From: strobl@gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl)
Subject: Re: What Age to start riding?
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 17:14:09 GMT

In <84CU02eL23aJ01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> jdr40@ccc.amdahl.com (John Ritter) writes:

>My 8 year old son is really interested in riding. He sees me leave all
>the time so I guess he figures he needs to get interested. I would like
>to get a tandem with a childs stoker kit but my wife would die is I spent
>that much on another bike. I asked my local bike shop and they can get a
>road bike with 24" wheels and 15" frame that would be about the size we
>need. My qestion is, is 8 years old too young? Can a child this age handle
>gearing or should we stick to fix gears for now? Obviously I wouldn't try
>to take him along on my club training rides, I can't quite see an 8 year
>old hammering along at 25 mph pulling a whole group. I would like to take
>him on leisurly rides of 20-25 miles. Is this distance reasonable? Anyone
>have any experience with their kids?

Yes. I have two boys, one just 6 years, the other 7 1/2 old. Both ride
regularely from age 4 on. This is because they both got a place in
our local kindergarten at this age, and it is easier to do that
distance of about 1 km on a bike than walking.

Both learned bicycling quite fast (i.e. during a few weeks), but
needed the advice and support of their parents during that time.

During a few weeks in summer, we walked to a free place near our
house each day, in order to train riding (put the child on the
bike, let him pedal and try to stabilize the bike by running
behind and holding the carrier) and braking (it's quite difficult
for a child of this age to brake and steer at the same time - this
was the hardest thing to train). Quite time consuming, but it payed
off during the next years. Both never used supporting wheels - and
from my observation, it takes children much longer to learn to
ride *with* these things than without.

We switched bikes quite often, tricycle, 16", 18" and 22", if I 
remember correctly. The tricylce was only used during the first
half year.

Two months ago we where on a three week vacation with train and bike
as the only means of transport. This worked very well - on the
first day, we did 51 km, on the second day 42 km. During the
rest we did seldom more than about 20-30 km, mostly because
there where other attractions besides biking (we all bike
to transport ourselves or something, sometimes for recreation, 
never for sport).

Riding in (auto) traffic with children of this age is very
tiresome, so avoid it if possible. But on passable, flat
ground, which is free of cars, they can ride the whole day
long without getting tired. The average speed is about 8 km/h,
quite independent of how fast or slow you intent to ride. 

Just for fun, I tried to measure how fast and how long both
boys could ride, and got the following results: 

The 7-1/2 year old can do about 25 km/h for nearly one
Kilometer, on a 22" bike with a three-gear bike, the 6 year 
old about 20 km/h for about half a kilometer, on his
18", single gear bike. This was on a flat, clean
asphalt street.

This surprised me, because I know a lot of adults who can't
do that without training.

On the other hand, it's indeed much slower than what a
trained adult can do. It didn't matter much for us, be-
cause we didn't try to do racing. We just pedaled a bit
slower than we normally do, and the kids did it a bit
faster than they would probably do it. So finally we settled
on a speed of between 12 and 15 km/h, and a few more 
breaks than usuall.

About the gearing: he can barely handle it, but it
seems to be a necessity,  because both the bike and the
child have more weight and the legs are longer. It
was my impression that the younger one had less
difficulties to pedal with a much higher frequency
without getting tired, than the older boy. 

The 22" bike has a "Nabenschaltung" (thats German,
both me and my dictionary don't know a translation
into English). I would't suggest a chain gearing (?)
for children of this age.

Hope this helps, and excuse my horrible English :-).

Wolfgang Strobl
ADFC Bonn/Rhein-Sieg e.V (Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club)