In life, I believe one of the things one must learn how to do is ride a bike. Not only is it a fun activity but when end-of-the-world scenarios actually happen (you never can tell!), and all the cars in the world are out of gas, then you have a chance of survival with riding a bike.
Joking aside, I feel childhood is incomplete when you miss out the experience of going around the village with your friends, riding a bike. And while training wheels might be the more conventional way of learning how to ride, there's one more way that seems to be really effective in teaching kids how to balance. And that's the balance bike.
With a balance bike, kids learn how to balance (of course), basically because instead of focusing on how to pedal, they focus more on how to balance. Which is really the most important part anyway. And the sooner they learn how to balance, the sooner they can learn how to ride a real bike!