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Many parents are faced with the task of sorting through all the options for bikes for their kids. Most choose based on which bikes are available at the store that they go to that will fit (or nearly fit) their kid. People who want to ensure that they are making the right purchase will search out advice for what to think about when purchasing a bike. This post is intended to help with this decision.
First, some general kid bike purchasing advice:
1. Get a very light bike. Weight matters when you are ~35-45lb. It really matters. It is worth the money. Imagine riding a bike that weighs ~100 lbs for you. Not nearly as fun, easy, or safe as a <27lb bike. This is what you do to your kid when you buy them a 25 lb Big Box Store bike. Not cool to do to your kid, and a great way to make yourself frustrated when they can never make it up any hills.
2. Get a bike with small wheels. For a ~5 year old, 16" or the right 12" wheeled bike is best. Don’t move on to 20” wheels until age ~8, and even then it may be a mistake. 24” and 26” wheels are for kids who are almost adults.
Most parents get their kids a bike that they can "grow into". Huge mistake. Get them a bike that they can grow out of. They will ride it more, enjoy it more, be able to handle it better, ultimately become better bikers, and in the process will be a ton safer on the bike. The foundation built by riding a BMX style small bike in a standing position will be something that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. Most pro riders in every biking discipline are former BMXers, and even if not aiming at the pros, it gives you an idea of what this foundation gives a kid. Biggest mistake for teaching my eldest to ride was getting a bike to grow into. It delayed her learning significantly. My youngest is a better rider, and I attribute a good deal of that to the eldest’s first bike being meant to be one she would grow into, and my youngest being one we were comfortable with him growing out of. Huge mistake that was motivated by the wrong reasons.
3. The best bikes are simple. No shifters, no suspension, no extra crap.
In most cases, shifting is not important for little kids, and only distracts from learning true bike handling skills. All the extra shifters, derailers, cassettes, extra chain rings, cables, they are all just extra weight that the kid never uses. They usually put it into the gear that they like, and then never touch it again. Worse is when they put it into a gear that they don't like, then never touch it again, and ride it less because of it. One gear. It is OK to occasionally walk your bike up a big hill.
As for suspension, most suspension forks for bikes less than 26" are junk or crazy expensive. The compression weights on most forks are so high that it may as well be rigid, and they often weigh 5+ lb. To keep costs acceptable for parents, the kid forks are poorly engineered, and require modification by a skilled mechanic to make them even close to useable. Proportionally, think about putting a 20+ lb fork on your bike that needs 600 lb of force to compress it, is sticky and wobbly, and then only gets <1" of travel. You can get a high quality rigid fork that has effectively as much travel and have it weigh a fraction of that, for a fraction of the price for the poorly engineered suspension fork.
There are also tons of silly things that parents get their kids for their bikes that are useless. Baskets, bottle racks, fenders, mirrors, streamers, etc… Junk. Adds tons of extra weight, makes the bike bulky, less safe, and distracts the kid from doing what they should be doing, riding. All this for the extremely low benefit of making it seem cool to a kindergartener. Get a bike that the kid will like because it is a good bike. Don’t add silly junk to the bike to trick them into riding it. Make it fun to ride because it is fun to ride. Simple bikes do their job better, and are more fun to ride. If you need to make it fancy, do it with a few stickers, some high quality anodized bike bling components, and their favorite color paint job. None of these things inherently make the bike worse.
4. Kids often need a bike with very low gearing to learn to ride, but then quickly grow out of it. Low gearing allows very rapid acceleration from a standstill so that they can catch their balance easily. Once they get good at balancing well enough to start riding, the low gearing will hold them back. The most versatile bikes that will last a kid the longest will have an ability to change the gear ratios. This only happens on bikes with freewheels and replaceable chainrings. Again, we are not talking about shifting. We are talking about modifying the bike. Coaster brakes have a fixed gearing, no adjusting it later. If possible, get a bike with a freewheel. The freewheel is also safer, as it allows them to pedal backwards to adjust for obstacles and corners, to make for easier starts, easier climbs, and ultimately is what they need to learn to ride when they get adult bikes. Start them out on a freewheel so that they don’t have to unlearn bad habits.
5. Kids need short pull brake handles and easily actuated brakes. Most production bikes have coaster brakes, and the ones with hand brakes often have adult sized low quality brake handles. Coaster brakes are mandated by US law if the bike is intended for "sidewalk use" by small kids. Low quality coaster brakes are easier to use than low quality hand brakes, and are felt to be safer for the majority of riders since most riders are never given proper instruction or the chance to learn hand brakes. This is short sighted. Good hand brakes take some getting used to, but will ultimately be better for the kid in the long run. Any bike that has adjustable gearing and a freewheel, as in #4 above, will have a hand brake by engineering necessity. If at all possible, get a bike with linear pull brakes, or at least really high quality caliper brakes. Discs are optimal, but only come on custom bikes.
