Hopefully this won't be too much of a thread drift, but when do you start teaching your kids how to ride geared bikes? My son is 8 and does just fine on his bike. His older bike had hand brakes, but we disconnected them (it was the first bike he rode without training wheels) so that he could only use the coaster brakes. His current bike just has coaster brakes. I'm starting to take him for rides, but it's already proving tough for him to make any kind of speed. He's fairly small...I think he's riding a 19" right now, *maybe* 20".