“I bet you can’t run over Dad,” my wife said, sacrificing me.
Earlier in the day, we had taken Thomas to the park to practice riding his bike. It was a beautiful winter day, warm enough that you didn’t need a coat, and since school was out for Christmas break, the park was full of moral support.
“You’ve got this!” said a man walking his dog, as we pleaded with Thomas to try riding his bike one more time. I’m not exactly sure to whom the man was directing his comment, but I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.
“My helmet is too itchy! This is too hard! I don’t like bikes!” Thomas lamented.
Santa Clause brought Thomas a “big boy” bike with no training wheels, and we thought it would be the centerpiece of his Christmas, but it quickly became the centerpiece of parent-child conflict. Thomas barely showed any interest in the bike, preferring his toy monster trucks and Legos. We had hoped taking him to the park would give him a chance to focus on the bike, but mostly he just wanted to join the other kids on the playground.
“You have to make one loop around the park on your bike before you can go play on the playground,” we said, not realizing that we had just committed ourselves to a thirty minute journey that felt one second short of eternity. So it is no wonder when we got home that day, when my wife desperately challenged Thomas to run me over in the yard, that he finally straddled the seat with a sense of determination on his face–and grinned. At the very least, this was progress. An hour or so earlier at the park, he was kicking the bike in frustration and we were kicking ourselves as parents.
“Just coast down the hill, don’t even try to peddle,” my wife said, giving him a hopeful push. But in his desire to flatten his dear ole Dad, he not only coasted but naturally pedaled to pick up speed. Finally, it clicked. Thomas was not only controlling the direction of his bike but providing locomotion for it. He made it to me, I fell over for dramatic flair, and now he wanted to ride, again and again.
Here is a video of one of his subsequent rides.
A burgeoning bike rider
Thankfully, my husband did most of the work teaching our daughter how to ride. And I can’t remember if we tried the “no pedal” method, but I’ve read it’s the way to go (https://www.bikemaine.org/2025/08/the-secret-to-teaching-your-kid-to-ride-a-bike-remove-the-pedals/). In fact, no pedal bikes are quite common in Europe and becoming more so here. Something about kids first learning to balance, rather than learning to pedal and balance at the same time.
Might be worth a try?
Of course, it’s easy for me to make suggestions when I don’t have to do the work. In fact, offering ideas that require no labor on my part one of my favorite activities.
Good luck!
Yay, Thomas! And you may have inspired Peter who has been working on it for a while (started with a balance bike, but the wobble of a big boy bike freaked him out and we have training wheels). He watched and asked how old Thomas is, then he thought about it and said “but I can run faster”. Funny boy. I did tell him that Thomas likes Legos and monster trucks…and he goes “just like me!”
Thomas was the same way. We tried in on a nice level surface at the park, but Thomas hated it. I think the trick is to find him a good grassy hill that he coast down pretty fast and he’ll love it and he’ll eventually just start pedaling naturally. We also lowered his seat all the way down so he can stick his legs out easier and that also seem to help some