Two wheels and pedals


So Mallory did it today. She's riding her bicycle with pedals and no training wheels.


So Mallory did it today. She’s riding her bicycle with pedals and no training wheels.

The key was removing the pedals and the training wheels and getting her to use it as a push bike. Irene had observed her earlier in the week gliding along, feet off the ground, for half a block and had said she was ready.

When she came back from this morning’s birthday party, she declared, “Daddy I want you to put the pedals on my two wheeled bike but leave the training wheels off.”

So at our friend Greg’s suggestion, I grabbed her pedals and a pair of vice grips and we went off to find a dead end street. I observed with my own eyes how she was able to balance. Excitement was everywhere. On went the pedals.

A bit of coaching about where the lead pedal had to be when starting off (the bike brakes if you pedal backwards) and she was off.

Thanks to Lou Arab for suggesting removing the pedals. It was a game changer, dude.

Irene and I are very proud parents this evening.

Tags

13 Comments

  1. @cmkl Wow! You must be so proud! Glad now we chose the push bike route this year… clearly it worked for M.

  2. Daniel is very nearly 7 and not yet riding without training wheels (well, he’s made us remove them but not he just won’t ride). Mallory is a prodigy. Also, going to try the pedal removing.

Comments are closed.