Children and Bicycles

For children, a bicycle is much more than a piece of sports equipment. It can be a way to be physically active, play, develop balance and control skills, explore their surroundings, and gradually gain greater independence in how they move around.

Perhaps one of the most valuable aspects of cycling in childhood is that it can bring all of these experiences together in a single activity.

Why should children ride bicycles?

🚲 1. Cycling can be a natural part of daily physical activity

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that children and adolescents aged 5–17 engage in an average of at least 60 minutes per day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, mostly aerobic, across the week.

Physical activity does not necessarily have to take the form of organised sport or structured exercise. WHO includes play, sport, physical education and active transportation among the ways children can be physically active. Walking and cycling are important forms of active transportation.

Cycling can therefore be one way of incorporating movement naturally into a child's everyday life.

⚖️ 2. It develops balance and cycling skills

Riding a bicycle involves much more than simply turning the pedals.

A child simultaneously has to:

• maintain balance,

• steer the bicycle,

• regulate speed,

• brake,

• monitor the surroundings,

• and coordinate these actions.

Research on balance bikes suggests that allowing children to acquire balance and steering skills first may make the transition to a two-wheeled pedal bicycle easier.

Research has also examined cycling as an important movement skill that can be acquired during childhood.

🌱 3. It can support independent mobility

One of the most interesting characteristics of the bicycle from a child's perspective is the possibility it offers for independent mobility.

A child who can travel only a limited distance on foot can use a bicycle to explore a considerably larger area.

Learning to cycle and developing cycling skills may also increase a child's confidence while riding a bicycle. Studies examining cycle-skills programmes for children have reported improvements not only in cycling-related knowledge and skills but also in perceived cycling confidence.

An important distinction is necessary here: these studies do not demonstrate that cycling increases a child's overall self-confidence as a personality trait. Rather, they indicate that cycling skills and training can increase confidence specifically related to cycling.

Independent mobility also depends on much more than a child's abilities. Traffic safety, the design of the local environment and parents' willingness to allow children to travel independently all play important roles.

🧭 4. It provides opportunities to explore the surroundings

For a child, a bicycle can become more than a means of getting from one place to another. It can become a tool for exploration.

Children can begin to connect neighbourhood streets, parks, paths and other places through their own movement.

Research on children's independent mobility suggests that opportunities to move around their local environment may be associated with spatial knowledge and familiarity with their surroundings.

In this sense, cycling may influence not only how far children can travel but also how they experience and relate to the places in which they live.

🧠 5. Cycling is also mentally active

When riding a bicycle, a child uses more than muscles.

They have to observe the environment, choose a direction, regulate speed, detect obstacles and make decisions as conditions change.

Studies have investigated associations between physical activity, active transportation and cognitive performance in children. However, current scientific evidence is not sufficiently strong or consistent to support a simple causal statement such as “cycling improves cognitive development.”

What can be said more confidently is that cycling is a complex activity involving several cognitive processes, including attention, environmental monitoring, navigation and decision-making.

👥 6. It creates opportunities to move together

Cycling can be an individual activity, but it can also be a social activity shared with friends or family.

Children can ride together, visit one another, explore their neighbourhood and incorporate bicycles into shared play.

Research on active transportation and independent mobility suggests that these forms of mobility can create opportunities for encounters with peers and social interaction.

This does not mean that “cycling makes children more sociable.”

A more accurate statement is:

Cycling can create environments in which children move together and share experiences.

🌳 A bicycle can also be a tool for play

For children, riding a bicycle does not always mean “doing sport” or travelling somewhere.

Riding around without a particular destination, following a friend, rolling down a small hill, trying a new route or simply spending time on a bicycle can all become forms of play.

The international 2025 Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play highlights the importance of active outdoor play for children's physical, mental and social well-being.

Cycling does not replace other forms of outdoor play. However, a bicycle can be one of the tools that enables children to move outdoors, create their own play and explore their surroundings.

🚲 Cycling is more than a sport

For children, cycling can mean:

movement.
balance.
play.
independence.
exploration.
moving together.

Perhaps this is where the particular value of the bicycle in childhood becomes most apparent:

A bicycle is not only a tool that helps children move more. It can also be one of the tools through which they gradually become more active agents of their own mobility.

References and Further Reading

Physical activity and active transportation

World Health Organization (WHO). (2020).
WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour. Geneva: World Health Organization.
ISBN: 978-92-4-001512-8.

WHO recommends that children and adolescents aged 5–17 engage in an average of at least 60 minutes per day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity across the week. In addition to play, sport and physical education, the guidelines recognise active transportation, including walking and cycling, as a context for physical activity.