6. Training wheels are for suckers. Seriously. They teach your kid to spin the pedals, but they will never teach them to balance, and are actually unsafe if the kid tries to ride like most kids try to ride. Training wheels can lift the back wheel off the ground, and this means no brakes for most bikes. Not safe at all. They also can tip a kid over if used on ground that is not perfectly flat. Most people don’t live on ground that is perfectly flat.
The real way to teach a kid to ride is a balance bike. These are bikes without pedals that the kid pushes with their feet. The good examples are the Strider and the Hotwalk. It is common for kids to learn to ride before age 3 because of balance bikes. A few weeks on a balance bike, and the kid will learn to ride a pedal bike without any help at all, usually in a single session on their new pedal bike. Just start with one of these, skip the useless training wheels. Get a quality balance bike if you have more than one kid that will use it, or a cheaper one if it will be a single use bike. They will only need it for a short while, but will likely enjoy it for a few years, even after starting to ride a pedal bike. My youngest still takes 3+ foot drops and rides very technical stuff on his at age 5, and he has been riding a pedal bike since his third birthday when he got his first real bike. He recently told me we are never selling his balance bike. It now has custom paint and aftermarket brakes front and back. These little bikes can be super cool, and there is no faster, easier, or more enjoyable way to learn to ride.
The bottom line is that many parents make mistakes in buying their kid a bike by cutting corners or focusing on the wrong things. In truth, a kid's bike actually matters more than your bike as far as what it will do for their riding ability. Choosing well can make your kid a rider, or make the bike an expensive garage obstacle without a rider. With some forethought, any kid will ride better, and be much more fun to ride with.
When choosing a bike to buy, keep the above in mind, especially in the context of a few rider specific concerns:
1. Your kid’s comfort on a bike.
2. How you intend to ride with them.
3. Your price range.
Here are my usual recommendations.
Lil Shredder Bikes – Nothing compares to these, but if you are into bikes enough to drop $2k on a bike for a 5-10 year old kid, you already know about everything I just wrote. That or you have more money than you need. These bikes are made by a guy who took all of these things into account. He went counter to some of my suggestions, but the way he did it, and for what reasons, make it OK. He has top of the line suspension that the bike is built around, he uses shifters because kids who ride these already have the bike handling skills to use them, and he sacrifices a little weight to get functionality that the kids who use these bikes can benefit from. These are the bikes the kid-pros use, and they break all the rules, and in doing so, prove the rules. If your 8 year old is one of the top riders in the state, including the adults, this is your bike. Don’t be cheap, your kid’s future depends on it. Redbull is calling about sponsorships, so don’t limit your kid. These bikes are included to show what going all out will get you.
The next bikes are the right ones for the majority of kid riders, and their parents are the intended audience for this article. Your kid likes biking, you want to get them an appropriately nice bike that will not limit them, but they are not a pro rider (yet). The common themes are aluminum frames with higher end components.
Redline Pitboss - Amazing little bike. Super light (~14lb), and has excellent geometry that encourages aggressive riding and bike handling skills, with adjustable gear ratios, good kid-specific brakes, and a flip-flop hub. This hub allows an extra freewheel with a different gear ratio to be put on the non-drive side of the hub. This is so that you can change gear ratios with a simple reversal of the wheel that is as simple as fixing a flat. Super nice for getting a kid used to riding, and when doing lots of ups and downs. I consider this the baseline bike, and is the bike to get if your kid can ride a bike, is very comfortable peddling a 2-wheeler, and you are comfortable with the price. It is also the best BMX race bike on the list. Worth the money, and will last him until age ~8 or so.
Spawn Banshee - All the stuff about the Pitboss applies here, with one major added perk. It has a front brake. The Banshee is very slightly heavier than the Pitboss, but not by much. It is also slightly more expensive, but again, not by much. It will also last him to ~8 year old. Not as good for racing, but better than the Pitboss if you don't intend to race. This may be the best trainer bike on the list for being a future all around good adult rider but don’t want to dedicate your life to BMX races, and compares really well with the Pitboss.
