# My daughter learning.



## Jennifer92 (5 May 2019)

Hi guys, I'm currently teaching my daughter how to ride her new bike be she wants to be like her mummy, daddy and big sister who can get to do cycling as a hobby. At the moment it's not going well because she keeps falling off, she has lots of cuts/bruises on her leg and arm from when she falls off plus there have been lots of tears.

Is there anyway we can teach her without her falling off ?


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## Slick (5 May 2019)

Balance bikes seem to be the way to go now.


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## classic33 (6 May 2019)

Stabilsers, removing one when she improves.


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## Sharky (6 May 2019)

My daughter took my grandson to the local park, where there was lots of grassy areas and gentle slopes. Falling off didn't hurt that much and he soon learned.


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## netman (6 May 2019)

I held on to the back of the saddle for my daughter and walked or trotted around with her. I could feel then when she was starting to get her balance and gradually let go whilst staying close while she got her confidence up - she was off in no time!


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## SkipdiverJohn (6 May 2019)

Jennifer92 said:


> Is there anyway we can teach her without her falling off ?



Not in my book there isn't. Falling off is an essential part of the learning process and coming to appreciate that falling off a bike hurts is what concentrates the mind to not fall off as quickly as possible. 
It's one of life's rites of passage, and the only way to learn is the hard way. Falling off = pain, staying upright = pleasure.
I had a crash course in bike riding when I was somewhere between 3 and 4 after snapping off a stabiliser on one side. I remember taking it back to my dad expecting him to put it back on, but he simply removed the other one as well and said I'd better learn to ride a "proper" bike now! It didn't take too many spills involving removing bits of dirt from grazed hands and knees for me to realise that it was much more fun if I didn't come off. Kids were rough and tumble when I was small and getting regular grazed and bruised bits was just regarded as one of those things, and didn't get much parental sympathy!


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## flake99please (6 May 2019)

If you are capable of doing so, remove the pedals and use as a balance bike.


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## steveindenmark (6 May 2019)

How old is your daughter.?

As far as I know she could be 21


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## Kempstonian (6 May 2019)

netman said:


> I held on to the back of the saddle for my daughter and walked or trotted around with her. I could feel then when she was starting to get her balance and gradually let go whilst staying close while she got her confidence up - she was off in no time!


My dad did that with me when I first learned to ride a bike. He held the saddle and walked with me. One day I said something and he never answered. When I looked he was about 100m away, having let go of the saddle without me noticing. I promptly fell off!


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## raleighnut (6 May 2019)

I'd go for the grassy park approach.


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## Heltor Chasca (6 May 2019)

raleighnut said:


> I'd go for the grassy park approach.



This.

I taught my oldest using stabilisers. I taught my youngest using a balance bike.

The youngest is better and has had less crashes. That said, my oldest goes through stages of being like an out of control rubber band. When she was a younger teen, she would just fall over. Teens and neuro coordination is a weird phenomenon. Teens are weird.


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## Globalti (6 May 2019)

Running along holding the saddle is the worst way. Remove the pedals, drop the saddle and let them learn to steer and balance by scooting the bike along with their feet. Very soon they will be asking you to re-fit the pedals.


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## sheddy (6 May 2019)

https://www.cyclinguk.org/guide/teach-child-ride-bike


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## Sharky (6 May 2019)

sheddy said:


> https://www.cyclinguk.org/guide/teach-child-ride-bike


That's a quality bike for a 4 yr old!


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## Phaeton (6 May 2019)

Globalti said:


> Running along holding the saddle is the worst way. Remove the pedals, drop the saddle and let them learn to steer and balance by scooting the bike along with their feet. Very soon they will be asking you to re-fit the pedals.


Like everything else in the world there is someone that will always disagree & on this occasion it's me, balance bike didn't work for my grandson, we went the stabilisers & then running around route, the running around bit was virtually sorted one afternoon. He also made leaps & bounds once he had one of those stunt scooters.


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## SkipdiverJohn (6 May 2019)

Sharky said:


> That's a quality bike for a 4 yr old!



It certainly is. My first one had solid rubber tyres with a big cut in the front one, and must have had about ten previous owners going by the amount of scrapes and lack of paint left on the frame! I think it was my first Raleigh.
Why are they putting cycling helmets on little kids who are only going slowly anyway? Seems a middle class phenomenon. Travel through a "nice" area and you'll see all these little ones turned out on shiny bikes wearing helmets with parents in attendance. Go to a rough area and all the little tearaways are bombing around on various cheapo machinery and not a helmet in sight. Just like all the kids I grew up with did.


