Cool Rider

Yesterday, just 6 weeks after his 3^rd birthday, Forest learned to ride a bike. Like a for real, no-training wheels bike. And though Jonathan and I would like to think he’s some sort of phenom, this trend of younger cyclists seems to be gaining ground. 

We first heard of it when Forest was around 18 months and hopped on a balance bike at a friend’s house. A balance bike is a toddler size bike without pedals. The jist is that toddlers simply learn to balance first, pedal later. Our friends told us that they’d heard of kids going straight from a balance bike to a pedal bike, skipping the training wheels step altogether, right around their 3^rd birthday. 

We were intrigued but put it out of our minds until one of Forest’s best buds was given a balance bike for his second birthday. Since we always went to the park with this friend and Forest was always asking if he could ride and sharing/taking turns was pretty tense, we decided to get him his own balance bike for his half birthday when he turned 2.5. He took to it much more than the scooter that was gathering dust in the back yard and within a week or two was coasting down hills with his feet up. 

He even got featured on Schwinn’s Instagram feed for being so stinkin adorable. By the time he was 2.75 he was just a blur and he rode his balance bike to the park nearly everyday with me jogging alongside. 

Soon he was bored with just going fast down hills and started incorporating jumps and stunts into his bicycling routine. We figured it was time to up his game and planned to get him a pedal bike for his 3^rd birthday. Well when my far-too-generous mom caught wind of this, she offered to get it as his birthday present from Nana and Pops. 

We got to researching the best bike for a toddler coming from a balance bike and learned of the Woom (pronounced ‘Voom’) line. It was way more expensive than I ever envisioned a bike for a toddler could be, but the website "Two Wheeling Tots" insisted that a bike is not a toy, it’s a vehicle, so basically- don’t buy a toy. Well I fell for that logic hook line and sinker and my mom and dad went along with it (perks of having an only child) and later that week a giant box with the most adorable bright green bike inside showed up on our doorstep. 

Since my parents were in town for F’s birthday, they got to witness the big reveal of his first real bike. 

We immediately  took him out for a test drive and I don’t know what I expected to happen- him magically just start pedaling away I guess- but he basically just treated it as a balance bike and was too distracted by the bike’s bell to concentrate on anything else. 

The next few weeks were a deluge of visitors and traveling and so we’d take the bike out for a spin in 5 minute chunks here and there and he got to where he could stay upright for a few feet before wobbling but just didn’t seem motivated all that much to ride the thing. 

Shortly after Jon left for Angola, I pulled a muscle in my back and couldn’t help to stabilize Forest on the bike so we decided to give it a rest until daddy got back. He was pleased as punch to go back to his ‘blue bike without the pedals’ again. When Jon returned from Angola we decided to let him have another go with the green bike, fibbing to him that his blue balance bike had a flat tire. 

We got about ¼ of a mile from the house with him refusing to pedal and just coasting on his bike as if it were a balance bike. We didn’t push the issue because we wanted him to be comfortable and not hate learning. We tried to convince him to try pedaling but he just didn’t seem interested. Then a cyclist came by and we pointed out the pedaling motion he was making and suddenly it just clicked. He wanted to try! And by golly within 60 seconds and with a push from daddy he was off. 

He even made a turn onto our street all by himself. By that afternoon he was racing down hills (Lord help us). 

He still has some difficulty going up hills and taking off without a push from us but I’m certain it won’t be long before he’s keeping up with the elementary kids in the neighborhood. He always looks longingly at the gang of grade school boys that play kickball down the street and when he rode by them yesterday he said ‘I’m riding a bike! I’m big!’ so I think he views bike riding as his ticket into the big boy club. It’s certainly a step in the right direction. 

And even though it’s becoming more common for 3 year olds to tackle this milestone, we are still bursting with pride over our little guy. What an awesome rite of passage, no matter the age!