The Cult Juvi 16 or Cult Juvi 12 - The only 12" bike on the list for a 5 year old. These are real BMXs, like the ones ridden by pro park and dirt jumpers, only smaller. Light, spec'd well, and definitely an excellent option. The 12" is the one to get if skate parks are in your kid’s future. Both the 16 and 12 are very nice. If your kid is 3 years old, the 12" is your first choice, at 5 years old the best choice for all around bike is probably any of the 16" bikes, unless you want them to almost exclusively ride skate parks. Check out these 4 year olds to see what I mean. Super rad little bikes, but possibly more narrow than the others.
Specialized Hotrock - The less expensive counterpoint to the above bikes. Good bike, with a few drawbacks compared to the Pitboss, Banshee, and Juvi. First, some of the parts are quite a bit heavier than they need to be. The crank, hubs, headset, and stem (basically the whole bike aside from the frame) can all be replaced with lighter components, but the Banshee, Pitboss, and Juvi already have these upgrades spec'd stock. It is still way lighter than almost all production bikes and a good option, or it wouldn’t make this list. Second, the Hotrock has coaster brakes. Depending on your kid’s comfort on a bike, not necessarily a bad thing. They will grow out of the coaster, but they can start on it without permanently handicapping themselves. They will just be behind the ones that get a freewheel to start. The coaster will definitely be a handicap at some point. This will also never be a race bike. My eldest started on one of these bikes, and I took the frame and built my youngest’s bike on it, replacing almost all the parts to spec it slightly higher end than the Pitboss, Juvi, or Banshee. It is a great frame, only held back by the lower end components and coaster brake. If you like to tinker and replace things, this is your bike. If you want to get to a better bike without having to respec the bike, go for a Pitboss, Juvi, or Banshee. The Hotrock 16 new will cost ~$80-100 less than the Pitboss or Banshee, and they are so common that they can be found used and in slightly rougher but still very usable condition for ~$100. Nice bike for less money, but the other bikes have several hundred dollars worth of better parts spec'd stock. This is the only real production bike that I can recommend. Excellent bike if you are not able to commit to the higher priced bikes. Definitely ditch the training wheels.
This should give you a good start. These suggestions may be above your intended price point, but the alternatives have huge compromises in bike longevity and safety, as well as how much it will get ridden. All this stuff comes from personal experience as both a rider and a parent of a rider, experience making custom kids bikes, as well as talking to tons of parents of riders and internet research. There are a lot of people that will ignore this advice, and if their kids get over the likely suboptimal choice, their parents will eventually realize the mistake and get the kid a nice bike, probably from this list. I made the mistake at first. It is easy to do. Now I have corrected it, and figured I would pass on what I learned.
First, some general kid bike purchasing advice:
1. Get a very light bike. Weight matters when you are ~35-45lb. It really matters. It is worth the money. Imagine riding a bike that weighs ~100 lbs for you. Not nearly as fun, easy, or safe as a <27lb bike. This is what you do to your kid when you buy them a 25 lb Big Box Store bike. Not cool to do to your kid, and a great way to make yourself frustrated when they can never make it up any hills.
2. Get a bike with small wheels. For a ~5 year old, 16" or the right 12" wheeled bike is best. Don’t move on to 20” wheels until age ~8, and even then it may be a mistake. 24” and 26” wheels are for kids who are almost adults.
Most parents get their kids a bike that they can "grow into". Huge mistake. Get them a bike that they can grow out of. They will ride it more, enjoy it more, be able to handle it better, ultimately become better bikers, and in the process will be a ton safer on the bike. The foundation built by riding a BMX style small bike in a standing position will be something that will benefit them for the rest of their lives. Most pro riders in every biking discipline are former BMXers, and even if not aiming at the pros, it gives you an idea of what this foundation gives a kid. Biggest mistake for teaching my eldest to ride was getting a bike to grow into. It delayed her learning significantly. My youngest is a better rider, and I attribute a good deal of that to the eldest’s first bike being meant to be one she would grow into, and my youngest being one we were comfortable with him growing out of. Huge mistake that was motivated by the wrong reasons.
3. The best bikes are simple. No shifters, no suspension, no extra crap.
In most cases, shifting is not important for little kids, and only distracts from learning true bike handling skills. All the extra shifters, derailers, cassettes, extra chain rings, cables, they are all just extra weight that the kid never uses. They usually put it into the gear that they like, and then never touch it again. Worse is when they put it into a gear that they don't like, then never touch it again, and ride it less because of it. One gear. It is OK to occasionally walk your bike up a big hill.
As for suspension, most suspension forks for bikes less than 26" are junk or crazy expensive. The compression weights on most forks are so high that it may as well be rigid, and they often weigh 5+ lb. To keep costs acceptable for parents, the kid forks are poorly engineered, and require modification by a skilled mechanic to make them even close to useable. Proportionally, think about putting a 20+ lb fork on your bike that needs 600 lb of force to compress it, is sticky and wobbly, and then only gets <1" of travel. You can get a high quality rigid fork that has effectively as much travel and have it weigh a fraction of that, for a fraction of the price for the poorly engineered suspension fork.
