How to Teach Child to Ride Bike with No Training Wheels?

When I was a kid, 6, 7 or 8 was normal.
My own kids learned at 6, 4.5 and 5.5.
4.5 is pretty young, is she ready, or do you think she "should" be ready?
When they are really comfortable with the training wheels (meaning going fast, seeming fearless) remove them, hold onto the rear of the bike the first few times, then let them go. It's like a bird leaving the nest :)

I taught all three of my kids by holding the bike from behind and running along with them, then letting go. Boy was that exhausting!!! lol!
One of my sons learned to ride a two-wheeler at 3! He had a teensy bike and the training wheels broke. He didn't want to wait for his dad to put them back on, so he insisted on learning. He's always had a great sense of balance.

I have taught *lots* of kids to ride a bike. Maybe several dozen? I've lost count. Here's my method:

Take off the training wheels. Now. The only thing training wheels are useful for is learning how to pedal, and tricycles are better for that. Training wheels are actually counterproductive. They make the bike less stable. They make it impossible to lean into turns correctly. They teach bad starting and stopping habits. Get a really big tricycle if you like, but don't use training wheels.

Make sure the bike is the right size and setting for learning. The child's feet need to be flat on the ground when they are sitting on the seat. This is very low for an experienced rider, just right for a learner.

Remove the pedals. A bike shop can help you with this if you need help.

Note: I've had several kids call me lots of bad names when I took their training wheels and their pedals. They were all riding independently within a week, and were glad. Trust the process and feel free to ignore irate children.

Let the child use the bike as a kick-bike for a while. When you notice them going quite fast, doing long swoops and glides, they're ready to have their pedals back. For some kids this takes a day. For other kids, it takes months. Give lots of practice and be patient.

Put the pedals back on. A bike shop can help you if you need help. Follow teaching instructions below. From this point to solo riding takes anywhere from 10 minutes to a couple days, depending on the kid.

Have the kid get onto the bike and put their feet on the pedals, with you stabilizing the bike. Walk the bike around, with their feet on the pedals. Do lots of swoops, to show them how to lean into turns. Go over rough ground, up and down hills. My dad used to run me up and down drainage ditches. Remind them to move with the bike instead of fighting it.

Move to a long stretch of level pavement with few or no cars. A closed parking lot works well. So does a dead-end road. You want something that is fairly wide, since new riders are not the best at steering.

Hold onto their body, *not* the bike. The deal is this: they control the bike, you control their body. The bike might crash. They won't. If the bike is about to crash, simply lift them off the bike. Then, go retrieve the crashed bike and try again. This takes a lot of the fear out of learning. My students *never* crash while learning. Never. No scrapes, no injuries, no bruises. That's a promise that takes a lot of the fear out of learning.

The first step is just propelling the bike without falling over. Help them with starting and stopping. Remind them that it is much easier to balance a medium fast bike than a slow bike. Run alongside holding their body. Move to a looser grip when they seem ready, then to just a grip on their shirt. Don't let go. You promised not to. Keep that promise.

The next step is teaching the child to stop. They need to stop and *immediately* put a foot down. Go over this repeatedly until it's in muscle memory. If they fail to put a foot down, let them fall partway but catch them before they hit the ground. The feeling of falling will help them remember to put down a foot. Actually hitting the ground will just scare and injure them.

The next step is teaching the child to turn. Remind them that turning a bike is mostly done by leaning, with very little action in the handlebars. Start them on a straight, have them do a wide U-turn, then bike back.

The final step is teaching them to start. Help them get the pedal into the right starting position (about 3/4 of the way up). Start with the pedal on their dominant foot side. This would be the same foot as they use for kicking a ball. One foot on the ground, one foot on the pedal. Remind them to push down *hard*, and get the other foot on a pedal and start pedalling immediately. Then hold their body lightly and let them work on this. Let them fall partway to develop muscle memory, but don't let them hit the ground. It may take dozens of repetitions before they get it.

