What is the best age to start cycling?

What is the best age to start cycling? That depends on where you are from.

A child age 2 1/2 from Australia, America or European countries will be tall enough to learn to ride on a 12″ wheel size balance bike.

There are no chain and pedals installed on a balance bike. To be able to ride on one, the child while seated on the saddle, must be able to push the bike with their feet to move the wheels forward. From my observation as a bike shop owner in Malaysia, a child here has to be age three and above in order to be tall enough to learn to ride on one.

As balance bikes are not so common locally, most children here prefer learning to ride on a regular bicycle with training wheels attached. These are bicycles they have seen their siblings, relatives or neighbours’ kids ride on.

Balance bikes are not the kind of bicycle I can convince a grandparent here to buy for his or her grandkids. Though it is definitely a bike that you can consider getting for even an older child to learn to ride on by getting him/her to go down a slope on it. As you can see from this video, the young girl going down a slope on a balance bike is possibly older than 6.

A child or an adult can learn at any age as long as they have a bicycle in the right wheel size for their height, which is generally as shown in this table:

For the safety of the cyclist, there must be a gap of at least 1″ from the toptube to the crotch area.

This is why for adults and older children age 4 and above, I will suggest that they consider learning to ride on a folding bike. Its toptube is low so learners will not be hit by it should they stumble while learning and fall over it. As most folding bikes are made for adults, that means that older or taller members in the family can also ride on it by adjusting the height of the stem and seatpost.

It can become the bike for the family as an adult folding bike in wheel size of:

1. 12″ and 14″ can be ridden by a child age 4.
2. 16″ can be ridden by a child age 5 and above.
3. 20″ can also be ridden by a child age 6.