How I Taught My Kids to Bike Without Training Wheels

By Maddy
Child learning to ride a bike

Many people have asked me how to teach their kids to ride a bike. Here's what worked for us.

Every kid is different. My daughter was riding at age 4, while my son didn't learn until 8. It's important not to push learning to ride — it can be scary and frustrating. Let them lead.

Step 1: Get the right sized bike

If it's too tall or too short, it'll be uncomfortable. Measure the child's pant inseam to determine the appropriate wheel size. When my daughter was 4, she was using a 16" wheel. My son was on a 20".

Step 2: Remove the pedals

This is key. Take off the pedals to turn the bike into a balance bike. This works for any age. Let them ride like this until they clearly master balance plus steering.

For my son, this phase lasted about 2 months. For my daughter, it lasted about a year.

The goal: steering and balance become second nature.

Side note — it's normal for their butt to hurt in the beginning. They're building new muscles. You can buy extra seat padding or padded pants, but I suggest having them work through it.

Step 3: Add the pedals back

Once they've mastered the balance bike phase, add the pedals. Both of my children told me when they were ready and asked me to put the pedals on.

You want steering and balance to be seamless because once you add pedals, they'll struggle most with getting their feet on them quickly before falling over.

Step 4: Practice starting

The most important thing at this stage is helping them build confidence — specifically learning how their feet can find the pedals quickly to gain momentum.

This stage can be extremely frustrating and scary (especially when they fall), so your job is to keep morale up. Two things help:

  • Hold the back of the bike while they practice.
  • Start on a slight decline. Even a very small hill lets gravity do some of the work so they can focus on the pedals.

Step 5: Keep practicing

Once they get the hang of it, keep them at it and watch them discover the love of cycling.

What We Use

My kids started with Cleary bikes — use promo code CARGOBIKEMOMMA for $20 off (even during sales).

For helmets, we use Bern — promo code cargobikemomma20 for 20% off.

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