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Finally, almost 2 years after he got his first bike, Keegan learned to use his bike without training wheels. Hurrah! You may remember that when we bought the bike, Christmas 2011, we originally decided to not mount the training wheels. We bought a gyrowheel, to help him learn instead.

The wheel, using its gyroscope, helps the bike to stay balanced on its own, teaching good habits. Wired magazine named it The Training Wheel of the Future. We were so full of hopes and dreams. In fact, one of the first things we did on January 1, 2012 was testing the new bike and new helmet. How naive! Of course we did not counted on Keegan’s strong will. He refused to even touch the bike for more than 6 months, no matter how much pleading we did. By early July, with his school’s Bike Parade quickly approaching, we caved in and installed traditional training wheels: Keegan 1, Parents 0. He still did not fall in love with the bike, but he used it a little more, especially when the neighborhood kids were out riding.

Finally, this year, we had to get rid of the training wheels: they were falling apart, and not even touching the grounds. Finally, very begrudgingly, and after much pleading (and threats too) we forced him to try out the bike with the special wheel. On August 26, we finally had the first successful attempt at riding alone. The initial, partial success slightly motivated him, and within two weeks, with much pleading, he started running around the neighborhood.

We slowly reduced the gyroscope wheel speed, to get him used to balancing himself. He became more and more confident, so much so he wanted to show off for people, usually girls. We graduated from the curb in front of our house, to the park to Mission Bay.

Finally, on September 7, we switched out wheels, and Keegan rode all by himself! He is so confident now that we went for a small bike-ride in the neighborhood. Obviously, he is still learning to balance, steer, not to lean, and even more importantly, not to get distracted while he rides, but it is a huge progress. Now he wants to learn skateboarding and scooters, but we will wait a little bit for that.

off into the sunset

So, I guess the advertisement is true: it takes about two weeks to learn to ride a bike with the Gyrowheel…too bad it took us 1.5 year to get to this point! Once again Keegan showed us that he will do things when is ready and willing, not when we tell him to. Montessori seems more and more the right choice for his learning style.