5YO stick to balance bike or switch?

[omama]

DS (5.1) finally mastered his balance bike this summer. We are wondering about the next step because a) he has almost outgrown it and b) other children locally are noticing & commenting on him not having pedals saying his bike is for babies (Most of his peers can either ride a bike already or have stabilisers).

Ideally we'd like him to go straight to a pedal bike with no stabilisers. However, ds is very cautious by nature & I'm worried that the fear of falling off may exceed his desire to learn. Plus he's really struggled to master pedals when we've tried him on bikes in shops.

So would he be better to stick with the balance bike a while longer, go with stabilisers or go straight to 2 wheels & hope he gets the hang of pedalling?

If the latter....

We've very kindly been given a pedal bike but the wheels are smaller than those on his balance bike, the handlebar steering is stiff & its very heavy. I'm concerned that he may struggle with learning on it & so wondering if we should spend on a better quality, lighter weight bike. On the flip side we don't want to spend £££ if he won't use it
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[MrEBear]

My thoughts would be get him a better quality bike (if finances allow) or at least get the other one serviced properly.

I would use stabilizers until he has the idea with peddles.
That is my plan for DS when he wants a new bike currently loving his balance bike at 4.7

[DancingDinosaur]

If you've got the money I'd go for a lightweight bike with pedals.

[WhatWouldTheDoctorDo]

We had this with DS. We opted for a lightweight pedal bike and made sure we took him out a lot until he got the hang of it. It really didn't take him long. He wasn't great with pedals either.

He would have struggled on a heavy bike too.

[WhatWouldTheDoctorDo]

Also, we went with a second hand islabike for his first pedal bike which I've just sold for more than I paid. Good quality lightweight bikes do tend to hold their value.

[whiteagle]

Don't do stabilisers - you don't need to, your ds will be riding a bike after an afternoon in the park if he is already confident on a balance bike. Get him a normal bike, find a nice flat place to practise and he will be off!

[RideTheLightning]

Lightweight bike, pedals no stabilisers - all they will do is delay his ability to ride properly without them as he wont learn to balance and will just have to relearn once the stabilisers are off. Good luck.