save them

blow me it worked both times, once they get stable on the bike i took them to the nearby bmx track, so they could learn how to ride up and down hilly bits and learn the gears and breaks on sand rather than tarmac

another way (how i learnt) was to deinflate the tyres so there is a bare mimimum amount in them, so there just safe enought to ride on without killing them jump on and try peadling, the flat tyres gave me more stability

Jonathan Mcp

Couple of other tips.

make sure the tyres are quite soft when a kid progresses from riding with to without stabilisers. Soft tyres increase rolling resistance which means a kid has to pedal to move, pedalling increases stability. Also when the stabilisers come off the bike drop the saddle slightly to encourage them to use their feet to balance when stopping.

chilled rider

My lad had a small green monkey bike, i remember he loved it but came the time' stabilizers had to come off'. I basically tried him in the garden were it had grass but that was no good, off out we went into the car park at the front.

I simply pushed him and in about 5 mins he was off!! His feet were pedaling like as if he had done it before, children learn fast and bounce when they fall off. Im sure all will be ok 8)

baudman

Another vote for the pedals-off technique. If starting out, many manufacturers make these no-pedal bikes. Like-a-bike is probably the best known, but some of the adult bike manufacturers such as Norco are getting in on the act.

http://www.norco.com/2007bikes/Childrens/RunBikes/

Watch the video that is a link on this page. So cute!

Our daughter is 18 months old. She'll be getting a 'run bike' from Santa, and then a real bike once she's grown enough to fit one. Presently, she'll just have to stay in the bike trailer(which she adores!)

HJ1976

Well when i was 'moving' into my new bike yesterday i took the pedals and stabilizers off my 4 and a half year olds bike.
I'm not sure if it is because her seat even at it's lowest is a tiny bit too high, or that she is being a bit clingy at the moment but she wanted nothing of it.
I guess I will have to persevere with it.

baudman

HJ1976 wrote:

I'm not sure if it is because her seat even at it's lowest is a tiny bit too high...

I haven't tried it yet, as mine is too young. However, I'd imagine the secret to the technique is that it allows the child to have control over the bike. So yes... that would mean they need to be able to (easily) reach the ground whilst seated to have confidence.

HJ1976

Darn the fact that I bought a bike that she wasgrowing into- rather than one she would be out of quickly. Last time she was measured friday she was 109cm (at exactly 4.5 years) so se has 14" wheels. Sorry for mixing my measurements. :oops:

Jonathan M

HJ1976 wrote:

Well when i was 'moving' into my new bike yesterday i took the pedals and stabilizers off my 4 and a half year olds bike.
I'm not sure if it is because her seat even at it's lowest is a tiny bit too high, or that she is being a bit clingy at the moment but she wanted nothing of it.
I guess I will have to persevere with it.

My lad was exactly the same. It took a freind to do the final stages to persuade him to ride. He basically didn't want to ride a bike with no pedals, it just wasn't right.

mtb.boy

My dad took my stabilisers off and instead tied a broom handle to my frame pointing up backwards at about 45degrees- So that he could walk behind me holding the broom and push me without bending down.

After pushing me down a (slight) hill twice he had other ideas (which he did not tell me about). The third time I reached the bottom I looked around and he was still at the top with a big chuffed look on his face. Because I thought he was holdng the broom I thought I could not fall off and I had lots of confidence. So I managed to ride with no help.

This was about 23 years ago.

missElaineous

Thanks for the tips. I have a 7 year old that still can't ride a bike, which is a nuisance because cycling is my 2nd favourite pastime. I think the trouble may be because I have been towing her with a gator-bar for so long, she's become too lazy. Will try the 'pedals off' approach this weekend. It makes so much sense when you think about it, can't think why I never thought about it before. Wish us luck.

adamedwardsteather

Another vote for the pedals-off technique. If starting out, many manufacturers make these no-pedal bikes. Like-a-bike is probably the best known, but some of the adult bike manufacturers such as Norco are getting in on the act.

Or buy a Puky. Our son is now on to a pedalled bike with no stabalisers aged 5 and I'm sure this is down to the balancing learnt on the Puky. See http://www.puky.net

Adam

feel

can definitely recommend the no pedals method, preferably right from the start with the seat very low so both feet can be put on the ground. Start them off on very slight slopes when you want them to get there feet up.
If they are having problems because of previous bad experiences think about putting the bike away for a bit and get them one of those mini scooters. They learn to balance and that is transferable back to the bike when they have regained confidence. Scooters are brilliant at getting kids started who are scared they will fall off.

chrisjsmith

I learned (3 months ago at the age of 27) to ride one. I found that doing it on concrete with a mortal fear of busting something badly kept me on it upright and pedalling

I'll try these things out on our 3 year old. It's her 4th birthday on 12th December at which point she'll be receiving a nice bicycle Some good suggesions here

Positron

Hi - FWIW up to ~5 1/2 our daughter had various options: bike (HAD to be pink) with stabalisers (yes I know I'd heard all the arguements against them), bike with no pedal and scooter. One weekend she asked me to take them off and I thought "okay, this is my weekend of taking her up and down the road for hours". And she was off immediately. Recon one of the biggest things was learning to balance on the scooter.

Dewi1

Another thing to consider is that as well as balance, small kids struggle to have enough momentum to get going. When I taught mine, I taught them to have the right pedal at about 2 o'clock so that they get a good start before they have to take their left foot off the ground. This really helps.

Tom Butcher

I think a lot is down to whether the kids' sense of balance is good enough and how naturally confident they are. I let mine cycle with stabilisers and then used the take them off and see if they were ready to ride without method.

My youngest are twins - the girl was riding without stabilisers when she was just over 3 - the boy was 4 and a half. I don't think using stabilisers is a bad idea - no it isn't the same as riding a bike without but it does let them travel some distance using pedal power when they are too young to balance. A decent tricycle would be better but they are not easy to get hold of these days.

As for miniscooters - I think they are harder to use than a bike without stabilisers.

vernon08

Great Advice

I have a 2 year old and I will use the pedals off technique when the time comes

Thanks