Inventor’s Workshop

I’m Ed Mondello, the inventor of Glide Bikes™ and I’d love to share the story of Glide Bikes with you.

Ed Mondello The Inventor

In 2004, I took my 4 year old daughter, Samantha to buy a bike; she excitedly chose a popular character bike and we rushed home to give it a try. The first two outings were disastrous. Uneven sidewalks caused the bike to tip and fall over and the bike was so heavy that I had to extract her from under the fallen bike.

Needless to say, her excitement was replaced with scraped knees and elbows, frustration and tears — not an auspicious start to what should have been a happy and enjoyable experience.

I was convinced that the weight of the steel frame was hindering her ability to control the bike, and that the training wheels were delaying the learning process by preventing the feel of balancing. I knew there had to be a better way.

Shortly after that, I saw a children’s Balance Bike at a bike show. Being an avid mountain biker, I instantly understood the concept of a Balance Bike and the importance of children learning balance, as the first step to riding a bike. I began to look for a Balance Bike with solid design and durable construction; but finding none, and being the kind of guy who likes to engineer things, I set out to create one myself.