On Tuesday, September 17, 2024 at 1:07:16 PM UTC-5 Eric Daume wrote: Conventional wisdom says kids don't have enough hand strength for hand brakes.
In fact, the CPSC requires kids bikes to have a coaster brake (they can't be hand brake only). My now-4-year-old grandson begs to differ. For his third birthday we gave him a Woom balance bike. The brakes on the Woom are easily managed and adjustable. We ended up adjusting the front brake so it had less stopping power, for fairly obvious reasons. This year, for his fourth birthday, we gave him the next size up Woom with pedals. He already had balance, steering, coasting, and braking figured out, so just needed to learn how to pedal. He didn't have any other pedal toys, so it actually took him a bit of time to learn to pedal, especially getting going from a stop. If it had a coaster brake I think it would have ruined him. Within two days he was riding laps around the neighborhood, uphill and down, able to skid to a stop if needed. It even has a 2-speed automatic hub. It didn't take him long to find 2nd gear :-) The CPSC rule is horribly out of date. It was written when caliper brakes, especially those used on childrens' bikes, were crap and couldn't stop the bike even with an adult's hand strength. The v-brakes and matched levers on the Woom are easily managed by tiny hands. Ted Durant Milwaukee WI USA -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/0c68319b-85fd-4076-b3ba-597c110613e3n%40googlegroups.com.
