Is the balancing easier on big cycles after the kid learns to ride pedal less bicycle?
If they are steady on their feet and tall enough than a balance bike is fine.
The advantage of a balance bike is it develops balance first as small children don't necessarily have the strength or co-ordination to ride a pedal bike to begin with.

We found the wooden balance bikes to be inherently bigger - so for our child we went with the much smaller dimensions the aluminium balance bikes.