If you have known Reed at all, you know he has an aversion to new things, especially when it comes to vehicles. His PowerWheels Jeep for Christmas a few years ago was our first example of this. To this day, he has never driven it by himself. However, the kid loves cars and “fixing” them. If he would just get past his frustrations he would love it so much.

Unbeknownst to us, my parents bought Reed a bike for his 4th birthday. We had actually considered this ourselves, but his aversions made us think twice. Regardless, they bought this one for him to use out at their house where there is plenty of space to ride (and not just in the street).

We had an upcoming trip to College Station for Aggie Baseball, and we were going to be in a big parking lot for the entire weekend. This would be a perfect time to focus on the bike and see if it was going to be something he chose to learn or not.

We got it out Friday and he had no problem sitting on it, but didn’t quite understand how to push with his legs to make the pedals go around. I mostly just held the outer part of the handles and pushed him around. He did find out that pedaling backwards is the brake. When the frustration set-in, we sat down on the ground at the bike and I showed him how the pedals go around while I lifted the back tire off the ground. That seemed to help him make sense of the concept.

On Saturday we had our big tailgate and a lot of distractions, so he mostly just showed off his bike to everyone, but didn’t want to spend time riding it. I watched him sit on it for long periods, but never went anywhere.

On Sunday morning, after all the chaos from the weekend was gone, we got back on the bike. This time, I did not hold the handles, but instead would push him to get his momentum going. This made it easier to pedal, so he got his feet moving as well. This seemed to be the key. I literally watched it click in his head as he started to move his legs independently. As one foot got to the top of the rotation, he would push with that leg. Then he was off…  I would get him started every time he stopped, but it was only if the pedals were in a position that he couldn’t do it himself.

The video below is shortly after it clicked for him, and fortunately Julie was on the spot with the video camera.