Places in London for kids learning to ride

r3hxn

Hey guys,

Can anyone recommend a nice place in greater london for a family ride, for a kid who is just beginning to ride with stabilisers. Preferably not too central, outside the congestion zone & where there is adequate parking.

darkhairedlord

If your kid is just starting out don't bother with stabilisers, just take the pedals off for half an hour to get their balance then they will be good to go. Shouldn't take more than hour to learn to ride a bike.

r3hxn

In an ideal world your absolutely right, I even bought a balance bike for him over a year ago. However the truth is he is a very cautious and worried kid who is afraid of getting hurt, I've been forced to use stabilisers to give him a bit of confidence and get him to enjoy riding.

baudman

darkhairedlord wrote:

If your kid is just starting out don't bother with stabilisers, just take the pedals off for half an hour to get their balance then they will be good to go. Shouldn't take more than hour to learn to ride a bike.

Different kids take different times. Some minutes. Some months. Nothing wrong with that - but what works for one, may not work for another.

Daz555

r3hxn wrote:

In an ideal world your absolutely right, I even bought a balance bike for him over a year ago. However the truth is he is a very cautious and worried kid who is afraid of getting hurt, I've been forced to use stabilisers to give him a bit of confidence and get him to enjoy riding.

Is he able to pick his feet up on his balance bike and roll? If not I'm not sure I'd bother spending any time on the pedal bike at all - I'd wait for him to crack that first.

r3hxn

He would do it only very briefly then put his feet back down, more a confidence thing then skill. The problem is, it made him much less enthusiastic about riding it, he would only ride the balance bike because I pressured him to do so. Thats where the fun starts to drain for the kid, and I think we shouldn't loose perspective of that. He was not enthusiastic about me buying him a pedal bike at all and he's 5 going on 6 now, so its not like he is too young. So i went with the stabilisers, he gave it a try, and he is slowly falling in love with riding his bike. No longer needs me to suggest it, he wants to ride it. For me that was more important, actually getting him on the bike and riding. I can worry about balance later, when he is at a place where he himself wants to learn to ride 2 wheels. In contrast my youngest who is going on 2, I can see already will have no issues with the balance bike, he is a completely different personality, already scooting around on a scooter and climbing into places like he was spiderman.

natrix

Richmond Park??

Green_Medic

Depending on what side of London you are, Dulwich park is always nice. Think they have a cycle hire place too & various cafés and play grounds etc. it's flat too!!

r3hxn

thanks, its quite a distance but does look like a nice family day out.

BigLights

whereabouts in London are you?

I posted a question like this recently (Wandsworth) - Spencer Park, Wandsworth Common, Putney Common etc all have some good gentle slopes for learning to ride.