Is a balance bike a waste of time?

[jollybobs89]

Looking to get my DD a bike for Christmas she's been asking for a frozen motorbike haha

Anyway she's 3 in February but should I go for a balance bike or a bike with stabilisers?

Any advice would be great!

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Decathlon have some which aren't as insanely overpriced as most are. And they are perfectly good.

@jollybobs89

Thank you everyone so much for your replies!! Going to have a look at balance bikes today 😀😀

Happy shopping

Some suggestions for you:
Vitus Nippy Superlight balance bike - only weighs 1.9kg, great value at £36 (no brakes though)
Decathlon Runride 500 balance bike - this one has brakes, weighs 3.5kg, costs £45

More suggestions here
www.cyclesprog.co.uk/bikes/balance-bikes/choosing-best-balance-bike/

PS Do check your DC's height and length of inside leg, to make sure you're getting the right size bike.

Personally I think they are great and using a balance bike often means your child will skip stabilisers.

My daughter didn’t get on with a bike with stabilisers but loves her balance bike and I’m hoping she’ll get straight to a normal bike being able to balance.

Also I have a son with additional needs. He took years to be able to ride a normal bike. He was getting too old for stabilisers and he just couldn’t learn to balance. Anyway I bought him a balance bike for older children (very expensive!) he used it for a month and he taught himself how to balance and after a month was able to ride a normal bike.

I highly rate them!

Balanced bike not stabilisers.

Balance bikes or bikes with no pedals and no stabilisers. Both of mine had (the same) balance bike at 2 years and we're riding a normal bike no stabilisers before they were 4. One of mine has ALN and was developmentally delayed but had no problem. Stabilisers are unnecessary imo.

Depends on the child. I had one who was amazing on the balance bike by 2.5 and went straight to cycling without stabilizers just after her third birthday. I was looking forward to the youngest trying it and she is awful, she shuffles along slower than walking and is scared of trying to balance at all (but learnt to scoot much earlier) so for her it's a total waste of time (at the moment, she is not yet 3 though so still time!)

Don't let them have stabilisers - balance bike all the way. Both of ours riding properly before 4. We hot islabikes and sold them after they'd been through both kids for a little less than we paid for them. Theyre lv light & designed with kids in mind.
A lot of kids first style bikes tend to be plastic poorly performing crap which makes it much harder for them to learn.

DS had a balance bike, it was suggested as he's ASD and was clumsy with an unusual gait. It was miraculous! He was riding a proper bike without stabilisers at 4. Highly recommended!

Mine had proper bikes at 3 with stabilisers, removed them a few months later. Worked fine. Kids on balance bikes aren't learning to pedal

We got my son a balance bike last Xmas (approaching 3) but he never got the hang of it really. We got him a bike with stabilisers for his 3rd bday and he picked this up much easier. I wouldn't bother with a balance bike next time.

Kids on balance bikes aren't learning to pedal

They don’t need to, if they’ve cracked balance the pedalling is a piece of piss. Think about it, pedalling a stationary bike isn’t exactly hard.

@MaryGubbins

I'm older than that - I rode my bike without stabilisers at 4 my mum tells me, my brother was 3, which I remember myself (age gap) we used stabilisers prior

Balance bike.

DS2 went from Balance Bike to Pedal Bike in about 5 minutes. I would recommend getting a BB with a brake though. Putting your feet on the road to brake a balance bike is one thing. Doing so on a rather faster pedal bike is quite different!

DD got a proper bike for her 4th birthday and could ride it immediately having had a balance bike for a couple of years.

If you have a particularly small/young child I think a simple, light balance bike is great; for an older kid (especially if they've seen a bike they like) then just take the pedals off.

Our little one had a balance bike which he outgrew so we got him a frog bike with the idea of going from no pedals to pedals he went from no pedals on his new bike to riding with pedals on the same walk. Once they have the balancing right learning to pedal is easy.
The benefit of frog bikes and Isla bikes are that their pedals are placed so that their centre of balance is amazing.
In contrast my older child had stabilisers and wasn’t confident bike riding without until she was eight!

Stabilisers are so old school. Do you remember being at school in the 80s and kids learning to ride bikes at age 8 or 7?
Not my experience at all, I learned at 3 and my sister at 5. Cousins and friends all similar.
None of mine used balance bikes, two learned at 4 they were and are much stronger generally, could do the monkey bars at 2, always climbing trees etc, the other two are super skinny with zero upper body and core strength until they were about 7. However once they were ready they were all as fast as each other to learn an afternoon in the park and they got it. Average age for their friends is about 6.

I bought a bike with stabilisers. She took the stabilisers off when she was 3! Now does triathlons and loves cycling. I dithered over a balance bike but thought it would be a waste of money, preferred to buy a good quality 'proper' bike, not too big. I think it was an isla bike so it sold on easily.

balance bikes are brilliant for core strength. The school I spend a lot of time in use them a lot for children who are not good at holding a pen. Good core strength is what you need to write apparently. Its a fact about the body that amazes me :)

My DS didn't get on with his balance bike at all - he got it when he was 2 and it literally sat in our garage unused and I gave it away in the end in pristine condition! Although many view stabilisers as the devil’s work, he did start riding a normal bike with stabilisers just after his 4th birthday, and then less than three months later we took the stabilisers off and he learned without them in the space of an afternoon.

However, my next door neighbour’s DD was a whizz on her balance bike from 2ish and then one day she just picked up DS’s normal bike and rode it straight down the road no problems.

So it’s child dependent I think!

We got a second hand Ridgeback balance bike when our DS was turning 4 (they have two sizes). Ridgeback will give your child a 'real feel' experience, understanding the weight of the bike itself while learning to balance and use their own body weight. I would totally get a balance bike, but get one later, unless you are a very outdoorsy family. We're a family of cyclists and even I knew that I wouldn't be outside with an almost 3 year old shlepping around with a balance bike. Buy one when you know it won't be collecting dust, would be my advice. By 4, DS was all over the balance bike. He loved it and moved on to a pedal bike before he was 5.

Because balance bikes are hardly used, you can get an excellent second hand one on eBay, rather than pay full price for a new one.

Puky bikes are amazing (really well made, German bikes). My kids have all started out on Pukys and Ridgebacks.

DS had a balance bike, and graduated to a pedal bike aged 3. He loves it, and is surprisingly skillful, which I credit to the balance bike.

It took a while to get him interested in the balance bike in the first place, but once he got the idea it changed everything. No more having to walk at his pace! Now he comes with me on my runs riding his bike.

I really recommend balance bikes.

could do the monkey bars at 2

Really? Really?

@CheetasOnFajitas

could do the monkey bars at 2

Really? Really?

You can’t tell which of my kids use a balance bike and which didn’t as part of learning to ride a bike now they can. But one took much more effort on my part and one cracked pedals in 2 minutes.