The present invention deals with a garment. More specifically, the present invention deals with a garment that is provided with a handle that can be used to train a person in the use of such things as bicycles, in-line roller skates, roller skates, skateboards, etc.
To date, children the world over have learned to ride a bicycle by what is essentially a two step process. In the first step, on either a tricycle, or bicycle with training wheels, the child masters the bio-mechanics of peddling and steering through generally unsupervised trial and error. In the second step, the child is aided by an adult, parent or older sibling who then takes over, in lieu of the training wheels, responsibility for holding the bicycle upright. Few children are able to ride unassisted immediately after having their training wheels removed. Thus, it is clear that having the bicycle held upright for them, either by training wheels or by the hand of the parent or adult instructor, does precious little to facilitate the child's learning to maintain the bicycle in balance beneath them, while posing in the case of the latter unnecessary risk of injury to both the child and the adult instructor or trainer.
Accordingly, several guidance apparatus have been developed with the aim of permitting a trainer to control the balance of an inexperienced rider during training. Of these, most are designed to be attached in some way to the bicycle itself. While the majority of those apparatus do serve to minimize the aforementioned risk to the child student and their adult instructor, each serves (much like training wheels) as mere means by which to hold the bicycle up, independent of the child student, the intended subject of the instruction. Also, invariably, assembly by the end user is required for these apparatus.
Alternately, there seem to be few prior devices which aim simultaneously to expedite the training of a child by an adult to maintain balance on a bicycle, while reducing the risk of strain or injury to the child or the adult trainer during the course of instruction by means of supporting the child independent of the bicycle. These, prior devices generally either fail to offer the adult/instructor adequate positive lateral control over the child student, or they fail to provide adequate safety advantages to render the devices either effective, or commercially viable.
Of the first and largest group, those training aides designed for attachment to a bicycle, the vast majority vary in small degree and rely on the design of various attachment mechanisms (for which assembly is required). A number of these types of systems are set out in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,488,302 B2; 6,244,612 B1; 6,120,050; 5,395,130; 5,303,944; 5,154,096; 4,903,975; 3,650,544.
Of the second group, or general type of bicycle training aids (those designed to support the child student independent of the bicycle), four will be described as being illustrative.
The first is set out in U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,820 entitled BICYCLE RIDING TRAINING DEVICE. The device amounts to little more than a length of rope looped around a child's waist and through a sliding handle of sorts held behind the child by the adult/instructor. This device offers the child little or no upper body support in a fall. Further, with no means of preventing the device from sliding around the child's waist, it offers the adult/instructor little or no lateral control over the child by which to guide the child away from impending obstacles or other hazards. Further, this device offers little more commercial viability than that of a length of rope available at any hardware store.
The second bicycle training aid is set out in U.S. Pat. No. 5,382,040 entitled BICYCLE TRAINING AID. The device comprises a “body member” or wooden board strapped to a child's back with a pivoting arm or handle mounted to the board perpendicular to the child's mid back. Implementation of the handle itself is ergonomically awkward, placing the hand of the instructor in a compromised position with the thumb over extended atop the horizontal handle. This poses a risk of injury to the instructor's hand, forearm or wrist and further injury to the child under subsequent loss of control on the part of the injured instructor. In the event of a fall, as with the device set out in U.S. Pat. No. 5,226,820, the board and straps of this device include no means of distributing the force of the straps over a broad section of the child's torso and so pose risk of injury to the child, while offering substantially no means for preventing the device from sliding around the child's torso. This reduces the already compromised lateral control offered to the instructor. As for fit, the device appears to be generally uncomfortable, for both the instructor and the child.
A third device is set out in U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,188 entitled TODDLER HARNES. This device comprises two padded loops of fabric connected adjacently by means of a “grasping portion” or handle of sorts. With one loop stretched across the child's chest, under the arms and up over the head from behind, and the other stretched across the child's back, under the arms and up over the head from the front. These crisscrossing loops depend on the child keeping his or her arms at their sides lest the whole thing slips off like any shirt when lifted from above by the would-be instructor. Further, held from well above the child's head, grasping hand held at shoulder height, the overlong loops offer the instructor little if any lateral control and generally render the device untenable for its stated alternate purpose as a bicycle training aid.
Another device is set out in U.S. Pat. No. 5,634,439 entitled BIKER RIDER BALANCE BELT. The device comprises a wide band of fabric secured about the child/student's upper torso, under the arms, with fabric strap type loops serving as handles in the back. This device, as with those set out in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,226,820 and 5,382,040, offers no means by which to prevent the device from sliding around the child. This, coupled with the undesirable slack in the loop handles renders, negligible the lateral control, safety and overall utility offered by the device.
Other devices exist as well. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,795 entitled METHOD FOR TEACHING CHILDREN TO SKI, like U.S. Pat. No. 5,634,439, shows essentially a wide torso encircling band with two over-long slack loop handles or “reigns” by which an instructor exercises control over the child student. In addition, US Patent Application Publication Number US 2002/0096858 A1 describes yet another device for attaching a handle to a bicycle.