Brilliant!! I saw a 2 1/2 year old riding a bike with no training wheels at the park recently and was absolutely amazed. It was odd and adorable all at the same time. His parents told me he learned on a balance bike. I planned on getting one for our next child, so I looked them up and realized they were around $200. So this is absolutely brilliant! Thanks for sharing.

We weren't able to find a kid's bike locally that fit my 3yo son in the height (as they have to be able to sit on the seat and reach the ground easily) and which the entire pedal came off (most you can only take off the foot part).

We have a great Kettler balance bike with an adorable frog motif that was under $100 with shipping on Amazon.

All the kids in our neighborhood learn to ride 2-wheelers this way.

Here is the local timeline: first, ride with pedals and training wheels to get the pedaling down (1-2 months). Second, ride as a balance bike without training wheels or pedals. They ride it as long as it takes to get down the balance down. Many kids (including my son) do this step for a week or two - after a couple of weeks they get pretty good at it and are ready for brakes to be put back on!!

So finally we add the pedals back on, and viola! a lot of them are riding a two wheeler within a day or two (shakily, yes, and needing a little help to start, but still riding) - and we're talking 3-4-year-olds. My son just went through this step last week (the day before his 4th birthday), and although he still needs a little help getting started sometimes, I'm amazed at how well he already rides.

One consideration, however: the 3-4-year-old crowd needs a little extra help with bike safety. You know, what to do when approaching other kids, what to do around cars (luckily we're in an apartment complex with huge grassy areas with looooong sidewalks; they can get to any of their friends houses and to the park without ever seeing a car), how to use brakes safely. We're going to put together a neighborhood bike safety day to re-emphasize this. Luckily, the neighborhood gang has pretty safety-conscious parents and most are required to wear helmets :-)

Oh - and we didn't take the entire pedal system off; just the foot part and it worked fine. My husband didn't believe that the stems (or whatever you call them) wouldn't get in the way, but they really don't.

We have taken the pedals off of an old, used bike & will try this summer with our 4 & 6 year olds. They have been perfectly comfortable riding with training wheels for 3 & 2 years now, so it may be a bit of an adjustment...

Oh, balance bikes are not $200. There are more and more on the market (new of course) for $70 or used for much less.

The thought of moving crankarms right by my kid's feet/legs makes me really, really uncomfortable. Looks like there's a real danger of pant legs or even toes getting caught in between the moving parts and the bike body.

oh, there is undoubtedly risk. i am grateful that my son clocked many hours without any trouble and so far my daughter as well. i sure don't suggest this (or many of my parenting moves) are without risk...this was simply a spontaneous move that has worked for us and our driveway.

Our 4.5 year old son just started riding a balance bike. He has autism and has had some trouble with motor planning (coordinating and controlling his muscles, basically). He was never able to pedal a tricycle and didn't want to try a bike because he thought it would be too difficult. He LOVES having a bike without pedals and learned to glide and coast on it very quickly. The funny thing is that his newfound confidence made him willing to jump back on the tricycle and learn to pedal! Now he's got all the basic skills down, I think he'll be ready for a "real" bike pretty soon.
We have the Kettler Surfer. I bought it in Canada for just over $100 and I know it can be bought cheaper online at US stores. That's not THAT much more than a regular kids' bike and I'm sure there's a big market for used balance bikes when you are done with it.
If you remove the pedals, do you remove the chain too?

We left the chain on. Neither the crank arms nor the chain moved when he was scooting around on it. But like I said, we only used it in balance-bike-mode for like 2 weeks - since he was already used to pedals, the transition to pedals/no-training-wheels was quick.

Honestly, in my opinion, the biggest risk to the entire operation is the fact that we gave our barely-4-year-old a substantially faster way to get around. :-)

She removed the pedals....duh.

@tallsarah (and so many others!!) Put those pedals back on. Your 4 and 6 year olds are perfectly capable of pedaling a 2-wheeler. And yes, it will be an adjustment, they might hate their bikes for 10 minutes or so, but spend 30-45 minutes of helping them balance while pedaling on a slight down incline and they will get it. Make sure they can brake too--on command. So important!
They are way more capable of what you are giving them credit for. Don't do it all for them either. Make them push their own bikes across the street etc. Then get on your bike and ride with them. Running behind them will no longer be possible (unless you are actually out for a run!)

We found a $19 balance bike at Walmart. Our 21-month old loves it and has just figured out how to steer by himself - a big step! He can get on and off by himself and often drags it out of the garage on his own so he can ride around the backyard.