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How to Teach your Toddler to Bicycle

Parents often ask us how we got Henri to ride a two-wheel pedal-bike. The short answer is: "We started him on a Strider when he was one and half, then got him a pedal bike shortly after his third birthday." This website provides the long answer.

(1) Bike a Lot

We don't own a car, so Henri has been around bikes since before he could walk. For his first birthday in Santa Barbara we decorated his loaner trailer.

We made sure our nanny, Ola, had a bike with a trailer hitch, and when we moved to Evanston we pulled Henri to/from daycare in his trailer. We bought a Chariot CX1. The only downside with this trailer is that it cost about $1000, more than either of our bikes. But i have never had bike trailer envy and it has so far survived three years of daily use in the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest, as well as yearly cycle-tours.

(2) Get a Good Helmet

Henri's uncle Rok-o sent him a great Little Nutty helmet for his first birthday. He still uses the same helmet at three and half (Henri has a big head, though, so other kids might have to grow into the helmet or start with something smaller).

One of the big selling points of the Little Nutty for us is the flat back of the helmet, which make it way more comfortable to sit in a trailer. Bern helmets are also good in this regard. We insisted that Henri wear a helmet in his trailer from the get-go, mostly to instill good habits. Henri has also used it for skiing.

(3) Get a Push Bike with a Low Seat

We got Henri his Strider when he was 18 months, half a year after he had learned to walk. I cannot emphasize enough that the key to push bikes is for the seat to be low enough that the kid's butt doesn't touch it when they are standing up. At the time, Strider was the best in this regard, and to my knowledge it still has the lowest seat setting of any push bike (11 inches off the ground). We also liked the metal bike because we used it year-round.

Resist the urge to "help" your child on the push bike. The entire point is for them to learn to keep their balance without external support. Exceptions can be made for silly stunts (video), and of course moral support and encouragement is helpful.

(4) Be Patient

The push bike was really no more than a push toy for the first couple weeks (video). Henri eventually became comfortable walking around with this hunk of aluminum between his legs and we started gradually hiking the seat up until he would try sitting on it (video). He had been riding the Strider for months before he got the hang of coasting with his butt on the seat and his feet in the air. I think it was about a year until he mastered the footrests, though other push-bikes like the Kazam have much more obvious footrests (but the seat is higher, see (3) above). Once he mastered coasting, he wanted to bomb down snow banks (video), hills (video), drop curbs (video), stairs (video), and generally goof around (video).

One key discovery we made early on was to attach Henri's Strider to the back of the trailer. That way we could cover ground but Henri could still get exercise (as opposed to coaxing Henri to bike faster, which we also tried). It took us a long time to figure out a good system for attaching the strider for long tours, but eventually figured out a configuration that also works for his pedal bike.

Push bikes are not as efficient a mode of transportation as bicycles, so be ready to wait around while your child takes rests. Henri would say he needed to "work on his bike."

After moving Henri to a daycare center closer to our home, we found that our commute took just as long because Henri wanted to bike the one mile to school.

Sometimes we would venture out without the trailer and Henri would get too tired of biking so we had to improvise.

Some days are just not bike days...

(5) Crashes Happen

I sincerely believe that push bikes are the smarter/safer way for children to learn how to bicycle, but your child can/will crash on a push bike, as well! This is, after all, why they should be wearing a good helmet (see (2) above). Henri had many impressive but ultimately harmless wipeouts (video).

Henri's first and only serious Strider crash occurred a week before his third birthday. He coasted down a hill on a bike path and was coming up on a jogger very fast. He tried to slow down by dragging his feet, which merely tripped him up and sent him flying face-first into the pavement. He bled profusely, cried for an hour and half, and got a black eye. He looked in rough shape for school the following day (photo at right).

Fortunately, children are resilient: Henri was happy to ride his bike to school the next day, and his scabs had all fallen off in time for his birthday party. In any case, this motivated us to buy breaks for Henri's Strider. They cost very little but were a bit of a pain to install. They slightly impede the "striding" but Henri mastered the breaking in a day or two. More importantly, Henri's crash convinced us that he was ready for something better.

(6) Get a Pedal Bike with a Low Seat

The entire point of push bikes is for your kid to learn to keep her/his balance. Training wheels are obviously a step in the wrong direction, but if their pedal bike's seat is too high, they will fall over.

For Henri, we bought a Specialized HotRock with 12 inch wheels and asked the good people at Higher Gear to shorten the seat post (with a hack saw) so that we could get Henri as close to the ground as possible. We kept the training wheels on for the first four miles of riding (from the bike shop in Wilmette back to our home in Evanston). We like to imagine that this helped Henri get used to the coaster breaks, but the honest truth is that the bike shop gave us the bike with training wheels and we hadn't brought the necessary tools to remove them. Back at home, i removed the offending wheels immediately. I then spent ten minutes convincing Henri that a bicycle only works when you are moving, and he eventually gave it a shot and was ecstatic to discover that he could ride a bike. In the interest of full disclosure, Henri had been pedaling three and four-wheeled toys at daycare for quite some time, so he had the pedaling action down pat already.

After a month of pedaling himself to/from school, we went on a week-long cycle tour in southeastern WI. Most of the mileage was done with Henri in his trailer and the bike bungied overhead, but the many bike trails allowed Henri to contribute some miles as well. His longest continuous stretch was eight miles of pedaling, with a pee break in the middle.

