My daughter learning.

[SkipdiverJohn]

That's a quality bike for a 4 yr old!

It certainly is. My first one had solid rubber tyres with a big cut in the front one, and must have had about ten previous owners going by the amount of scrapes and lack of paint left on the frame! I think it was my first Raleigh.
Why are they putting cycling helmets on little kids who are only going slowly anyway? Seems a middle class phenomenon. Travel through a "nice" area and you'll see all these little ones turned out on shiny bikes wearing helmets with parents in attendance. Go to a rough area and all the little tearaways are bombing around on various cheapo machinery and not a helmet in sight. Just like all the kids I grew up with did.

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

https://www.cyclinguk.org/guide/teach-child-ride-bike

Good video, but I’d take the pedals off and do more scooting to practise balance first.

That's a quality bike for a 4 yr old!

If you can afford one, an Islabike or Frog bike are the best kids bikes for a reason - they are very light (so your child isn’t having to work as hard due to the weight of a very cheap bike), and when your child is ready to use gears, the gear ratios are appropriate for the strength of the child to shift (my daughter couldn’t shift from 2nd to 1st gear on her cheap bike as she wasn’t strong enough to turn the gripshift the necessary distance, we bought a Frog and she had no problem). The other advantage of Islabikes and Frog bikes is that they hold their price second hand. I’d always suggest buying one second hand as kids grow out of bikes quickly. If you can’t afford an Islabike or Frog then you have to go with what you can afford, but I would always check the weight of the bike you are thinking of buying as it is especially important for kids - too heavier a bike that is hard to cycle could put your child off cycling. And we definitely do not want that!

 

[Markymark]

The only hard part is balancing, the pedalling bit is easy. Stabilisers stops you learning the hard part.

Normal bike. Remove pedals. Learn to balance by coasting. As soon as they can do a few meters the pedals can go back on and they’ll be riding that day.

 

[alicat]

How old is she? Every child develops at a different rate. If she's not ready, a balance bike will help her feel like everyone else and also help her develop her balance (the crucial skill, as @Markymark says).

I didn't learn until I was 8, mainly because I didn't have a bike before then. It took v little time because I was the right age. Just riding up and down my uncle's long garden a few times with someone encouraging me to try again.

 

[screenman]

That's a quality bike for a 4 yr old!

Certainly still be worth good money when they come to sell it, unlike most BSO.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Certainly still be worth good money when they come to sell it, unlike most BSO.

That's true - but only if it hasn't been wrecked or stolen by the time it gets outgrown. The trouble with most kids though is they are rough and careless with bikes, so they get crashed and dropped on the ground and left unattended and unlocked when their owner's attention has been distracted by something else.
I certainly used to bash and crash the used hand-me-downs that I rode when I was small. It's only when I got a bit older and bought my first new one with my own money, a basic all-steel Raleigh "racer", that I began to take much better care of bikes.
it would have been a waste of money buying expensive lightweight new bikes for the sort of rough and tumble kids I used to hang around with. The superior design would have been lost on us, and they would have been treated just as harshly as the cheaper, often secondhand, bikes we rode. They weren't what you'd call BSO's though; they tended to be pretty solid -which is why they had often already had several previous owners who had already outgrown them.

 

[vickster]

How old is your daughter.?

As far as I know she could be 21

Another post from the OP says her daughter is 6

 

[Domus]

My grandson loves his balance bike, he is almost ready for the next step. LBS were very helpful. Keep him on his balance bike as long as possible and miss out the 14" bike and go straight to 16" was their advice. He is four in July so we will see then.

 

[Bazzer]

IME it varies from child to child. My learning was saddle holding. My eldest learned on stabilisers and ditched them pretty quickly. My youngest on the other hand treated the stabilisers not as a stepping stone, but as a comfort blanket. So I reverted to saddle holding in the local park.
Very unscientific I know, but from what I have seen in recent years on Boxing Day in places such as Tatton Park, children on shiny new balance bikes or shiny new bikes made into balance bikes, seem much more assured on their new toy than those on bikes with stabilisers.

 

[Vantage]

Stick her on a slightly sloping grassy hill, preferably without a road or river at bottom, and push her down it. The speed she picks up will help her balance.
I'd tried getting my youngest to balance for ages using different methods...removing one stabiliser, bending both stabilisers so the bike could rock side to side, removing the pedals etc. Nothing worked.
Chucked her down that hill on a nice sunny day with the promise of an ice cream if she didn't chicken out and she nailed it on her second go. She forgot about the ice cream and I could barely drag her off the bike when it was time to go home

 

[steveindenmark]

Another post from the OP says her daughter is 6

Thats his other daughter

 

[T4tomo]

Stabilsers, removing one when she improves.

If using Stabilisers I would remove both before you start and throw away and then remove pedals and use bike as a balance bike until they get the hang of scooting and balancing. Then put pedals back on and it’s relatively easy to make the final step of pedalling and balancing having sorted the balance bit first.

 

[Julia9054]

Thats his other daughter

The op is called Jennifer92.
Why would you assume it is a man?

 

[ianbarton]

Stabilsers, removing one when she improves.

60 years ago when I first learned to ride on two wheels this was how I learned. The final stage was taking me to an area with a large plot of level grass. The final stabilizer was removed and someone held me upright as I started to pedal. At the far end of the "lawn", someone else caught me as I slowed down. After a couple of goes, I was able to start and stop by myself and ended up cycling the mile or so back home along the road. Luckily, there wasn't much traffic on the roads in the 1960s.

 

[keithmac]

It took my lad an hour to get it all right on his bike, he was 6?, took him to local flat park.

My daughter's 7, did an old bike up for her, nice and light aluminium frame, put it in low gear so she can pedal easily.

She's not in the slightest bit interested!. Two brand new tyres down the drain..