Comment by jldugger
I'd say through about 90% of the post I was wondering if you'd really not heard about balance bikes. It was only at the end that I realized the point of the story was the power of looking for more options.
One wonders how many HN commenters stepped out before that conclusion was given. Adopting BLUF[1] may help in that regard!
I think it was more like this:
https://xkcd.com/1053/