4 Bike Riders & NO Runner

YES, he is riding a bike.....with some help but he's riding!

We've spent hours this past weekend trying to get Eli to ride his bike. He's so close too but he just won't go past the point he's at. I finally asked friends on facebook how to teach an uninterested child to ride their bike and some suggestions were bribery (tried that), have him run while we ride (did it), get a trail-a-ride (have since looked into but from what we can tell he's too heavy), training wheels (tried on his old bike).

So back to the training wheels - he wouldn't ride the previous bike that had training wheels (I think they made the bike feel unstable) but they were the cheap ones that come with the bike AND he always leaned to one side (he can now balance on the bike). After much discussion and Les doing a bit more research we decided to check out training wheels again (heavy duty ones - never seen in stores).

Off to a bike shop in town we've never been to and low and behold they had some heavy duty training wheels WOW! Les tried getting them on the bike and finally after making a call to the said bike shop and another trip to the bike shop (with the bike this time) we found out that training wheels can't be put on a bike with a rear derailer. Back to square one that is until Les figured out that he could take the rear derailer off and make it into a one gear bike instead of a five gear bike (I swear the man can do ANYTHING).

Long story short one hour later Les had the gears removed, training wheels put on and Eli is as happy as a clam riding around and around and around our neighbourhood! We even got to go for a family bike ride tonight and he had the biggest smile. We won't be able to do any off road biking any time soon but at least we can hit the paved trails!