06/01/2001

By LESLIE GARCIA / The Dallas Morning News

Damon Winter / DMN Barbara Daniel helps 6-year-old son John practice riding without training wheels. Parents should make sure the bike is the right size for the rider, bike experts say.

You can have a perfectly splendid time tooling around on your training-wheeled bike. But then, one day, everything changes.

Maybe you see a buddy cruising the sidewalk on a two-wheeler.

Or maybe your parents won't let you go mountain biking with them because your training wheels won't fit on the path.

Or maybe you're a kid like 6-year-old John Daniel. You're not quite ready to give up those extra wheels – any more than you were ready to trade in your clunky roller skates for a pair of in-line skates. But your older sisters ride, and you know that, sooner or later, you'll learn, too.

"You'd think he'd be dying to get them off, but he's not anxious to," says his mom, Barbara.

She wants him to ride by August, the beginning of first grade. His school sponsors a bicycle rodeo, and she doesn't want him to be embarrassed if he's the only kid with training wheels.

One time when she broached the subject, John said, "I'm going to do it when I'm 6."

Replied his mother: "Well, you are 6."

"OK," he said. "Six-and-a-half."

That was a month or so ago. As the weather has become warmer, John has wanted to practice.

"Now he really likes it," Mrs. Daniel says. "He did have a wipeout, which was my fault. I stopped to wave to a friend, and he ran into a tree. But then he got right back on. He's really proud of himself."

She and her husband take turns teaching their son. One runs alongside, holding onto the bike until John feels steady.

Now he tells his mom or dad, "I'm ready! Let go!"

But, Mrs. Daniel adds, "We're still working on the braking."

When your kids are ready to ride, here are a couple of basic ways to teach them how.Remove the training wheels

How he does it: He gets eye level with the child and tells him or her: "Keep your hands on the handlebars and your feet on the pedals. I won't let you go."

He first holds the child's shoulders. If you grab the seat, he says, the child leans against you. Keep your hands off the handlebars, too.

"I like holding onto their shoulders for a feeling of security, then their jacket," says Mr. Hoyt. His grandson, who turned 4 on May 5, rides a two-wheeled, 12-inch bike without training wheels.

"I call it 'floating.' They don't understand balance," Mr. Hoyt says. "Once you get the float, you can ride all the time."

When the child gets his or her balance, Mr. Hoyt suggests that a parent run alongside between the rider and the street, keeping a hand on the rider's shoulder. After five or 10 minutes, he says, stop and put the training wheels back on. Then repeat the procedure the next day.

"Sometimes, parents don't have patience," he says. "They try to do it to fruition.... I worry if the kids are afraid they can't please their dad. If the kid's afraid of the bike, he won't use it."

Some tips:

• Go to a baseball diamond and let the child ride around the baseline. Don't send the rider flying on a downhill path.

• Speed is a friend. Going too slowly throws a rider off-balance. Moving gives balance.

• Buy a good pair of training wheels. Cheaper models are too springy; they'll flip the kids from side to side.

• Keep the pedals on. Some parents remove them to help teach balance, which Mr. Hoyt doesn't recommend.

• Make sure the bike is the right size for the child. Raise the training wheels gradually

Proponent: David Yeager of Wheels & Fitness in Motion.

How he recommends doing it: When the child is used to riding with training wheels, raise each one a half-inch.

"That allows the bike to wobble back and forth, which is irritating to the child and makes the child on his own learn how to balance," Mr. Yeager says. "He wants to ride it straight up and down."

The method involves three steps, he says: all the way down, up a little, up all the way.

"Leaving them all the way down and one day removing them is a mistake," Mr. Yeager says. "You must go through the raising-them-up stage."

Some tips:

• When the child outgrows a 12-inch bike, buy a new one with the training wheels already a half-inch from the ground, he says. "It's not a process of telling them you're going to raise the wheels. It's just, 'The new bike is like that.'"

• When you notice the child is balancing fine with wheels suspended, Mr. Yeager recommends saying: "Oh ... look! You're not using your training wheels! Let's take them off."