Benefits of Balance Bikes for Toddlers

Teaching a young child to ride a bike comes with many challenges and complications.  The biggest of these, of course, is balance. Despite the fact that children really need to direct all their concentration on balance, their attention must be divided between balance, pedaling, and steering.  Many things can throw off their balance.  Pedaling uphill slows their forward momentum, which provides balance.  The bumpiness of uneven ground and cracked pavements can knock a child off balance—and no parent wants their child to learn to ride a bike on the smooth surfaces of the street.  Curves in the road, or even an accidentally hard yank in one direction on the handlebars can turn the bike suddenly, throwing off their balance and sending them head over heels.  A sudden stop can disrupt their equilibrium.  Even the very motion of pedaling can throw off a child’s balance as they constantly shift their weight from side to side.  When the inevitable fall finally happens, even kid’s bikes are sometimes too tall for a child to easily put their foot down on the ground to steady themself.  Then, of course, once your child has fallen and earned a healthy fear of bicycles, there’s the problem of coaxing them back onto the bike to try again.

Wooden pedaless bicycles, also called walking bicycles and balance bikes, provide a partial solution to this problem.  By eliminating the need to pedal the bicycle, it reduces the wobble factor pumping the pedals creates that throw off stability, and frees the child up to concentrate more on balance and steering.   The child can walk around on the bicycle, slowly learning to balance on it.  Later, the parent can let them roll downhill, picking their feet up to practice balancing.  The second they begin to feel unstable, they need only to drop their feet back down to steady themselves and prevent a fall.  Furthermore, on balance bikes, the handlebars have a restricted range of movement, preventing a sudden turn from causing instability and a fall.  It’s a perfect (and fun!) intermediary step between walking and learning to ride a bike.

Experience shows that walking and balance bicycles help children to practice the abilities they need to use a real bicycle, making the transition much smoother.  Furthermore, exposing children to balance bikes at a young age helps them develop balance, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills that they can transfer to other areas of their lives.

Birch plywood balance bikes are small and lightweight, weighing between 3 and 6 kilograms.  A common feature is an adjustable seat height, so parents can make sure their children's feet can always reach the ground for an emergency.  Some of the lowest settings place the seat only 38cm from the ground.  Compared to regular toddler bicycles, pedaless bikes are comparatively cheap at prices between £60.00 - £90.00.  Different types are designed for different ages from 20 months to 6 years (around the time the child is big enough to ride a real bicycle), and pass all relevant safety standards.

This is an original news article © The Kids Window

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