For anyone who is interested, last night I found a local toy store that
had a Kettler Sprint scooter (made in Germany, by the way - just like
the ping pong tables). Like the one here http://tinyurl.com/o99kr 

Sage was a little tentative at the store but after teetering around on
it for about a minute he was soon paddling all around the store and a
few seconds later he took a couple of long steps and was cruising. We
got it home (as a bit of an early BD present - only an Elmo cake and a
big bottle of bubbles on 8/14) and he immediately was zipping up and
down the sidewalk and in a couple of minutes was going footless for 20
feet or more. It was really quite amazing to watch. Whenever he got a
little out of control his feet instinctively went down. Only one minor
fall over. He couldn't get enough...we woke up early this morning and
went for a ride.

Back to last night...My 4 year old neighbor brought out his 12" wheel
bike with training wheels and was cruising around but it became
immediately apparent that the geometry of the two bikes was way
different. Really only the 12" wheels were the same. The training wheel
pedal bike had a much shorter wheelbase and was quite a bit taller. I
wouldn't be surprised if these bikes are really intended to never have
the training wheels removed. Anyway, the kids swapped bikes and the
neighbor kid gave up in just 5 or ten feet b/c it's totally different.
They swapped again a half hour later and he looked a bit more
comfortable so I bet the scooter might just help the neighbor kid nix
his training wheels at some point. 

It was certainly more expensive than I intended, but it's pretty solid
(as expected from European toys) and will likely get used by the little
sister at some point and probably all of the neighbor kids...then it'll
likely be handed down somewhere else. 

Just a bit of information, certainly not trying to fuel the training
wheel/no training wheel debate that hit my mailbox yesterday, just
giving a bit more information. If you start to do more internet
searching for these types of bikes/scooters you'll find at least a 1/2
dozen or so models made in Europe (and most not exported). The funny
thing was when I called bike shops with high end big bikes and kiddy
bikes (like $200 bucks for a 12" bike) they had NO IDEA what I was
talking about when I asked for bikes with no pedals...

And if you want to get really spendy...by the BMW scooter that has
pedals that add-on later. Cool idea, just beyond what I want to spend,
and frankly I'm not interested in my son getting a BMW emblem any time
soon. http://tinyurl.com/zhw6g

Thanks again for all of the help. I love this group of people. For some
reason I come here for regular questions because the group/community in
general seems to be my idea of the perfect neighborhood. Thanks.

-Phil
89 Westy
SLC, UT

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