# balance bike - is it worth it?



## omelette (Jul 20, 2006)

My son is almost 4.5 and I'm wondering if it would be too late to get one. He's got a 2 wheeler with trainers but relies completely on the trainers to ride (no sense of balance on a bike). I think he'd benefit huge from a balance bike but I have to convince dh. Think it's worth it?


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## 98741 (May 17, 2006)

I got one for my 2 yo but my 4 yo is the one that rides it. She loves it. Our neighbor, just turned 5, loves it as well and can ride a non trainer bike now because of it. I've been very happy with having spent the $ on ours.


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## RaeDyCo (Jul 21, 2010)

My DS1 (3) loves his balance bike -- I got a SmartGears bike on mamabargains.com (waited for it to come up, they usually have balance bikes once every couple weeks) and it was $42. It has been fantastic and DS1 loves it and is balancing very well.

Is it worth the money? For us, absolutely because we also have DS2 (7 months now) who will use it. I'm not sure if I would have spent the money if DS1 was older, no one else to use it.


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## Alison's Mom (May 3, 2007)

We bought one when DD was 3 - she used it that summer, then DH (who is not totally on board with them) decided she should have a 'proper bike' the next summer, so it was passed down to DS who was 2.5 at the time. He mastered it and was zipping around and balancing with his feet up for good stretches. We had them start bike camp this week where he had to have a pedal bike, so we bought him one a week ago, and unfortunately, I'm not seeing his sense of balance from the balance bike translate to an easier time weaning him off training wheels, but we'll see what happens the rest of the week.


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## whoami (Nov 24, 2009)

Balance bikes are great, but you don't need to buy a whole new bike. My sons balance bike started out as a huffy with trainers and my fiance converted it into a balance bike. He did a complete strip down to fit a 2 year old, but your son is bigger so you can get by with simply taking the pedals and cranks off. Once your sons mastered the balancing you can put back on the pedals and cranks back on and it should be easier for him to learn without trainers.


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## Ceinwen (Jul 1, 2004)

My 7.5 year old can not not not seem to get the hang of riding a bike (with or w/o training wheels) so I'm def. getting a balance bike for my 2.5 year old.


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## ecoteat (Mar 3, 2006)

I'm not sold on them yet, but maybe more time with it will change my mind. We bought one for dd's 3rd birthday (she turned 4 last May). We searched high and low for one low enough for her tiny legs and paid way too much for it. I wanted to get a regular little bike and take off the pedals, but they were all too tall still. Anyway, she wasn't at all interested in it last summer. This year she'll walk around with it between her legs and sometimes put her feet on the pegs while an adult is holding it up and steering, but she has never gotten the thing to balance. Now she's asking for a regular bike with training wheels. I told her when she can ride the balance bike we can get her a bike with pedals, but at this rate it will never happen!


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## cycle (Nov 18, 2004)

Yes, they teach kids balance. I got ds one when he was 18 months old (he was tall and could use it). He got the hang of it right away. He never used training wheels and was riding a two wheeler when he was 3 years old. He is 5 now and is a great cyclist! When I bought his balance bike it was before they were being manufactured by any US companies so I bought it from a Dutch company and paid a lot more for it, so yes I think its well worth the money.


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## AllisonR (May 5, 2006)

Yes, worth it 100000%. Really. 5 yo Ds and 3 yo DD are pros at bike riding, and I credit a lot to the access to balance bikes. In fact, DS had training wheels for about 6 months and I think it held him way back. He didn't learn to ride a proper bike until he was 5. But DD never had training wheels. She had a 3 wheeler she learned to pedal on and a balance bike she learned to balance on, and so combining this was easy and she was using a proper bike well before she was 3.5 yo. Also, like everything else, practice helps. We bike home from daycare every day, so this gave both of them tons of experience with traffic and biking, first with the 3 wheeler, then the balance bike, then the proper bike.


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## lovingmommyhood (Jul 28, 2006)

DEFINITELY!!! I learned about them on MDC and got one for my now four year old when he was two. He learned to ride it right away and could go just as fast as his older brother on his regular bike. He, at three was riding a two wheeler where as my eldest son was on training wheels until he was five. We got the Strider bike and now started our two year old on her own.

Very worth it!


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## confustication (Mar 18, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Ceinwen* 
My 7.5 year old can not not not seem to get the hang of riding a bike (with or w/o training wheels) so I'm def. getting a balance bike for my 2.5 year old.

