How to get my 6 year old to ride her bike??

[bluebird98]

We took the stabilisers off my 6 year olds bike last year, we tried once and she was petrified. She didn't fall off but couldn't quite keep her balance.

We haven't tried since and everytime I suggest it; she refuses. How do I get her to overcome this and ride her bike?

Thank you all - it's the second week of half term next week and I'm off so I'm going to get it a good go. Let us pray!

Run along behind her holding her saddle and saying repeatedly, I've got you, I've got you, you can't fall.

It's back breaking work for about two weeks while they get the hang of it.

Then take your and her bikes to the nearest common or country park where there are no cars to worry about, and cycle with her to the nearest Ice cream van, have an ice cream as a reward for getting there and then cycle back to the car.

By the end of the summer she'll be an expert 🙂

Check out Gumtree for secondhand Frogs. I've sold both of ours on there. Or Facebook Marketplace.

My 3 (nearly 4) year old has just learnt to ride a bike with pedals. She was wizzing round on a balance bike first then DH ran holding tight to her coat as she pedalled so I would definitely try a) taking pedals off for now b) running along with her as she pedals when you reattach them. Doesn’t always work, her twin brother can’t master pedalling, looking up and steering the bike at the same time….

This was going to be my suggestion too.

Put the stabilisers back on to get her interested in the bike again. Then remove them but use a scarf or rolled towel or whatever around her waist - anything that you can hold up - so she learns balance while you are holding her up.

Take the pedals off, lower the seat and let her ride it like a balance bike. DS really struggled but got it in less than a week after that. Mind you. He was older than 6

Raise the stabilisers high so they are off the ground.

My eldest has hyper mobility and managed to tip a bike over completely with stabilisers on the ground. We started when she was six. It ended in tears - mainly mine!!

The consultant said she would never be able to do it - ever.

Aged 16 she set herself a challenge of doing it for Gold Duke of Edinburgh and learning it. I tried not to cry. We did without stabilisers on a full size adult bike. Oh my god - bloody horrendous. Two pedal and off and two pedals and off. It was shocking. 23 hours later over many many days - she could ride down a lane. For her it was physical and mental didn’t realise the more you pedal the easier to control - or knew but couldn’t do get her head around it.

This afternoon she getting an electric charged pedal assist bike 🚴 so she can go miles at a time!! Woohoo!!

With my son raise the stabilisers as high as possible gentle sloping road and he was off.

Next time stabilisers off - I showed him the video and it wasn’t using the stabilisers. £5 encouraged him!!

Check if your council offers free cycle lessons - ours does, run by Bikeability who you mentioned earlier. It may also be worth giving Bikeability a ring as they may know of other local schemes. Good luck, council lessons were the way we went and they worked brilliantly.

https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/get-active/2019/everyday-walking-and-cycling/teach-a-child-to-ride-a-bike-without-stabilisers-in-nine-steps

Agree that a lightweight bike designed to be easy for children to use makes a difference. Most kids bikes are novelty toys that happen to be bike-shaped, rather than being modes of transport!

If you're holding her up, you need to hold her, and not the bike. Otherwise she won't get the feel for how it moves side to side and won't learn how to balance.

I found a great YouTube video when we were teaching our eldest, I'll go find it.

I'm a youth cycling coach.

1. Take the pedals off the bike (remember that the left hand one has a reverse thread)
2. Adjust the saddle to a height where she can comfortably get both feet flat on the ground
3. You have now turned the bike into a balance bike
4. Encourage her to scoot with her feet and remind her to use the brakes to slow rather than dragging her feet
5. Once she is gliding for long distances, you can reattach the pedals and encourage her to pedal to maintain forward momentum
6. Once she is pedalling and braking confidently start raising the seat gradually (say 1cm each time) back up to the normal height (hip height on the child)

British Cycling have good resources on teaching children to ride here: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/getinvolved/article/20200325-getinvolved-Getting-the-most-out-of-UK-Ready-Set-Rid-0%20

As an aside, we don't ever advocate the use of stabilisers and find that they frequently result in the issue that you are seeing with your daughter - the balance bike approach (either with an actual balance bike, or a regular bike with the pedals taken off) is proven to be much more effective.