Active outdoor play

Lee, E.-Y., de Lannoy, L., Kim, Y.-B., Rathod, A., James, M. E., Lopes, O., Nasrallah, B., et al. (2025).
2025 Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play.
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 22, 117.
DOI: 10.1186/s12966-025-01813-9

This international position statement evaluates the importance of active outdoor play for children's physical, mental and social well-being.

Learning to cycle, balance and motor skills

Mercê, C., Branco, M., Catela, D., Lopes, F., & Cordovil, R. (2022).
Learning to Cycle: From Training Wheels to Balance Bike.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(3), 1814.
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph19031814

The study examines how children learn to ride a bicycle and reports that children using balance bikes may learn to ride a two-wheeled bicycle independently at an earlier age.

Mercê, C., Catela, D., Branco, M., & Cordovil, R. (2024).
Learning to Cycle: Why Is the Balance Bike More Efficient than the Bicycle with Training Wheels? The Lyapunov's Answer.
Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology, 9(4), 266.
DOI: 10.3390/jfmk9040266

The study examines differences between learning with a balance bike and a bicycle with training wheels from biomechanical and dynamic-systems perspectives, highlighting the central role of balance control in learning to cycle.

Hulteen, R. M., et al. (2020).
Quantifying Cycling as a Foundational Movement Skill in Early Childhood.
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 23(2), 171–175.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jsams.2019.08.020

The study examines cycling as a foundational movement skill acquired during early childhood.

Cycling skills and cycling confidence

Mandic, S., Flaherty, C., Pocock, T., Kek, C. C., McArthur, S., Ergler, C., Chillón, P., & García Bengoechea, E. (2018).
Effects of Cycle Skills Training on Children's Cycling-Related Knowledge, Confidence and Behaviours.
Journal of Transport & Health, 8, 271–282.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jth.2017.12.010

Research with children in New Zealand found that cycle-skills training improved cycling-related knowledge and confidence. However, training alone did not produce a substantial increase in cycling to school.

This is important because children's ability to cycle independently depends not only on individual skills but also on factors such as traffic conditions, the built environment and parental attitudes.

Mandic, S., Flaherty, C., Ergler, C., Kek, C. C., Pocock, T., Lawrie, D., Chillón, P., & García Bengoechea, E. (2018).
Effects of Cycle Skills Training on Cycling-Related Knowledge, Confidence and Behaviour in Adolescent Girls.
Journal of Transport & Health, 9, 253–263.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jth.2018.01.015

This study involving adolescent girls similarly found that cycle-skills training could improve cycling-related knowledge and confidence, particularly confidence in road cycling, without necessarily producing an equivalent increase in cycling behaviour.

Independent mobility, exploration and social development

Autonomy as Key to Healthy Psychological Well-Being: A Systematic Literature Review on Children's Independent Mobility, Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Development. (2024).
Journal of Transport & Health, 38, 101837.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jth.2024.101837

This systematic review examines children's independent mobility — their ability to move around and play outdoors without direct adult supervision.

The review suggests that independent mobility may be associated with aspects of children's socio-emotional and cognitive development, may provide opportunities for peer interaction, and may be related to spatial knowledge such as recognising environmental landmarks.

The authors also emphasise that further research is needed before firm causal conclusions can be drawn.

Active transportation and cognitive performance

Ruiz-Hermosa, A., Álvarez-Bueno, C., Cavero-Redondo, I., Martínez-Vizcaíno, V., Redondo-Tébar, A., & Sánchez-López, M. (2019).
Active Commuting to and from School, Cognitive Performance, and Academic Achievement in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(10), 1839.
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph16101839

This systematic review and meta-analysis examines associations between active commuting to and from school, cognitive performance and academic achievement in children and adolescents. The available evidence was insufficient to establish a clear relationship between active commuting and cognitive or academic outcomes.

Phansikar, M., Ashrafi, S. A., Khan, N. A., Massey, W. V., & Mullen, S. P. (2019).
Active Commute in Relation to Cognition and Academic Achievement in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Future Recommendations.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(24), 5103.
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph16245103

This systematic review found that while some studies reported positive associations between active commuting and cognitive or academic outcomes, the overall findings were inconsistent.

For this reason, rather than making a direct causal claim such as “cycling improves cognitive development,” it is more accurate to describe cycling as a complex activity that engages cognitive processes such as attention, environmental monitoring, navigation and decision-making.

A note on the scientific evidence

The strength of scientific evidence is not the same for all of the potential benefits of cycling for children.

There is more direct evidence concerning physical activity, cycling skills, balance and cycling-related confidence.

Positive associations have also been reported for independent mobility, exploration of the environment, spatial knowledge and opportunities for social interaction, although some of this evidence comes from research on children's independent and active mobility rather than cycling specifically.

For cognitive development and academic achievement, current evidence is not sufficient to establish a direct causal relationship.

For this reason, Bisiklopedi aims not to make claims that go beyond what the available scientific evidence supports.