My daughter just mastered it this year at 8.5

Taking the pedals off so she could experiment with it as a balance bike was huge in terms of helping her.


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## tatermom (Jun 11, 2005)

My older DS started riding a balance bike around his 3rd birthday, and was riding a regular two-wheeler, with pedals and no training wheels, by 3 1/2. So, yes, it was totally worth it!!

You do NOT need to buy a fancy (and super expensive!) balance bike for less than a year's worth of use... it's very easy to take the pedals, crank and chain off a regular bike. For DS2's 3rd birthday, we just bought him a used (but new-looking!) 12 inch bike and took off everything related to pedaling. It took me about an hour to do, and it now looks exactly like the fancy balance bike we had borrowed from our neighbor when DS1 was learning to ride, except that there's a hole where the pedals used to be.

I'm a big believer in balance bikes now!


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## bobandjess99 (Aug 1, 2005)

Yep, i lost my mind and forgot about balance bikes, so we foolishly bought dd a traning wheel bike at age 3, and she used it for summer, then at age 4, she got the balance bike - it took her about 2 weeks of practice (it rained a lot, it was really only about 4 days total within the 2 week span!!) and she had it! She has ridden a 2 wheel bike ever since then!!!!!!!


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## ramama (Apr 13, 2007)

I think balance bikes are a cool toy, but I don't think they're all they're cracked up to be. Kind of a fad. There are two elements to riding a bike, balance and pedaling. You can't learn to pedal while on a balance bike, obviously







therefore a kid can't learn to ride a bike on a balance bike. I just think that kids have been learning to ride bikes with pedals forever, and I just don't see the need for an intermediary "bike."

Once upon a time I was tempted to turn my daughter's bike into a balance bike. She had been riding it around forever (she was 4) with training wheels and the chain kept falling off. I took the training wheels off first, and went inside to get a different tool to get the rest of the stuff off. Through the window, I hear DD asking DH to put the chain back on, and when I came out not two minutes later, DD was GONE. DH said she just took off. I asked if he put the training wheels back on, he said no. I was baffled. Moral of the story is, regular bikes teach kids balance just fine too. Plus pedaling.

Again, I think they're cool and if we could have afforded a balance bike, we may have tried it out. Just for the cool factor







But do they really teach kids to ride a regular bike faster? I highly doubt it. There are many ways to improve balance but a kid can only learn to pedal while doing it on a regular bike.


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## LuckyMommaToo (Aug 14, 2003)

Quote:

But do they really teach kids to ride a regular bike faster? I highly doubt it.
Hmmmm. I think I respectfully disagree with this. We have never owned a trike, although both kids have occasionally ridden them at friends' houses. DS had only his balance bike to ride for more than a year. When we gave him his two-wheeler (no training wheels) for his birthday, he literally hopped on it and took off down the sidewalk. I held on for the first house and then couldn't keep up. So for us, the balance bike was in lieu of a trike and worked beautifully.

Also, they may be a "fad," but they are seriously so FUN. DD, now four, can go so FAST on the balance bike, much faster than a trike could go. She rides it constantly, indoors and out.

But YMMV, of course.
-e


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## syd'smom (Sep 23, 2008)

We got one for dd this spring (she's 3.5). She loves it! I so wish we had got it 2 years ago when she was 1.5yo. We got the strider and both the seat and the handles go quite low and quite high (dd is very petite and has never been able to reach the pedals on a trike).

She zooms so fast on that thing. She coasts with her feet up. It is amazing. I'm guessing that next summer we will have to buy her her own bike - without training wheels, and ds whill get the balance bike.

Our neighbours have 3yo twins and bought them bikes with trainers this summer. We went out to ride with them. Both parents had to hold up the girls (even with the training wheels on) and run after them, holding them to keep them from falling off. DD went zooming by them on her strider while we watched. The twins both wanted to try the balance bike and found it much more fun.

I think the thing I like about it is that the kids learns how to do it. I don't have to hold her and help her. She gets to do it all on her own, and I know she will transition to a 2-wheeler without trainers much faster.


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## ramama (Apr 13, 2007)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *LuckyMommaToo* 
Hmmmm. I think I respectfully disagree with this. We have never owned a trike, although both kids have occasionally ridden them at friends' houses. DS had only his balance bike to ride for more than a year. When we gave him his two-wheeler (no training wheels) for his birthday, he literally hopped on it and took off down the sidewalk. I held on for the first house and then couldn't keep up. So for us, the balance bike was in lieu of a trike and worked beautifully.

