When the kids were 3 and 5, I signed them up for Pedalheads, an intensive one week half day camp to teach the kids how to ride bicycles. It seemed all my friends were doing it too. On some days after the drop off, I would observe the camp from a distance. I saw some kids crashing into others, which explains how my older kid's fender got dented. And during this 2.5 hour lesson, I'd see them spending time just hanging out at the playground.
The intention is to have all kids without training wheels at the end of the week. This worked for my eldest, but not for the youngest. But neither of them could ride. I was told that 90% of the kids learn to ride within the week. So, mine are the 10% that do not. What are the odds of two kids failing to learn? That is 0.10*0.10=0.01. 1/100. I spent $360, each kid at $180, to be the 1/100 parents with this outcome. The youngest was probably too young, but I knew plenty of friends' kids who learned at that age.
Over the next four years, I let my husband teach the kids. Both of us would run around holding on to the kids' handlebars and seats and get... bad backs. Of course, this is an exaggeration, as the actual number of attempts was something like once a year. Also, the kids would say they didn't want to try, that they were too afraid of falling. The eldest was almost there. If you pushed her for a start, she could continue pedalling and stop by herself. But she refused to try to start.
The kids did two triathlons with us holding on or using training wheels.
It had become embarrassing. My husband and I are avid cyclists, both of us cyclist commuters and he a competitive road cyclist and me a triathlete.
Pedalheads does not give discounts for second time repeaters. I was considering Pedalheads again and was right about to sign them up, to my husband's objections, when I did some basic research on how to teach kids to ride. I came up with Sheldon Brown's site. It's quite comprehensive.
Next I found the Holy Grail: a Youtube clip which shows a non-profit group in New York City, Bike New York which offers the course "Teach Your Child to Ride a Bike."
Rich Conroy of that group explains that the pedals are taken off and the seat is lowered so that the learner can rest their feet flat on the ground. The child then is told to walk the bike forward while looking ahead and try to make it go as fast as they can. When the bike is going, they can try to lift their feet off the ground and balance.
So on Sunday I told the kids, "Today you will both learn to ride a bike." At first we started them on a slightly sloping parking lot, starting them on the high part of it. I decided not to remove the pedals because I was convinced that we would be needing the pedals very soon and it would be too much trouble to remove then put them back on again.
After 20 minutes of practising with the youngest, my elder daughter who had been singing "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" and zooming all around the parking lot after getting a start from the slope, wiped out and hurt herself badly. She said her hand was broken, and she had scrapes on her knee. Inside I was thinking of quitting, but I just told her that when she falls off, she needs to start again or she would never learn.
I showed her how to put the right pedal at 2:00 o'clock and use the left leg for balance, and to push off with the right leg against the right pedal. She took off immediately. That was it. One down, one to go.
Meanwhile, my husband had reverted back to pushing the youngest around holding on to the bike and she crashed. She now refused to have her father teach her.
We started her on a very slightly sloping paved play area. She kept practising pushing off hard with both feet and trying to balance. (Unfortunately I had already forgotten the method espoused by Rich Conroy... about walking forward as quickly as they can). Despite my ineptitude, it was clear on each new launch that she glided just a little bit longer. Finally she made it all the way clear to the other side of the lot! It was a breakthrough.
It wasn't a steady line of progress upward, but the pattern of longer glides was there. Meanwhile I had to deal with a constant stream of pessimism from her. "I'm never going to be able to do that again." And then I would point out that she was able to do it again when she went further.
The next step was adding pedalling. I just told her that after she pushes off, that when she's gliding to put her feet on the pedals. The best thing about this method is that the child directs the rate of progress. I told her to try when she is ready. And no sore backs for the parents.
The final step was starting to pedal from a dead stop. I showed her the two o'clock position, but she ended up ignoring me and finding her own way of starting. She insisted she needed the left pedal in the right position.
Time from removing training wheels to riding fully by herself: One hour. It might have been faster without all the negative self talk, or if she wasn't so afraid from previous falls. She also said it was helpful to see her sister ride first, so she knew it was possible.
Now the kids want to go bike riding every day.
(Update August 2013: I used my method to teach my brother's kids how to ride. They had been using training wheels. We spent around 1.5 hours teaching the 4 and 6 year old how to ride. After about an hour, they learned how to balance. Unfortunately, my brother kept going against my advice and sometimes held on to the kids' bikes with the kids in the saddle while he brought them back to the start of the hill to try again. I wonder if that made them unlearn the balancing, because each time after he did that, they would do a lousy job balancing on the next attempt.
The other problem was that the saddle was causing discomfort because one of the bicycles was too high, leading to too much pressure on the contact area. So this led to an early abandonment of the effort. Given more time, they probably would have "got it" because they were SO CLOSE. They were already on the putting the feet on the pedals stage, but we ran out of time on the last day as the sun went down and it was bed time. I hope they can remember the feeling of balance the next time they learn.)