(1) Bike a Lot We don't own a car, so Henri has been around bikes since before he could walk. For his first birthday in Santa Barbara we decorated his loaner trailer.
We made sure our nanny, Ola, had a bike with a trailer hitch, and when we moved to Evanston we pulled Henri to/from daycare in his trailer. We bought a Chariot CX1. The only downside with this trailer is that it cost about $1000, more than either of our bikes. But i have never had bike trailer envy and it has so far survived three years of daily use in the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest, as well as yearly cycle-tours.
(2) Get a Good Helmet Henri's uncle Rok-o sent him a great Little Nutty helmet for his first birthday. He still uses the same helmet at three and half (Henri has a big head, though, so other kids might have to grow into the helmet or start with something smaller). One of the big selling points of the Little Nutty for us is the flat back of the helmet, which make it way more comfortable to sit in a trailer. Bern helmets are also good in this regard. We insisted that Henri wear a helmet in his trailer from the get-go, mostly to instill good habits. Henri has also used it for skiing.
(3) Get a Push Bike with a Low Seat We got Henri his Strider when he was 18 months, half a year after he had learned to walk. I cannot emphasize enough that the key to push bikes is for the seat to be low enough that the kid's butt doesn't touch it when they are standing up. At the time, Strider was the best in this regard, and to my knowledge it still has the lowest seat setting of any push bike (11 inches off the ground). We also liked the metal bike because we used it year-round. Resist the urge to "help" your child on the push bike. The entire point is for them to learn to keep their balance without external support. Exceptions can be made for silly stunts (video), and of course moral support and encouragement is helpful.
(4) Be Patient The push bike was really no more than a push toy for the first couple weeks (video). Henri eventually became comfortable walking around with this hunk of aluminum between his legs and we started gradually hiking the seat up until he would try sitting on it (video). He had been riding the Strider for months before he got the hang of coasting with his butt on the seat and his feet in the air. I think it was about a year until he mastered the footrests, though other push-bikes like the Kazam have much more obvious footrests (but the seat is higher, see (3) above). Once he mastered coasting, he wanted to bomb down snow banks (video), hills (video), drop curbs (video), stairs (video), and generally goof around (video). One key discovery we made early on was to attach Henri's Strider to the back of the trailer. That way we could cover ground but Henri could still get exercise (as opposed to coaxing Henri to bike faster, which we also tried). It took us a long time to figure out a good system for attaching the strider for long tours, but eventually figured out a configuration that also works for his pedal bike.
Push bikes are not as efficient a mode of transportation as bicycles, so be ready to wait around while your child takes rests. Henri would say he needed to "work on his bike."
After moving Henri to a daycare center closer to our home, we found that our commute took just as long because Henri wanted to bike the one mile to school.
Sometimes we would venture out without the trailer and Henri would get too tired of biking so we had to improvise.
Some days are just not bike days...
(5) Crashes Happen I sincerely believe that push bikes are the smarter/safer way for children to learn how to bicycle, but your child can/will crash on a push bike, as well! This is, after all, why they should be wearing a good helmet (see (2) above). Henri had many impressive but ultimately harmless wipeouts (video). Henri's first and only serious Strider crash occurred a week before his third birthday. He coasted down a hill on a bike path and was coming up on a jogger very fast. He tried to slow down by dragging his feet, which merely tripped him up and sent him flying face-first into the pavement. He bled profusely, cried for an hour and half, and got a black eye. He looked in rough shape for school the following day (photo at right). Fortunately, children are resilient: Henri was happy to ride his bike to school the next day, and his scabs had all fallen off in time for his birthday party. In any case, this motivated us to buy breaks for Henri's Strider. They cost very little but were a bit of a pain to install. They slightly impede the "striding" but Henri mastered the breaking in a day or two. More importantly, Henri's crash convinced us that he was ready for something better.
(6) Get a Pedal Bike with a Low Seat The entire point of push bikes is for your kid to learn to keep her/his balance. Training wheels are obviously a step in the wrong direction, but if their pedal bike's seat is too high, they will fall over. For Henri, we bought a Specialized HotRock with 12 inch wheels and asked the good people at Higher Gear to shorten the seat post (with a hack saw) so that we could get Henri as close to the ground as possible. We kept the training wheels on for the first four miles of riding (from the bike shop in Wilmette back to our home in Evanston). We like to imagine that this helped Henri get used to the coaster breaks, but the honest truth is that the bike shop gave us the bike with training wheels and we hadn't brought the necessary tools to remove them. Back at home, i removed the offending wheels immediately. I then spent ten minutes convincing Henri that a bicycle only works when you are moving, and he eventually gave it a shot and was ecstatic to discover that he could ride a bike. In the interest of full disclosure, Henri had been pedaling three and four-wheeled toys at daycare for quite some time, so he had the pedaling action down pat already.
After a month of pedaling himself to/from school, we went on a week-long cycle tour in southeastern WI. Most of the mileage was done with Henri in his trailer and the bike bungied overhead, but the many bike trails allowed Henri to contribute some miles as well. His longest continuous stretch was eight miles of pedaling, with a pee break in the middle.