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Comment by Enginerrrd | Hacker News Reader

It's worse than that even... Historically, (before balance bikes) a lot of kids would progress from having training wheels all the way down, to two-wheeled dynamics. The problem is, having training wheels all-the-way-down means you have a tricycle, which doesn't have countersteering dynamics. So as soon as you pull the wheels up, they have to totally forget what they've learned.

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Here in the Netherlands kids learn to ride a bike on little two wheeled wooden bikes, that they start to “glide” on. It’s a nice system that gets them right into learning how a real bike behaves.

Those are the "balance bikes" GP are referring to; definitely a much better system than training wheels. (One of my 2-year-old's favorite activities ATM is riding his balance bike at a skate park.)

I've heard people say that even when teaching adults to ride a bike, it's best to have them just push themselves by their feet (as you would on a balance bike) until they learn how the bike moves, then tell them to use the pedals whenever they feel ready.

I did this for my kids, only I took the pedals off the bike so they could get full use of their legs. A balance bike without having to buy a separate bike.

I don't think I've ever heard of training wheels at literal ground level when the bike is upright -- what would even be the point? It's basically a tricycle, like you say.

When I've seen them, they've been at least an inch or two above, which (coupled with telling the child that the game is to prevent them touching the ground) would seem to mitigate this problem while still effectively preventing falls.

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