There are also tons of silly things that parents get their kids for their bikes that are useless. Baskets, bottle racks, fenders, mirrors, streamers, etc… Junk. Adds tons of extra weight, makes the bike bulky, less safe, and distracts the kid from doing what they should be doing, riding. All this for the extremely low benefit of making it seem cool to a kindergartener. Get a bike that the kid will like because it is a good bike. Don’t add silly junk to the bike to trick them into riding it. Make it fun to ride because it is fun to ride. Simple bikes do their job better, and are more fun to ride. If you need to make it fancy, do it with a few stickers, some high quality anodized bike bling components, and their favorite color paint job. None of these things inherently make the bike worse.
4. Kids often need a bike with very low gearing to learn to ride, but then quickly grow out of it. Low gearing allows very rapid acceleration from a standstill so that they can catch their balance easily. Once they get good at balancing well enough to start riding, the low gearing will hold them back. The most versatile bikes that will last a kid the longest will have an ability to change the gear ratios. This only happens on bikes with freewheels and replaceable chainrings. Again, we are not talking about shifting. We are talking about modifying the bike. Coaster brakes have a fixed gearing, no adjusting it later. If possible, get a bike with a freewheel. The freewheel is also safer, as it allows them to pedal backwards to adjust for obstacles and corners, to make for easier starts, easier climbs, and ultimately is what they need to learn to ride when they get adult bikes. Start them out on a freewheel so that they don’t have to unlearn bad habits.
5. Kids need short pull brake handles and easily actuated brakes. Most production bikes have coaster brakes, and the ones with hand brakes often have adult sized low quality brake handles. Coaster brakes are mandated by US law if the bike is intended for "sidewalk use" by small kids. Low quality coaster brakes are easier to use than low quality hand brakes, and are felt to be safer for the majority of riders since most riders are never given proper instruction or the chance to learn hand brakes. This is short sighted. Good hand brakes take some getting used to, but will ultimately be better for the kid in the long run. Any bike that has adjustable gearing and a freewheel, as in #4 above, will have a hand brake by engineering necessity. If at all possible, get a bike with linear pull brakes, or at least really high quality caliper brakes. Discs are optimal, but only come on custom bikes.
6. Training wheels are for suckers. Seriously. They teach your kid to spin the pedals, but they will never teach them to balance, and are actually unsafe if the kid tries to ride like most kids try to ride. Training wheels can lift the back wheel off the ground, and this means no brakes for most bikes. Not safe at all. They also can tip a kid over if used on ground that is not perfectly flat. Most people don’t live on ground that is perfectly flat.
The real way to teach a kid to ride is a balance bike. These are bikes without pedals that the kid pushes with their feet. The good examples are the Strider and the Hotwalk. It is common for kids to learn to ride before age 3 because of balance bikes. A few weeks on a balance bike, and the kid will learn to ride a pedal bike without any help at all, usually in a single session on their new pedal bike. Just start with one of these, skip the useless training wheels. Get a quality balance bike if you have more than one kid that will use it, or a cheaper one if it will be a single use bike. They will only need it for a short while, but will likely enjoy it for a few years, even after starting to ride a pedal bike. My youngest still takes 3+ foot drops and rides very technical stuff on his at age 5, and he has been riding a pedal bike since his third birthday when he got his first real bike. He recently told me we are never selling his balance bike. It now has custom paint and aftermarket brakes front and back. These little bikes can be super cool, and there is no faster, easier, or more enjoyable way to learn to ride.
The bottom line is that many parents make mistakes in buying their kid a bike by cutting corners or focusing on the wrong things. In truth, a kid's bike actually matters more than your bike as far as what it will do for their riding ability. Choosing well can make your kid a rider, or make the bike an expensive garage obstacle without a rider. With some forethought, any kid will ride better, and be much more fun to ride with.
When choosing a bike to buy, keep the above in mind, especially in the context of a few rider specific concerns:
1. Your kid’s comfort on a bike.
2. How you intend to ride with them.
3. Your price range.
Here are my usual recommendations.
