From Draisine to Strider: A Brief History of the Walking Bike
The first commercially successful "bicycle" had no pedals. Karl von Drais built his Laufmaschine — German for "running machine" — in 1817, and adults propelled it exactly the way your toddler pushes a balance bike today: feet on the ground, striding forward, then lifting to glide. Pedals didn't arrive until the 1860s, bolted directly onto the front wheel of what we now call the penny-farthing. In other words, humanity learned to balance first and pedal second. Then, for about 150 years, we forgot that order entirely and handed kids training wheels instead.
What Von Drais Actually Built
The Laufmaschine was a serious vehicle. Von Drais logged roughly 14 kilometers in under an hour on his first documented ride on June 12, 1817, between Mannheim and Schwetzingen. The frame was wooden, the steering was functional, and the rider sat above two in-line wheels — the essential geometry of every bicycle since. It spread quickly across Europe and briefly to the United States, where patent records show copies being sold as "hobby horses" as early as 1819. Then cobblestone roads, bad weather, and a series of municipal bans pushed it into obscurity. When pedals finally showed up in the 1860s, nobody looked back — at least not for children's bikes.
The German Reintroduction and Why It Took Until the 1990s
Balance bikes for children were reintroduced in Germany in the early 1990s, primarily through wooden push-bike designs sold in specialty toy and outdoor shops. The logic was straightforward: remove the pedals, lower the seat so flat-footed contact is easy, and let kids build balance before adding propulsion complexity. German children's bike culture had always leaned toward outdoor play equipment, which helped the concept take hold faster there than elsewhere.
The mechanism that makes this work is roughly understood, though the research is observational rather than tightly controlled. Kids who learn to balance and steer as separate skills — before layering in pedaling — typically transition to a pedal bike faster than kids who unlearn the training-wheel habit of leaning into a support that won't always be there. Anecdotally, parents report kids making the switch in a single afternoon; a 2020 afternoon isn't the same as a controlled study, but the pattern is consistent enough to take seriously.
Strider and the American Turning Point
Ryan McFarland built the first Strider in his garage in Rapid City, South Dakota, in 2007 — originally to get his 2-year-old son onto a bike before the conventional starting age. By 2019, Strider had sold over 2.5 million bikes globally. That number matters not because Strider is the only option (dozens of manufacturers now produce comparable frames, including Puky, woom, and LikeaBike), but because the scale confirms demand that pediatric cycling gear companies had ignored for decades. McFarland didn't invent the concept — he commercialized it for a US market that had been defaulting to training wheels since the mid-20th century.
The typical entry point is now 18 months to 2 years, on bikes with 10- or 12-inch wheels and seat heights around 11–12 inches. That's genuinely new territory — most training-wheel bikes assumed a starting age of 3 or 4. Whether starting at 18 months versus 2.5 years produces meaningfully different outcomes is not something the existing research settles clearly. Motor development timelines vary, and no one should feel pressure to start before their kid is physically ready and interested.
The Circle Closes
The historical arc is almost too neat: balance first in 1817, pedals added in 1863, balance forgotten for a century, balance rediscovered for children in the 1990s and mainstreamed by the 2000s. What changed isn't the physics — von Drais understood those fine — it's who the intended rider is and how cheaply a small, lightweight frame can now be manufactured.
If you're trying to decide whether to start your 2-year-old on a balance bike or wait until 3 for a pedal bike with training wheels, the history at least clarifies the question: you're not choosing between new and proven. You're choosing between two approaches with very different track records. Find a bike with a seat your child can reach flat-footed, remove any footrests initially so striding feels natural, and let them set the pace from there.