Comment by alistairSH
3 days ago
I'm only surprised that this is news to anybody in 2024/2025.
"Balance bikes" [1] have been the norm for 10-15 years now, at least within the cycling community. You can start kids on them pretty much as soon as they can toddle about.
1 - https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-0vqb0rkahl/images/stencil/19...
I would posit that the self-identified "cycling community" is about the same percentage of "people who ride bikes" as programmers are of "people who use computers".
We're a long way from everyone who buys their kid a first bike at Walmart knowing about balance bikes (or the cheaper option of taking the pedals off)
In the US perhaps, where I live the whole cyclists vs non-cyclist thing does not exist. Everybody is a cyclist (perhaps the US is a car community ;)), but generally in normal clothes, on a normal bike (not racing, but like this [0]), with no helmet and on bike lanes where you never meet a car. The smallest bikes (12 inch wheels) are rated 2-4 years old.
[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cortina+u1&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=im...
It is generally considered unwise, and depending on age or other circumstances, illegal to ride without a bike helmet, in large part because most places you will meet a car, and if you don’t, wiping out at 15mph is still going to be hard on your noggin.
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not even in the cycling community… At least 15 years ago getting your kid a balance bike in our circle of normal definitely-not-HN-reader friends was the done thing.
Graduation from a balance bike to a slightly larger bike-with-pedals-removed worked great for both my boys. They could pedal and ride a decent distance before they were out of nappies.