Balance bikes the best

Do you remember that feeling as a kid when you finally learned to ride a bike? I sure do.

It was the early '90s. I was about 8 years old. My older brother had been helping me practice riding a one-speed bike in the street in front of our house for days. I was intensely focused on a goal of riding the distance between the mailboxes unassisted. I had a few falls and scrapes, all without a helmet, of course.

I kept on getting up and trying until the magic moment when the physics of cycling clicked with my equilibrium. As the pedals turned, I wobbled forward. My fear gave way to nervousness then to laughter as I knew I had it.

Fast-forward 25 years, and I'm a bike advocate and a father of two young kids. And it's bittersweet to say my kids won't have memories of learning to balance on two wheels, because they learned so young. At age 2, my son is already zipping around on his little bike so fast I need to be on my bike just to keep up.

But I don't take the credit. This is simply the new normal in the era of balance bikes, which are quickly replacing training wheels for teaching young children how to cycle. Balance bikes don't have pedals and allow children to learn to balance and roll on two wheels long before they have the leg strength and coordination to pedal. Strider is the biggest brand in the balance bike market, aptly named because kids riding their bikes can resemble bugs on the water, with legs splayed wide in a funny running motion.

When I take my kids out for a ride, people often grin and ask, with a note of genuine surprise, "No training wheels!?" I just smile in reply: "Nope!"

Training wheels are a safe way to learn to ride, but they keep a kid locked upright and remove the most fun parts of biking: the feeling of leaning into turns, the freedom of picking from infinite angles simply by shifting your center of gravity. Pedaling gets you speed, which is exciting. The real joy, though -- that magic we all experience when we learn to bike -- is in the balancing.

Thanks to support from nonprofits, many schools in Northwest Arkansas now teach small kids to use Strider bikes as part of their physical education. Bike retailers and manufacturers have adjusted accordingly, and these days you'll find balance bikes on sale everywhere.

For kids now, the biggest day in biking isn't the day you take the training wheels off. More and more, it's the day you add pedals to their little balance bikes.