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## LeetleGreyCells (6 May 2019)

sheddy said:


> https://www.cyclinguk.org/guide/teach-child-ride-bike


Good video, but I’d take the pedals off and do more scooting to practise balance first. 


Sharky said:


> That's a quality bike for a 4 yr old!


If you can afford one, an Islabike or Frog bike are the best kids bikes for a reason - they are very light (so your child isn’t having to work as hard due to the weight of a very cheap bike), and when your child is ready to use gears, the gear ratios are appropriate for the strength of the child to shift (my daughter couldn’t shift from 2nd to 1st gear on her cheap bike as she wasn’t strong enough to turn the gripshift the necessary distance, we bought a Frog and she had no problem). The other advantage of Islabikes and Frog bikes is that they hold their price second hand. I’d always suggest buying one second hand as kids grow out of bikes quickly. If you can’t afford an Islabike or Frog then you have to go with what you can afford, but I would always check the weight of the bike you are thinking of buying as it is especially important for kids - too heavier a bike that is hard to cycle could put your child off cycling. And we definitely do not want that!


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## Markymark (6 May 2019)

The only hard part is balancing, the pedalling bit is easy. Stabilisers stops you learning the hard part. 

Normal bike. Remove pedals. Learn to balance by coasting. As soon as they can do a few meters the pedals can go back on and they’ll be riding that day.


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## alicat (6 May 2019)

How old is she? Every child develops at a different rate. If she's not ready, a balance bike will help her feel like everyone else and also help her develop her balance (the crucial skill, as @Markymark says).

I didn't learn until I was 8, mainly because I didn't have a bike before then. It took v little time because I was the right age. Just riding up and down my uncle's long garden a few times with someone encouraging me to try again.


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## screenman (6 May 2019)

Sharky said:


> That's a quality bike for a 4 yr old!



Certainly still be worth good money when they come to sell it, unlike most BSO.


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## SkipdiverJohn (6 May 2019)

screenman said:


> Certainly still be worth good money when they come to sell it, unlike most BSO.



That's true - but only if it hasn't been wrecked or stolen by the time it gets outgrown. The trouble with most kids though is they are rough and careless with bikes, so they get crashed and dropped on the ground and left unattended and unlocked when their owner's attention has been distracted by something else.
I certainly used to bash and crash the used hand-me-downs that I rode when I was small. It's only when I got a bit older and bought my first new one _with my own money_, a basic all-steel Raleigh "racer", that I began to take much better care of bikes.
it would have been a waste of money buying expensive lightweight new bikes for the sort of rough and tumble kids I used to hang around with. The superior design would have been lost on us, and they would have been treated just as harshly as the cheaper, often secondhand, bikes we rode. They weren't what you'd call BSO's though; they tended to be pretty solid -which is why they had often already had several previous owners who had already outgrown them.


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## vickster (6 May 2019)

steveindenmark said:


> How old is your daughter.?
> 
> As far as I know she could be 21


Another post from the OP says her daughter is 6


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## Domus (6 May 2019)

My grandson loves his balance bike, he is almost ready for the next step. LBS were very helpful. Keep him on his balance bike as long as possible and miss out the 14" bike and go straight to 16" was their advice. He is four in July so we will see then.


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## Bazzer (6 May 2019)

IME it varies from child to child. My learning was saddle holding. My eldest learned on stabilisers and ditched them pretty quickly. My youngest on the other hand treated the stabilisers not as a stepping stone, but as a comfort blanket. So I reverted to saddle holding in the local park.
Very unscientific I know, but from what I have seen in recent years on Boxing Day in places such as Tatton Park, children on shiny new balance bikes or shiny new bikes made into balance bikes, seem much more assured on their new toy than those on bikes with stabilisers.


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## Vantage (6 May 2019)

Stick her on a slightly sloping grassy hill, preferably without a road or river at bottom, and push her down it. The speed she picks up will help her balance. 
I'd tried getting my youngest to balance for ages using different methods...removing one stabiliser, bending both stabilisers so the bike could rock side to side, removing the pedals etc. Nothing worked.
Chucked her down that hill on a nice sunny day with the promise of an ice cream if she didn't chicken out and she nailed it on her second go. She forgot about the ice cream and I could barely drag her off the bike when it was time to go home


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## steveindenmark (6 May 2019)

vickster said:


> Another post from the OP says her daughter is 6


Thats his other daughter


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## T4tomo (6 May 2019)

classic33 said:


> Stabilsers, removing one when she improves.