@Soigneur thank you so much! I will give it a crack next week and fingers crossed 🤞🏼🤞🏼

@bluebird98 you are not limited to Frog and Islabike - they are just the best known. As a PP has mentioned, they have Woom for their child and the Go Outdoors lightweight range is also very good. Squish is another excellent brand we owned at one point. At 6, I am assuming she will need 18/20 inch wheels. If she can comfortably touch with flat feet on a 20 inch bike, this is a good investment as it will have gears too.

Also check out Bikeclub for hiring a bike and then swapping for a bigger one when they are ready. The company that supply Forme went into administration so there were a good number of bargains on the remaining stock

Agree. Also get her to wear a hoody so you hold the hood, they feel as you are holding then you can let go.

I couldn't disagree more. The key to riding a bike is the balance - pedals can be mastered in minutes when as young as 3. Both my DC started on a balance bike and we did not introduce pedals until they could balance confidently going down gentle hills. They picked up the pedals within one bike ride and we have never had to help holding the seat.

With the heavier bikes, children will find balancing harder to master and climbing hills is much harder. Lighter bikes can also be sold for a price very similar to what they were bought for (if buying second hand). We have spent less than £100 on bikes from the age of 3 to 7 for 2 DC once taking into account the price they sold for. You will never be able to shift one of those heavy ones for anything more than £5-10 once they are grown out of

Dd wouldn't learn until we got new neighbours. They had a little boy about her age who was whizzing about on his bike. Peer pressure worked a treat - less than 3 weeks later she was riding her bike as if she'd been doing it for ages. She never did anything like walking unless she could see 'why' riding a bike was just the same.

Have a look at Cuda bikes, that's what our son had and it's lovely and lightweight, and whilst still not cheap they aren't as expensive as Frog for example

Cycling coach here:

Take her pedals off, and let her use her bike as a balance bike. This will teach her balance.

Alongside this, encourage her to pedal trikes etc (maybe at school) to develop the pedalling coordination. This is its own skill, and is more about intellectual development as physical development.

Once she is confident at both balance and pedalling, put the pedals backing her bike and try again. If she's mastered both skills, it should be pretty seamless.

This video might help

We did exactly what @Soigneur suggests.

Ds1 was tall so his next bike up didn't come with stabilisers. Chap in the bike shop said keep him on his current bike, remove the pedals and lower the seat until he can put his feet flat. They technically walk with the bike and then lift their legs when they get some speed.

Near to us is a park with a path that has a very slight downward slope, he kept going down this to get some speed up. Ds2 was just on a balance bike.

Once he could balance we put the pedals on and he would just go down this slope and then put his feet on the pedals, no pedalling to begin with just finding the pedals without looking down.

It is a step by step process. Balance is the hardest so you master that first. Try to find a slight slope somewhere. Good luck.

@bluebird98 islabikes and frog bikes both have preloved pages on Facebook. Frog bikes are used by The Bike Clib subscription service, but yiu can also buy them new, either direct or from a local stockist.

Cycle Sprog is a fantastic resource for you need to know about kids bikes and cycling.

Take the pedals (and cranks and chain if you can) off, make sure the seat is low enough she can easily get her feet on the ground and let her scoot around until she is confident having both her feet off the ground and steering.

On most bikes the left pedal unscrews clockwise btw!

Important that she learns to brake using the brakes and not by dragging her feet in the ground, otherwise she won't be able to brake when the pedals are back on.

We did this with ours until he was confident, then the transition to pedals was fine.

Mine rode through puddles, they thought it was great...and it worked.

Both my DDs were the same, especially the youngest. Eldest learnt to ride on grass (less painful if she fell off), youngest took longer but just persevered with holding the back of the seat, she did take a lot of convincing to have the stabilisers off though.
If she is really worried about it why not put the stabilisers back on for a few months so she forgets about it a bit then try again later in the summer? 6 is still quite little, plenty of time to learn