Thanks all,
I'm so proud of the little guy. He's so happy on his bike, and the first thing he said to me this morning was "can I take my red bike outside and pedal it?"
Off to work for me, unfortunately, but I honestly believe almost all of the groundwork was laid by his mum. Walking with him to pre-school on either balance bike or scooter has given him plenty of experience and awareness, and riding the balance bike indoors each day (threading it through doorways and around his sister) has given him low speed maneuverability I can only envy.
He had a go on a tricycle at messy church yesterday, and it was the first time Evey or I had seen him pedal independently for propulsion. He got home, and wanted to try out his new skill straight away!
Out of interest why didn't you use the road itself since it looks like a cul-de-sac?
Ted asked me the same question. When we discussed it, it turned out he'd developed a working hypothesis that feet weren't allowed to travel *along* the road, so pedestrian, scooter, balance bike, formerly his islabike have to stay on the pavement. Mummy, Daddy, Uncle Ian and Oliver don't put their feet down when they cycle, so they're allowed in the road. Cars and mopeds confirm the rule.
Now that he can pedal, he needed to know where to do it. I chose the pavement because it means we can ride to any of his friend's houses together without my having to worry about him (which is the very ride we subsequently did). He can't really differentiate between our part of the cul-de-sac and its continuation towards the main thoroughfare, so I figured pavement only was the best rule.
Thanks to Evey, he knows to stop at the junctions, and gives way to pedestrians sharing the path.
The one thing we found *after* we moved to the cul-de-sac was that the little traffic you get tends to be either long term resident (and blinded by familiarity) or a lost seeker of cut-throughs (who is invariably going too fast, forced into a hurried 3 point turn, then speeds back seconds later).
Our road goes from perfect calm to near fatal in seconds. If Evey and Ted didn't walk everywhere, I suspect he'd have no road sense at all.
Does that make sense?
Andy.
