Toodler Learning bikes - for those who have kids!
Most of us learned on a bike with training wheels and at some point in time the training wheels got removed and our entertainment or torture began until we got the hang of riding a bike. What if you could remove the whole training wheel issue and let a kid learn balance while having fun and just enjoy riding without the pressure of training wheels. Enter the balance bike and its various tweaks. I must have not paid much attention but these balance bikes have been around for a while in Europe. Since I am now a Dad, I know the trails and tribulations my daughter went through to get off the training wheels and the balance bike seems like a great idea.
Basically, the balance bike has wheels, steers, has no pedals and sits really low to the ground. The kid feels secure, since they can keep their feet firmly on the ground if they want to. They pretty much do a seated walk or shuffle and learn steering, balance and coordination. They can walk, run, glide and coast and all these neuralgic activities help them transition to a real bike much quicker than the usual training wheeled method.
Here is the skuut companies’ version (info: http://www.skuut.com/ ) which retails for $89.99
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September 29th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Hey pastajet…have you seen the Gliders? Those are also a cool option. My son has a Skuut, but had I known about the Glider, I probably would have opted for that…since you can’t start them on it when they are even younger (due to the lower seat height).