Motorcycle for a 3-yr-old?
Published June 17, 2022 · 10:29 · 98,666 views
About This Video
Four gifts that led to a three-year-old's self-reliance, culminating in an electric motorcycle. The phone call from Texas, Revival Cycles, the custom motorcycle builders Jay Leno has featured, grounds the project in a real community of people who take machines seriously. The progression is deliberate: each gift scaffolds independence through increasing physical risk and mechanical complexity.
The video is ostensibly about a child on a motorcycle, but the actual subject is the gravity of letting your kid do dangerous things. Van doesn't minimize the risk; he argues that the risk is the pedagogical mechanism. A three-year-old who can ride a motorcycle understands cause and effect in a way that no safety-proofed playground can teach. The independence breakthrough isn't an accident. It's the curriculum. Scary and necessary.
Transcript
undefined undefined this video refers to acts of violence watch it before showing your kids so you don't freak them out you ready yeah yeah
all right it feels hopelessly irresponsible to give a motorcycle to a three-year-old boy but having a motorcycle as a child not
only helped me become a man but also taught me how to enjoy
responsibility so you never see these this is the first motorcycle I owned undefined undefined
it's a Honda 50 moped when I was 13 I bought a oped like that one with all the
money I had and it was sort of my bar mitzvah it was my right of passage
owning and keeping that motorcycle on the road you know what that is do you know what it is
bud I've probably been grooming my son to ride bikes since before he was undefined undefined
[Music] born sort of envisioned in it as our version of fishing because I hate fishing so my son had this Independence or self-reliance breakthrough a few
weeks back and I credit the Breakthrough to four gifts and the first gift was a backpack Casey and Candice bought one undefined undefined
for us for the baby show what it did was it taught him to sit in
a saddle because the seat inside of the backpack is a little saddle is like a a loop that he straddled with his legs it
also allowed us access to terrain that you wouldn't bring a stroller up to and when we would get to our destination I'd
take him out and he could crawl around and get uneven slippery rocks and sand and in the woods and I was cultivating a
love for that kind of environment and so the second undefined undefined
gift was also from Casey and it was this van moof S2 electric bike it's a kind of a hybrid electric and of all the electric bikes I've ridden I'm sorry but van moof is
the best one it's pedal assist it only works if you're pedaling I built a little seat put it on
the top tube and eased him into eased my son into the idea of riding a bike put
him on there when he was about 18 months old and just did laps around the the yard here just to get him used to the
idea and then we worked our way up to eventually single track mountain biking down steep Mountain terrain rocks loose
stones the third gift in his independence undefined undefined
breakthrough we are 100% against training wheels in the neistat family so Grinny ex's
grandmother bought him a balance bike which is the training wheels
[Music] alternative the balance bike teaches him how to handle the weight of a bicycle what happens when he drops a bike when
it falls over the consequences of steering and The
Sensation of gliding of balancing on a bicycle wow this is better than last
time you're getting it the balance bike is not for transportation it has no drivetrain so during the balance bike
phase he's still riding on my electric bicycle with me on adventures but I undefined undefined
know sadly and with Dread that his days of riding with me on
adventures are numbered as he gets bigger and now we built an entire life together of getting around on my
electric bike huge distances Venice to Santa Monica Griffith Park to
Glendale the mash site in Malibu Creek State Park Offroad and after the balance
bike comes the pedal bike aka the two-wheeler and then it will be years
before we can go on big rides together or so I thought
I get a call from a buddy in Texas you want to go to J Leno's Garage you bet your ass I do oh and I got a undefined undefined
little present for your boy can't wait yes I got to go to Jay Leno's undefined undefined
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[Music] undefined undefined description my buddy owns Jay Leno's favorite motorcycle shop Revival Cycles in Austin and Revival Cycles had built
an award-winning bike that Leno wanted to feature on his show so Allen was in
town and Allan brought my boy a gift the fourth gift the independence
breakthrough gift do you know what that is okay come on in do you know what it is bud that's
your KTM it's your motorcycle it's your very first
motorcycle but it doesn't have bals it's electric it goes by
itself what can I can iy to light it out of my house
we're going to go ride at that sh I ain't being paid for this but I should be now you have to sit on it take it undefined undefined
slow this thing is a 12in stasic e Drive electric motorcycle I was afraid he was going to yank the throttle and head straight into traffic or a fence so I brought him to
the middle of this empty field in sh Park but he was methodical took him
about 10 minutes to get the hang of it in slow mode about 5 miles per hour not
fast enough for real Adventures or distance kind of like walking speed but a couple weeks later I set the bike to
medium mode 8 mph and then on Monday 4 days ago fast mode 12 [Music] mph no crashes at 12 mph on the first day thank God and I think that's it his
next bike will be a gas bike Val Ino Rossi and Mark Marquez two Moto GP
Champions both started at age four on gas bikes but no I'm not grooming him to
become a motorcycle Champion you know this isn't to say that I'm father of the year or look at how brilliant my boy is undefined undefined
you know the jury's out he's like every other little four-year-old out there I found out
today that in this year's a of Man TT there have been five
fatalities including a father son sidecar team and I I understand the gravity and the danger and the seriousness of
motorcycles of motorcycle riding at large but I also found out today
that every 21st century school shooter was Dad deprived these fatherhood activities may be our greatest
blessings and these little rituals and Adventures that keep us close to our children Maybe our greatest
responsibility this week on the patreon Zen 1 has been retired Zen 2 is available to the next 272 new patrons who sign up here's the link [Music]
Products & Tools Mentioned
- Honda 50 moped mentions — Van's first motorcycle at age 13
- VanMoof S2 mentions — electric bike from Casey, best pedal-assist e-bike Van has ridden
- KTM Stacyc eDrive mentions — 12-inch electric motorcycle for Van's 3-year-old son
- balance bike mentions — training-wheels alternative for learning bicycle balance
People Referenced
Casey Neistat, Candice, Allan, Jay Leno, Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez
Films & Media Referenced
- Jay Leno — Allan/Revival Cycles featured on the show