Review and giveaway! (closed): Strider Pre-Bike from Strider Sports

Congrats to my winner: Heavenly Savings
 
Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that there is one review that has, thanks to my 2 1/2 year old son's unbelievable stubbornness, remained as a giant incomplete on my review spreadsheet. For almost FIVE months. Thankfully, Strider Sports is not only kind, as shown by their willingness to work with me back when my blog was brand-new and had few readers, but they are also incredibly patient, giving us the time we needed to get Ethan on the bike.

For those of you who haven't read my previous posts about Strider Prebikes, here's the scoop, from the Strider website.

The Strider™ teaches your child balance, coordination and develops glittering confidence. Trikes and bikes with training wheels don’t. Traditional bicycles place too much of the focus on learning to pedal -- skimping on developing your child’s motor skills. And tricycles are heavy, clunky and difficult for kids to control.

Bike riding becomes a breeze when you teach your child balance and coordination before pedaling. The Strider™ takes pedaling out of the mix so that kids can concentrate solely on learning balance, which takes more practice. Pedaling is a secondary skill that kids can easily learn within a few short minutes.

Here's what a Strider Prebike looks like- just like a regular bicycle, but with no pedals!

As I mentioned here before, our main mistake was actually asking Ethan to ride the bike when it first arrived. He makes it a point to agree to as few direct requests as possible, and this was one that he had no plan of cooperating with. His friends would come over and ride the bike, adults would visit and exclaim over how cute it was. To no avail. Ethan had made up his mind and was not giving in. He did like the bike and spent a lot of time sitting near it and investigating it and playing with the wheels and handlebars, but whenever we asked if he would like to ride it, crying followed.

Finally, I removed the bike from his room, put it in my bedroom and told him that he wasn't allowed to ride it. Not two minutes later, he came out of my room, riding the bike. And he continued to do so happily from that day forward. Giant eye-roll from Mommy :)

Best of all, learning to ride this bike really was super-easy for Ethan. He'd seen friends use it, and we'd tried to get him to sit on the seat before, but that was it in the way of teaching. He did fine balancing it from the first time he rode it this week, righting himself easily when he would start to tip over. He also had an easy time steering it around our small living room and all the toys in his way. And he figured out how to turn the bike around to go the other way by the time he'd been riding for just a few minutes. I was very impressed by how simple it seemed for him, and every time he gets on it, he gets faster and more confident. I'm really excited for good weather to return so that we can take it outside and he can learn to push himself along faster and really go for a ride!

Totally loving his bike!

When he got tired of riding, he still wanted to sit on it, so he just used it as a base for his toys

This video was taken within the first 30 minutes that he was on the bike.

The bikes are designed for kids 1-5 years old. I think a shorter kid on the younger age range might need a little more time to grow into it, but overall, I think that your average child who can walk and balance well, would have a great time with this. Ethan is a fairly short 2 1/2 year old, and he fits on it well.

I would highly recommend these prebikes to anyone with a small child. They look cool, are extremely sturdy, but not heavy and are fun. All of Ethan's little friends that have tried it have loved it, and we do too!

You can buy one of these bikes for $99 at the Strider website. And, one of you will win a Strider Prebike of your own! US mailing addresses only, please.

Mandatory entry (must be done first for extra entries to count):
Visit Strider Sports and let me know something about the Prebike that I didn't mention here!

Extra entries (please leave a separate comment for each):

1. Follow my blog with Google Friend Connect

2. Put my button up on your blog- let me know where to find it!

3. Follow me on Twitter and tweet "@gabreviews is giving away a @StriderPREbike! Visit to enter http://bit.ly/cRioUL. #giveaway"  
You can tweet this once per day. Leave a separate comment every time you enter and please let me know what your twitter name is.

4. Follow Strider Prebike on Twitter.
5. Become a fan of Strider on Facebook.
6. For 5 extra entries (leave 5 separate comments)- Blog about this giveaway with links to this post! Please let me know where to find the post.
7. Enter any of my other giveaways (one extra entry per giveaway entered, leave a separate comment for each)

8. Enter any of the giveaways currently going on at LuvnLife (one extra entry per giveaway entered, leave a separate comment for each).

Giveaway will close at 9 PM Pacific time on March 13, 2010. I'll choose a winner with random.org and will email that person who will have 48 hours to respond. Good luck!

Disclaimer: I was given a Strider Prebike to review for myself. I was not compensated in any other way and all opinions posted here are mine and mine alone.