Also, they may be a "fad," but they are seriously so FUN. DD, now four, can go so FAST on the balance bike, much faster than a trike could go. She rides it constantly, indoors and out.

But YMMV, of course.
-e

I do think it varies according to the child. My oldest DD would have had fun on a balance bike (which is why I was trying to convert her bike into one). She has a need for speed. My youngest DD, however, would be terrified by a balance bike. Some kids are easily frustrated by the differences between their desires and their abilities. They want to zip around but just cannot handle a pedal bike without training wheels. Balance bikes ARE fun, but I think of them as a replacement for a trike, not as a tool to specifically teach a child to ride a pedal bike. Some kids will learn to ride a bike through a balance bike, but I don't think that across-the-board they help children ride pedal bikes earlier than they would have otherwise.

By last post came out kind of close-minded and well...bitchy LOL. But I'll never learn to wait until after my first cup of coffee to post on MDC...


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## LuckyMommaToo (Aug 14, 2003)

Quote:

Balance bikes ARE fun, but I think of them as a replacement for a trike, not as a tool to specifically teach a child to ride a pedal bike.
Yes, we bought ours as a fun alternative to a trike, not specifically to teach our two-year-old to ride a pedal bike.


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## Cavy (Aug 21, 2009)

I could never stomach the cost of a balance bike so have never had one. Would be happy to have one if it were a gift, but...

tbh, it's not balance bikes that are over-rated but the idea of learning to ride without training wheels early that gets over-rated -- it's not that special. In fact, it's a nuisance because they your kids can get away from you much too fast when they are still too young to have any road sense.

As for enabling a sense of balance, they can get that in lots of other ways (2 wheel folding metal scooters are more convenient than a balance bike, for instance).

Like I said, we never had a balance bike, but my children were respectively cycling without training wheels at 4y7m, 4y10m, and just under 4yo. And all of them wanted to cycle with me on the road as soon as they could do that, which was a huge pain in the proverbial.


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## Cavy (Aug 21, 2009)

Also, if you do get a balance bike, make sure it has a brake! A lot of models don't.


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## pitter_patter (Jan 16, 2007)

As others have said, I would take the pedals off a regular bike. My son learned to ride his two wheeler at 3.5, he never used a balance bike. He rode with the training wheels all the way down for a few months, then we gradually twisted them up so he wasn't relying on them. One day I realized he wasn't using the wheels at all and took them off. He was off like he'd been doing this his whole life, it was amazing.


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## omelette (Jul 20, 2006)

Well, I think I'm convinced. I've pretty much talked dh into it b/c we have a babe who will get to use it eventually and then I'm sure we can sell it no problem.
I'm going to start looking for both a balance bike and a used bike we can take the peddles off of.


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## mizzoh (Sep 9, 2008)

does your ds want one? the only reason i ask is that we did something similar to you - had the regular bike with training wheels first, and then got a balance bike. the only problem is that ds wouldn't use the balance bike. he was perfectly happy riding around using the training wheels and since he was used to that, he didn't even want to try the balance bike ( i guess to him he was alreasy riding fast, so why try something slow like learning to balance). i really wish we hadn't bought one and instead just took off the pedals of his 2-wheeler when he was ready to try learning without the training wheels


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## JayGee (Oct 5, 2002)

Check around at your local bike shops ~ I recently discovered that ours has a trade in program. Buy the balance bike for $98. When your child has mastered it, bring the balance bike back for a $75 credit towards their first two-wheeler







.


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## Marinamay (Aug 27, 2009)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *pitter_patter* 
As others have said, I would take the pedals off a regular bike. My son learned to ride his two wheeler at 3.5, he never used a balance bike. He rode with the training wheels all the way down for a few months, then we gradually twisted them up so he wasn't relying on them. One day I realized he wasn't using the wheels at all and took them off. He was off like he'd been doing this his whole life, it was amazing.

Not so fast. It depends on at what age you would like your child to learn to balance/ride. Certainly you can simply remove the pedals of a bike for balance training if the bike is for a 3.5-5 year old. But balance trainers teach children under 2 how to balance! You can't do that with a regular bike with pedals removed because they are still too tall/heavy. We bought a laufrad from kinderbike for our 17-month old because it was lightweight and low to the ground and our lil' one loves it. I'd say a balance bike is worth the investment if your child is younger. If you get a good quality one like we did you should also be able to resell it and recoup most of your money.


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