Learning to Ride a Bike, Minus Skinned Knees

I learned to ride a two-wheeler when I was about six years old. As I recall, my dad ran up and down the sidewalk in front of our house, holding onto the seat of my bike. Every so often, he'd let go, I'd wobble a few feet and then wipe out. Many scrapes and tears later, I was riding.

Cameron recently told me that he wanted to learn to ride a two-wheeler. He can speed around with his training wheels and I'd noticed that many kids even younger than Cameron can ride two-wheelers. Yet, I cringed at the thought of beautiful spring evenings spent running up and down the block, as well as bandaging knees and elbows.

Being who I am, I began to research options on the internet. To my amazement, there seems to have been an advance in two-wheel instruction since my childhood: the balance bike. The balance bike is basically a small, two-wheel bike with no gears, chains or pedals. It's powered by foot and, as the child picks up speed, he can lift his feet off the ground, thus learning to balance. This technique earned rave reviews and when I found a balance bike on Amazon at 60% off retail plus free shipping, I was sold.

The balance bike arrived today and Cameron couldn't stop smiling. He hopped on,gave a few tentative pushes, and was soon experimenting with lifting his feet off the ground.And when he tipped to one side, he simply put his foot down -- no blood involved!"Whoa!" he cried. "Did you see me? I was going so fast! And my feet OFF the ground!" I'm pretty confident that he'll be pedaling his two-wheeler with confidence soon and Matthew is desperate for his own shot at the balance bike!