Max Gutmann: Hard Things and Easy Things

Max Gutmann shares how balance bikes helped his kids learn how to ride with confidence.

I don’t think balance bikes existed when I was a kid. We had training wheels on our bikes, and when we were ready, our dads took them off and then ran behind us holding the backs of our bike seats. I have fond memories of my dad doing that, and I looked forward to doing it for my kids, but balance bikes were a better way for them to learn.

Balance bikes are little bikes without pedals. Toddlers sit and propel themselves forward with their feet. It sounds dull, but toddlers love it, and the amazing thing is that the moment they’re tall enough to sit on real bikes, with pedals, off they go. Piece of cake.

This was a revelation to me. It suddenly seemed so obvious. To ride a bike, you have to learn two skills. Training wheels help kids practice the easy one: pedaling. Who had the brilliant inspiration that it would help them more to practice the hard thing: to balance?

Another dad approached me once at a park where my five-year-old son was pedaling around on his bike, and my daughter, three, was on her balance bike. He’d always thought balance bikes were silly. “Now I get it,” he said. “He can ride so young because he learned on the balance bike.” Yes.

It’s taken me a while to figure out why balance bikes haven’t completely replaced training wheels. I finally understand that the purpose of training wheels, despite their name, is not to train kids to ride bikes. Their purpose is to let kids have fun sort-of-riding. There’s nothing wrong with that, but actually learning to ride, with its feelings of accomplishment and independence, is a whole different level of fun, one every kid with training wheels looks forward to, and the road to it runs through learning how to do the hard thing.

Maybe there’s a lesson there that goes beyond bike riding. With a Perspective, I’m Max Gutmann.

Max Gutmann writes plays and other things. He lives with his wife and two kids.