Expect that their steering will be terrible, so leave plenty of room for erratic steering. Remind them to look where they are going, rather than at their feet. This will help them keep balance and improve steering.

After they've got all four pieces (straight riding, turns, starting, stopping), you can work on some refinement. Have them turn around an object. Stop on a line. Remind them that a good stop has no skid. Skidding is losing control, and that is bad at this level. Work on control. If your child frequently rides on dirt,gravel, sand, or grass, this is a good time to talk about traction and how that effects turns. Tight turns on concrete is fine. Tight turns on gravel usually end badly.

So, now your child has all the pieces of bike riding. Have them do a few runs where you are just spotting them. Keep a light grip on their body and/or their shirt. Do not support them. You are just the emergency ejection system. It is their job to start, ride straight, and stop. When they get the hang of that, have them do a long oval. Start, right straight, turn, ride straight, stop.

At this point they will probably be feeling pretty confident and also somewhat irritated that they can't ride faster than you can run. When they feel they are ready for a solo, let them go for it. Some kids also like help with starting, but a ready to solo once the bike is rolling. In any case, make sure they know they are riding solo and feel ready for it.

You now have a kid on two wheels!

Warning: None of my students have crashed during the learning process. They all have a pretty spectacular wipeout 2-3 weeks later when they get overconfident and discover the limits of their abilities. I tell them all that this is coming. They all think it won't happen to them. They all do it anyway. Have bandages and antibiotic cream on hand.

Have fun!

My son was 4, my daughter was 6. I think she only learned because she couldn't be outdone by her brother.
We waited until he was steady on the training wheels and then raised them so he would have to practice his balance a little more before taking them off. We had a long wide driveway for him to practice on which was very helpful. With my daughter, we went to a park with a wide, flat sidewalk and let her practice there. She tried to ride on the sidewalk but would scare herself by thinking she was too close to the curb and would fall into the street.

Good luck! They all get it when they are ready!

I'm of the generation when children learned to ride bikes when they were OLD - like maybe all of seven.

But I still remember the training wheels. I started with them. My dad made sure I could ride safely and happily with them on. Then he started loosening them up little by little, so I had more control of my turns and my balance. Finally they were so loose that they weren't helping me, and he took them off.

What he didn't do was to take the training wheels off before I felt confident. I imagine many children are more confident and adventurous, and would catch on to the riding technique more quickly. So it depends on your daughter's confidence level right now.

My dad would have made me wear a helmet, too, but helmets hadn't been invented yet.

You run along behind them holding onto the seat, and then you let go.

In our family kids ranged from age 3 to age 6. My son was the oldest at 6, because we didn't have a street to ride on until then!!!

The purpose of the balance bike is to teach the fundamental skill for bike riding (balance) and skip over the training wheels. If your daughter has completely mastered her Skuut, she should be able to easily transition to a 2-wheeler without training wheels. I've done this with both my kids -- my son got his real bike on his 4th birthday and was up and riding that day, on the very first try. No running up and down the street, holidng the back of the bike...etc. Gotta love those balance bikes!

I think your hubby is right -- take off the training wheels and make them unavailable. Children use training wheels because they have not learned how to balance themselves on 2 wheels, and your daughter already learned this skill. If the training wheels have already become a mental "crutch," I would put her back on the balance bike until she makes the decision to try the 2-wheeler again. Don't underestimate her -- I'll bet she'll be able to do it right off the bat...as long as her confidence hasn't been diminished by the training wheels. Good luck and happy riding!!

Here is the tired and true method that we did with our 3 kids and a ton of other kids on the block b/c their parents weren't active enough to run with them:

1) raise the training wheels for a few weeks. Gradually keep lifting the wheels from the st.

2) when the t. wheels come off and you run with the child down the street, you must hold onto the child's hips or their ribs, not the bike.
(Easy to remember: you don't want your kid to hit the pavement, but the bike can hit the pavement)

3) Try for a few passes without training wheels, if you need to put them back on again, do it with a good healthy dose of encouragement and keep the wheels "up." So remember, attitudes and wheels "up." The kids will get discouraged. Be prepared to be strong. It's OK.

