Why Stabilisers don’t work!

Stabilisers on a kids bike hinder a child from learning to balance

It is a big statement considering how many kids’ bikes come fitted for young children. For 2022, it is time to ditch them! Disclaimer: Our kids started on a bike with stabilisers, and it simply didn’t help them learn to ride a bike. This made us start our kids bicycle company back in 2009, so we are a little biased.

The Skills needed to ride a bike.

When learning to ride a pedal bike, there are two fundamental skills you must master; pedalling and balance. Traditionally the kids’ bike industry used two extra small wheels fitted to the rear wheel to support the bike upright whilst the child learned to use the pedals.

Reasons to avoid training wheels!

• They don’t teach a child to balance.
  A bicycle with two wheels is unstable. It will not hold itself up. This is where the concept of fitting two small extra wheels came from. To keep the bike held upright, allowing the child to focus on pedalling whilst not tipping over. Of course, you are back to square one when you take the support away—tipping over.
• Bikes become too heavy and hard to move along.
  A pedal bike needs pedals, cranks, a chain, chain-guard etc. These all add a lot of weight, so starter bikes are heavy. Far too heavy in proportion to the child using them. They add cost, look ugly and are impossible to carry home from nursery or if your child doesn’t want to ride.
• Kids Stabilisers teach bad habits.
  To balance, a child needs to feel the shift in the bike as it falls to one side and learn to counteract it. A rider will change their position to bring the bike back up-right. Kids Stabilisers don’t allow this as they support the cycle instead. Worse, the rider has typically to lean in the wrong direction to counteract the support wheels tilting the bike at an angle, as pavements are rarely horizontal.
• Bikes fitted with stabilisers make the ride slow are no fun!
  Check out any park, and you see always see some child pedalling a heavy bike with training wheels around the paths. They can’t go quickly, they can’t go over grass, and they certainly can’t go off-road. Skatepark and cycle trails through woods are out. It’s not a lot of fun; hence they get fed up and won’t go long distances on family bike rides.
• Once you remove them, you still have to learn to balance.
  One minute the child is supported upright on a bike. Then you remove the supports, but as no balance has yet been learnt, inevitably, the child still can’t ride. Crashes, frustration, and wobbles all lead to a lack of confidence and reluctance to cycle.

Sustrans did a study that showed that only 2% of children cycle to school. Government-funded programmes such as Bikeability are improving the situation, with Primary school-aged children getting taught road safety. However, to be ready to join in with this, the child needs to be riding a pedal bike beforehand. We are firm believers that starting on a balance bike allows kids to learn to ride far easier than using stabilisers. By starting children younger, we can encourage kids to use cycling as a method of transportation.

A better way. Teach balance first, pedalling later.

Turning two pedals is easy. However, if you can get the more complex skill of learning to balance nailed first when you then fit pedals, they will cycle off.

How do we do that? Easy, with a balance bike. Balance bikes are as simple as they sound; they have no pedals, no chain, no way to propel and gain momentum other than using your feet.

Children learning to ride on a balance bike solve the balancing problem first. Kids naturally interact with a balance bike because their feet can always stay on the ground, the seat is low, giving a lower point of gravity and a more secure feeling. We cover this in detail in our Bike Size Guide

Most parents remember their experience of learning to ride a bike, and for most, it includes painful memories with those heavy unstable bikes. It’s a new generation and a new way to teach kids, but it works. Balance bike vs a bike with stabilisers.. and the winner is…the Balance Bike