Teaching your child to ride a bike

Kids learn to ride a bicycle through several phases: balancing, braking and pedalling.

Read on to find out more about our full programme for helping your kid ride their first bike!

1. Controlling the bike

When the bike has been carefully chosen and adjusted to the child's height (the child's back should be straight and both feet flat on the floor), get your young cyclist in the saddle.

Make them stay still, show them the locations of the pedals, brakes, etc. Let them tame the beast!

You can then continue the observation stage by putting the bike upside down:
- You can then show them the purpose of pedaling (as it is pedaling which turns the wheels!) and the brakes (by pressing the handles, the wheels stop moving)

Tips for best braking methods:
- Use both front and rear brakes to slow your bike down (Best practice: Move your weight back when you braking, it can avoid the body forward to fly out)
- Front Braking: Strong braking force, able to slow down over short distances (If used the brake too hard, there will be a chance of turning over)
- Rear Braking: Braking force is softer than the head brake and is easier to handle (If used the brake too hard, there will be a chance of lock the tyres and lose balance force)

CYCLING | HOW TO TEACH YOUR CHILD TO RIDE A BIKE?

2. Finding and keeping their balance

If the child is older than 3/4 years and has never used a balance bike, you can try removing the pedals from their bike to turn it into a homemade balance bike.

It's a good way to help them learn to find their balance and learn to ride their bike like the big kids.

The most important things for this stage:
- Explain that the bike will go in the direction they are looking (avoid falling off the bike)
- When they have understood the principles of staying balanced, the next element to add is speed

3. Learning to push off

A key step! Try it out using the "1, 2, 3 go" game, where kids should aim to achieve pushing off on their own.

Here are the steps:
- Push with the feet (like on a balance bike) for three seconds
- Lift the feet onto the pedals
- Pedal! You can vary the number of seconds you give them to lift their feet; it could be 4 seconds, sometimes 6…

You should also remind them to always pedal and give them the rhythm: “Pedal, pedal, pedal…”

4. Following a route

Your child knows how to start, pedal, and brake, and that's great. But sooner or later,
they will need to turn or avoid an obstacle.

You can start by giving them goals, always in the form of a game:
- You can use cones, trees, the house at the end of the road... whatever works, so long as there's only one push-off

- The "going on holiday" game can also be helpful in ensuring your kid keeps focus on one point without wavering

Set up 3 cones, each representing 3 places to go on holiday. For example, a blue cone could be the beach. A yellow one could be the mountains, and a white one a pool.

Ask them where they would like to go first and remind them that they need to always look in that direction.