P.S. The oldest children take a little longer, and that's OK. The younger siblings want so bad to keep up with the older ones, it takes less time. And its all OK.

My son learned at 4 1/2. The secret to success was getting (off the curb for free) a bike that was a bit too small for him. He felt so much more secure when he could put his feet firmly on the ground. We had him push off and coast at first and then, when he was confident, added peddling.

My daughter is 5 1/2 and we just recently took hers off (5 years and 4 months old maybe?). She was actually having trouble riding her bike WITH the training wheels and I think it was because she was trying to lean into turns and the training wheels were preventing her from that. She kept whining about wanting them off and I was skeptical, but decided to let her try it. I ran along beside her in case she started to fall, but she did great! She was off and riding by herself that very first day and hasn't fallen off of it since. I guess when they're ready, they're ready! You can always try it and if she doesn't get it and is getting frustrated or falling a lot, then you can put them back on for awhile longer.

My 6 year old son just learned to ride his bike last week. It was his attitude that got in the way. I bought him a new bike this spring. We've been kind of doing this non-chalantly for 2 months already to no avail. I've tried everything and then I get fed up with my son's attitude of "I can't do it, I hate my bike." I decided that WE would work on him learning to ride his bike 1/2 hour a day, everyday until he got it. At first, it was hard. He would get so frustrated, throw the bike, kick it, and cry. I REFUSED to let him quit and did not accept his attitude. At one point, I said to him, "you will get on this frickin' bike and you will ride it." Oh, that made him angry, but I wasn't backing down. I knew he could do it. This went on for a few days. Each day, I could see he was getting better. Then after one whole week...guess what? He learned to ride his bike and we go on bike rides 3 times a day. He loves it:) Now, he constantly asks me to take him on a bike ride. I'm happy because he needs the exercise. I am so proud of him....and he is proud of himself too! Some kids just need a kick in the butt.

My daughter didn't learn until she was 7. There is a wide variation in when kids are physically and mentally ready to learn to ride without training wheels. I would wait until your daughter wants the training wheels off, not when her dad does...

we decided my daughter was ready for no training wheels last summer, at age 5....one monster crash and an ER visit later, the wheels were put back on and she didn't ride her bike for two weeks. this summer, my 4 yo son told my hubbs that his training wheels were broken and needed fixed. so hubbs took the training wheels off to fix em, son looked at then picked up his bike, put on his helmet, pads, etc, sat down on his bike, pushed off and that was it. older sister, now 6, pouted that he learned first, then put her protective stuffs on and she was off too. (in the same day). let her tell u when she's ready. or else learn on grass. also, get a strider( pedaless, idea is that kids learn to balance before they learn to pedal and balance) i think this is how our kids learned to ride their bikes as the school they go to have several for the kids to zoom on during breaks, good luck!

I didn't see this mentioned anywhere in other responses. It really helps if you get the kids started on a little bit of a hill. My 5 yr old son just started riding without training wheels and the hardest part for him is starting out. If he starts on an incline he gets enough momentum to carry him along before he starts pedaling.

Great answers to teach her. My dd was 4.5 when she learned to ride a bike. My niece was 6.5 when I taught her. It was so much easy to teach a 4 vs 6. At 4 they have less fear and more trust in you. They weigh less and it is easy to hold them on the bike. Its time, she ready.

Check out inc.com they just did an article about something called a gyro wheel (not positive on the name) it's a weighted wheel that stabilizes the bike and has 3 levels you replace the front wheel of the bike with it until they don't need it then you can use it for your next, it's only like $70 and it's way more efficient than training wheels. Pretty neat stuff.

How to: take the wheels off and run behind the bike until they feel confident and not wobbly then let go. Make sure they are watching where they are going. It took my oldest 1 day, it took my other son 1 time up and down the street. My oldest was 5 when he learned, my other son is 4 and he is riding without training wheels and my daughter who is also 4 still rides with training wheels because her legs are not strong enough to peddle fast enough to get riding without them.