Lil Shredder Bikes – Nothing compares to these, but if you are into bikes enough to drop $2k on a bike for a 5-10 year old kid, you already know about everything I just wrote. That or you have more money than you need. These bikes are made by a guy who took all of these things into account. He went counter to some of my suggestions, but the way he did it, and for what reasons, make it OK. He has top of the line suspension that the bike is built around, he uses shifters because kids who ride these already have the bike handling skills to use them, and he sacrifices a little weight to get functionality that the kids who use these bikes can benefit from. These are the bikes the kid-pros use, and they break all the rules, and in doing so, prove the rules. If your 8 year old is one of the top riders in the state, including the adults, this is your bike. Don’t be cheap, your kid’s future depends on it. Redbull is calling about sponsorships, so don’t limit your kid. These bikes are included to show what going all out will get you.
The next bikes are the right ones for the majority of kid riders, and their parents are the intended audience for this article. Your kid likes biking, you want to get them an appropriately nice bike that will not limit them, but they are not a pro rider (yet). The common themes are aluminum frames with higher end components.
Redline Pitboss - Amazing little bike. Super light (~14lb), and has excellent geometry that encourages aggressive riding and bike handling skills, with adjustable gear ratios, good kid-specific brakes, and a flip-flop hub. This hub allows an extra freewheel with a different gear ratio to be put on the non-drive side of the hub. This is so that you can change gear ratios with a simple reversal of the wheel that is as simple as fixing a flat. Super nice for getting a kid used to riding, and when doing lots of ups and downs. I consider this the baseline bike, and is the bike to get if your kid can ride a bike, is very comfortable peddling a 2-wheeler, and you are comfortable with the price. It is also the best BMX race bike on the list. Worth the money, and will last him until age ~8 or so.
Spawn Banshee - All the stuff about the Pitboss applies here, with one major added perk. It has a front brake. The Banshee is very slightly heavier than the Pitboss, but not by much. It is also slightly more expensive, but again, not by much. It will also last him to ~8 year old. Not as good for racing, but better than the Pitboss if you don't intend to race. This may be the best trainer bike on the list for being a future all around good adult rider but don’t want to dedicate your life to BMX races, and compares really well with the Pitboss.
The Cult Juvi 16 or Cult Juvi 12 - The only 12" bike on the list for a 5 year old. These are real BMXs, like the ones ridden by pro park and dirt jumpers, only smaller. Light, spec'd well, and definitely an excellent option. The 12" is the one to get if skate parks are in your kid’s future. Both the 16 and 12 are very nice. If your kid is 3 years old, the 12" is your first choice, at 5 years old the best choice for all around bike is probably any of the 16" bikes, unless you want them to almost exclusively ride skate parks. Check out these 4 year olds to see what I mean. Super rad little bikes, but possibly more narrow than the others.
Specialized Hotrock - The less expensive counterpoint to the above bikes. Good bike, with a few drawbacks compared to the Pitboss, Banshee, and Juvi. First, some of the parts are quite a bit heavier than they need to be. The crank, hubs, headset, and stem (basically the whole bike aside from the frame) can all be replaced with lighter components, but the Banshee, Pitboss, and Juvi already have these upgrades spec'd stock. It is still way lighter than almost all production bikes and a good option, or it wouldn’t make this list. Second, the Hotrock has coaster brakes. Depending on your kid’s comfort on a bike, not necessarily a bad thing. They will grow out of the coaster, but they can start on it without permanently handicapping themselves. They will just be behind the ones that get a freewheel to start. The coaster will definitely be a handicap at some point. This will also never be a race bike. My eldest started on one of these bikes, and I took the frame and built my youngest’s bike on it, replacing almost all the parts to spec it slightly higher end than the Pitboss, Juvi, or Banshee. It is a great frame, only held back by the lower end components and coaster brake. If you like to tinker and replace things, this is your bike. If you want to get to a better bike without having to respec the bike, go for a Pitboss, Juvi, or Banshee. The Hotrock 16 new will cost ~$80-100 less than the Pitboss or Banshee, and they are so common that they can be found used and in slightly rougher but still very usable condition for ~$100. Nice bike for less money, but the other bikes have several hundred dollars worth of better parts spec'd stock. This is the only real production bike that I can recommend. Excellent bike if you are not able to commit to the higher priced bikes. Definitely ditch the training wheels.
This should give you a good start. These suggestions may be above your intended price point, but the alternatives have huge compromises in bike longevity and safety, as well as how much it will get ridden. All this stuff comes from personal experience as both a rider and a parent of a rider, experience making custom kids bikes, as well as talking to tons of parents of riders and internet research. There are a lot of people that will ignore this advice, and if their kids get over the likely suboptimal choice, their parents will eventually realize the mistake and get the kid a nice bike, probably from this list. I made the mistake at first. It is easy to do. Now I have corrected it, and figured I would pass on what I learned.
Feel free to share.