If using Stabilisers I would remove both before you start and throw away  and then remove pedals and use bike as a balance bike until they get the hang of scooting and balancing. Then put pedals back on and it’s relatively easy to make the final step of pedalling and balancing having sorted the balance bit first.


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## Julia9054 (6 May 2019)

steveindenmark said:


> Thats his other daughter


The op is called Jennifer92.
Why would you assume it is a man?


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## ianbarton (6 May 2019)

classic33 said:


> Stabilsers, removing one when she improves.


60 years ago when I first learned to ride on two wheels this was how I learned. The final stage was taking me to an area with a large plot of level grass. The final stabilizer was removed and someone held me upright as I started to pedal. At the far end of the "lawn", someone else caught me as I slowed down. After a couple of goes, I was able to start and stop by myself and ended up cycling the mile or so back home along the road. Luckily, there wasn't much traffic on the roads in the 1960s.


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## keithmac (6 May 2019)

It took my lad an hour to get it all right on his bike, he was 6?, took him to local flat park.

My daughter's 7, did an old bike up for her, nice and light aluminium frame, put it in low gear so she can pedal easily.

She's not in the slightest bit interested!. Two brand new tyres down the drain..


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## bladderhead (6 May 2019)

Lower the saddle so she can get her feet down easily. Remove the pedals. The balancing is the hard part. Once she can balance she can start pedalling. Best if you can find a place with a slight downslope, because there it is easier to get away from a standing start. Tarmac is better than grass, because the bike will roll more easily.

You could even get her a recumbent.


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## Ming the Merciless (6 May 2019)

Dogtrousers said:


> Made me chuckle



But her daughter might be training for triathlon, she could practise a bike / swim transition.


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## steveindenmark (6 May 2019)

Julia9054 said:


> The op is called Jennifer92.
> Why would you assume it is a man?


I didnt look at the ops name. It would not be an unusual assumption on here as about 90% of the members are men. No offense intended.


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## alvintc (6 May 2019)

My 5 year old has been solo for about 3 months. Started on a BSO then I caved & he's on a frog (2 younger kids so the costs stack up).

I used the Islabikes video. He was on his own in about 20 minutes (me alongside), then within the 45 he was off. He's had balance bikes & never used stabilisers.


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## steven1988 (6 May 2019)

Check out the ready set ride app by british cycling, lots of pointers and lots of on and off bike games to play to make teaching fun rather than scary.


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## Milkfloat (6 May 2019)

My daughter was easy, I set her up in a park pointed towards the cafe and told her when she can cycle all the way there on her own then she could have a slice of chocolate cake. She made it pretty easily.


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## vickster (7 May 2019)

steveindenmark said:


> Thats his other daughter


How do you know? The could be another older child


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## byegad (7 May 2019)

flake99please said:


> If you are capable of doing so, remove the pedals and use as a balance bike.


This is the way to go, also drop the saddle so she can get her feet flat on the ground. Let her play with it like that and she'll soon be asking for the pedals to be refitted. It worked with all three of my grandchildren.


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## KneesUp (7 May 2019)

DD took a while to learn. She was good on a scooter (terrifyingly fast, in fact) but couldn't 'get' cycling at first -she kept forgetting to pedal. She was ok rolling down a (grassy) hill. The 'hold on to the saddle' thing worked quite well, but there is only so far you can run when you are bent double so I got one of those handle-things that attach at the rear wheel, so I could at least stand up straight. That was quite good. Stabilisers less so - they create too much drag on the grass. When she got disheatened by falling off I made up the statistic that on average it takes 200 fallings-off before people can ride a bike. I didn't expect her to keep count, but she did, and would then get back on saying 'only 190 fallings-off to go!' and stuff. Fortunately she learned before she got to 200


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## Slick (12 May 2019)

Nip on wee man.


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## lane (12 May 2019)

My son learnt quickly my daughter struggled. They went away for a short holiday with the grandparents. I said see if you can get her riding her bike. Went to collect them a few days later she was riding - but my mum could barely walk becasue she had run over her foot in the process.


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## Julia9054 (12 May 2019)

Eldest took ages to learn. No concept of using his body to balance - a difficult thing to explain to a child who can't feel it naturally .
Took the youngest's stabilizers off and the phone went. Told him "don't move" whilst i answered it. Came back out the house and he was half way down the bloody street!


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