It’s time for Lulu-Sophia to start learning to ride a bike. She turns two next month and already loves riding about in the yard on a variety of vehicles.Here’s Lulu warming up for learning to ride a bicycle. It would seem that many Danish kids have a little plastic motorbike, like the ones in the video. I see them everywhere and they are, in a way, a forerunner to the balance bike. The back wheels are narrow and it requires some balance when learning to master it.

When Felix, now seven, was learning to ride a bike four years ago, we started out with the classic Danish solution. Sticking a broom handle between the back forks and pushing him along. Just like Danish parents have done for many decades. Now you can buy [surprise surprise] attachable rods with a handle to do the same thing. In the photo at the top, a floor hockey stick is sufficient for pushing her along. It's amazing how quickly kids learn to steer.Felix moved quickly on to training wheels and I rode to daycare with him from the age of three and half on the bike lanes and side streets. Just after he turned four I saw that he wasn't using the training wheels anyone, but balancing on the two wheels so we started a quick transition to riding a bike on two wheels.Even just four or five years ago here in Denmark, balance bikes were a rare sight. Balance bikes being the small bikes with no pedals. Called 'løbecykel' in Danish, [loopfiets in Dutch and laufrad in German] which means 'running bike', the name evolved from the word for childrens' scooters - 'løbehjul', or 'running wheel'.They are now a main prop when learning how to ride and I'll bet that training wheels are a thing of the past within ten years.So. Time to find a balance bike for Lulu. I quickly discovered that the market is completely saturated with brands.

There's the Micro G-bike, the Puky, Mocka, assorted wooden brands, Hudora, Kokua's Likeabike, Strider bike, Mamamemo and then there's a host of cheap supermarket versions.

On the one hand I find the selection impressive but on the other hand, it's irritating. A brand like Kokua is marketed as the Rolls Royce of balance bikes and costs 1000 kroner [$190] MORE than the cheapest make I've found. There are other brands that are in this price region, too.Now I like design. You can't really live in Denmark without liking design, it's an important part of life given our long design tradition for simplicity, functionality and aesthetics.

But I draw the line at paying $1300 kroner [$250] for a little bicycle that will only be used for a year or two. So we're going for a cheap and cheerful brand that costs about 350-400 kroner [$65-75]. We quite fancy the Mamamemo as it has a little basket bag at the front and you can pull a trailer.

Then I realised that there are sizes. 80 cm - about 2 years old and 90 cm - about 2.5 years old and Lulu is just a bit over 80 cm. We'll find one for her. And it'll probably be across the bridge in Sweden since their krone has suffered dreadfully since the global financial crisis and is at the lowest rate against the Danish krone in history. So you get to knock off a further 30-35% off the price.

Anybody out there have any experience to share with balance bikes? Regarding brands and quality? Do tell. Do tell.

We have a library book at home at the moment, which Lulu and I read quite often. A pointing book where the kid has to find various items. It’s originally German, translated into a Danish version. Komm mit uns durchs Jahr by Annette Fienieg, 2008.We’ve read it about 50 times and Lulu loves it. I say “show me the bird/ball/umbrella” and she points. There’s bicycles in the book, too, and Lulu’s particuarly good at finding them. Not because her dad has a couple of bicycle culture blogs, just because she’s a Danish kid. She sits on a cargo bike on her way to daycare each day and from her perch she is presented with a constant parade of human-powered movement. Not bad marketing at all from such an early age.

In her current, albeit rapidly-expanding world view, bicycles are all around. So much so that they don't register. They just are. If we lived in the woods, she wouldn't really think trees were strange. Her dad's certainly not a bike geek, so she doesn't see bicycles in the flat or see her dad oiling, adjusting, polishing bicycles in the back yard. She does hear "come on, Lulu, time to get into the bike..." or "we have to go... you can finish your banana on the bike". And other everyday references to our most used transport form.

She shares the cargo bike with her big brother - her role model in many ways - and she sees him riding alongside. We don't talk about bicycles, we just use them.She just sees bicycles and people moving about on them every time she steps out of the door into our city. Soon she'll be joining their ranks on her own bicycle. Quite nice that. A new instrument piping into the organic bicycle symphony that is Copenhagen.

I've posted about Egon The Cycling Mosquito earlier. At right is another book I grabbed from the bookshelf in my boy's room to illustrate other good examples of marketing the bicycle postively.

The list of books for children featuring the bicycle in a leading role is long. I'll get around to blogging about them in the future.I think it's brilliant that the bicycle features in so many Danish and European books as a normal feature on the urban landscape. Literature, even childrens' literature, reflects society in many ways, so it's natural that bicycle books for kids abound. It is, however, very important to keep portraying the bicycle as normal in literature and TV for children. We're battling car-centricism even here in Denmark so positive marketing of the bicycle must be continued now more than ever.

Not only for continue to strengthening our bicycle culture, but also as a symbol of enivironmental responsibility. Something that is and will be so much more important in my childrens' lives than it was in my childhood. Not to mention fighting the Culture of Fear and the frightening, negative societal consquences that it entails.

There is a show on Cartoon Network - don't know the name - that my son watches and the cast of characters includes a kid whose parents are quite afraid of... well... everything. Their entire home is fitted out with padding and then force the kid to wear the full range of safety gear... constantly. Needless to say these parents are frightfully uncool and ridiculed. A small step towards fighting The Culture of Fear, served with humour and irony.