Balance Buddy

Brandon is now getting very good on his bike and has built up his leg strength to the point where he can pretty much cycle all the way back from his nursery to home with very little help (so about half a mile).

A happy little boy picking up some speed on his Lightning McQueen Bike.

With Joshua’s cycling I think he is ready to start learning to ride a bike without stabilisers, however he just lacks the confidence in his balance. So to try and help him along we found this nifty little device called a “balance buddy” which attaches to the back wheel of his bike and provides me with a handle to run along aside and assist with the balance. Only time will tell whether this is money well spent and whether it eventually gets him riding without stabilisers. It would be great if he could be riding a bike by the summertime for those nice family days out with the bikes. Then I can just get a TrailGator to pull Brandon along behind.

Here you can see the balance buddy bolted to Joshua's back axle, no more stabilisers.

The balance buddy allows you to run along side the bike to assist with the balance without having to bend over in half to grab the back of the seat.

At the moment the balance buddy is a novelty and Joshua is extremely keen to use it.

The down side of the balance buddy is that I get to do even more exercise during the week (like I don't do enough) by running along side Joshua's bike.

One of the tricky things for Joshua to grasp at the moment is using the brake to stop the bike and then putting one foot on the floor to stop him from toppling over. Obviously using stabilisers for so long teaches a child to just sit on the bike once it has come to a stop, often with your feet still on the pedals. The balance buddy counters this because you can stop them from toppling over, but I'd rather Joshua got into the routine of stop and then foot down on the floor. Still it is early days.