Taking Off the Training Wheels

Last spring McKennan ventured on to his first bike with training wheels. He rode along all spring and summer, learning to balance, steer, pump uphill, slow down, and break. It was great to see his improvement from the beginning when he wobbled all over the sidewalk and I pretty much had to push him up the slightest hill. With much practise, by August his strength, balance, and coordination had improved significantly, so last month we decided to take his training wheels off and let him spread his wings. From what I remember about learning to ride a bike (of course, that was in the pre training wheels and larger bikes era), I was expecting it to take a few weeks with lots of scrapes and a few tears before he would be able to ride well without the training wheels. Much to our surprise, he was riding all the way down the block by the end of the evening, and has just taken off from there.