My 5 year old son recently got a 16" Huffy bike. He is having a very difficult time pedaling. Is there something I can do to the bike to make it easier for him? The simplest incline and he can no longer pedal without straining very hard. Any help would be great, thanks!
by Bucklax31
13 Comments
Squats?
Raise the seat up so his legs are closer to fully extended at the bottom of the rotation
Also training wheels are terrible for teaching kids to ride a bike. Have him use it as a strider for now.
Training wheels are awful. Used them with my first, it then took weeks to learn to go without them. My second, he went from push bike to a 12 inches bike with no training wheels, in one week he was ready to go alone.
Take off the training wheels and pedals.
Huffys are so heavy i’m not surprised the poor lad has issues with it on hills.
Unfortunately even if you got him a better quality bike it would still to some degree be an issue because the only real thing that would solve it without him getting stronger to cope with it are gears and they don’t start appearing on kids bikes until they are bigger.
Training wheels never worked for me as a kid. The thing that go me started was starting on a short gentle downhill ramp. A driveway would work if it has a slope. Something where you don’t need to pedal initially after kick starting with your feet. First you can work on balance then you can start on pedaling.
16” sounds like a small bike for a 5 year old. My kid is 5 and pretty average height. He does ok pedaling his 16” bike but he is basically ready to move up to a 20”. He does have a nice bike though, which helps: [Specialized Jett 16 Single Speed](https://www.specialized.com/us/en/jett-16-single-speed/p/216938) .
Seat too low? Bike too small?
Raise the seat. If the seat is too low they don’t have the leverage to push down on the pedals. If their knees are above their hips they can’t push down as easily
First remove the pedals and training wheels. When your kids can push and glide, put the pedals back on. Also it is possible that the chain is too tight which would make it hard to pedal.
How hard is it for *you* to pedal? In other words, is this a leg extension / leg strength problem, or is this a bike setup problem?
I hate to say it but the cheap kids bikes have terrible components and are made of the heaviest materials known to man. I made this mistake and my lad really struggled. Got him a frog bike (which are expensive but amazing quality) and he was cycling after 2 attempts (he had been using a balance bike previously).
Seat looks a bit low, a good rule of thumb is that when seated, leg should be at or close to full extension with pedal aligned with the seatpost and heel on the pedal, when moving the foot into the correct position it intrudes a bit more bend. Adjust as necessary for kid as it might be more sensitive/inaccurate, but if there’s significant bend at full extension then it’s too low. Also dump the training wheels, your child isn’t learning anything about how to ride a bike with them except how to turn pedals, and it actually makes learning to ride a bike harder as he has to unlearn how to ride with the training wheels. Take the pedals off until he can scoot along only occasionally putting feet down, then put the pedals back on and he’ll ride off into the sunset (adjust seat accordingly).