Converting a Bike Into a Balance Bike

After Ruby’s crash and subsequent new bicycle, we didn’t know what to do with her old bike.  Since it was just sitting there not helping anyone, and it had no brakes, I decided to convert it into a balance bike.  For those of you who don’t know, a balance bike is basically a regular bike, but with no pedals.  Kids learn to ride it around by walking it, then running it, and eventually they are gliding around on it with all the balance they will need for riding a normal bicycle.

Well, the biggest problem I had with the conversion was the fact that I had no idea how to do it.  I mean, I knew I had to get the pedals off, but after banging on the thing with a wrench and a screwdriver, it became very clear that I was totally clueless and incompetent when it came to working on bikes.  Luckily, I had my friend Mr. Google nearby.

There are many good articles and videos online that explain how to get the pedals (and especially the crank bar that the pedals are attached to) off of the bike.  The most important thing I learned was that the pedals are threaded normally on one side of the bike, and oppositely on the other.  I had been trying to unscrew the dang thing the wrong way the whole time, thus really tightening it on there.  Once I realized this, I was able to get the pedals off and unscrew the bolts that held the crank arms in place.

The second big problem I had was getting the chain off.  I figured that once the pedals were out that I could take the back wheel off and the chain would just be free.  Sadly, the stupid chain was attached through the actual bike structure with no way to get it off.  I found out that there is a tool that takes chains off that you can buy, but I also found that there is a tool that secures chains to the bike that I already owned, and that tool is called duct tape.  So I duct taped the chain to the back beam of the bike and Ta-da!  We had ourselves a balance bike.

Ruby got on immediately and started walking it around the courtyard and within and hour she was gliding like a pro.  She spent three days on the balance bike and at the end of the third day I took the training wheels off of her new bike and she started riding it.  Just like that.  The only thing I had to teach her was that to get going, you push off with your foot on the higher pedal, and now she is riding all over the place.  So I would say the balance bike was a huge success.  But now I still have that old bike and don’t know what to do with it again…