When you go to purchase your child&#;s first bike, you will have two options: training wheels or balance bike. What&#;s the difference? We will break it down for you:
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Training Wheels: An add-on part that can be attached to a two-wheeled bike. For a lot of parents, this is how you learned to ride a bike. Training wheels sound like a great deal because the child can learn to ride with the training wheels on and when the time comes to pop the training wheels off, you have a regular bike. The downside of training wheels is that it could take the child longer to learn to balance if they are relying on those extra wheels to hold them up.
Balance Bikes: With only two wheels and no pedals, these bikes require the child to sit on the saddle, scoot, and balance. Many resources say balance is the hardest part of learning to ride, so transferring to a pedal bike is easier for children that start out on a balance bike.
Ultimately, the choice is up to you and your family. Your local bike shop can also help you make the right decision for your child.
Regardless of where you purchase your kid&#;s bike, it&#;s critical to adjust it for a proper fit. If you&#;re skilled with wrenches and have a deep understanding of bike parts and human anthropometry, you can try this yourself&#;but for the most comfortable fit and safest results, you&#;re probably better off entrusting the process to a good bike shop.
As we mentioned above, the bike might fit your child perfectly straight out of the box, but oftentimes bicycles need to be adjusted to fit the rider. Or, if you&#;re buying used, perhaps you want to change a worn-out saddle, or further refine the bike for safety and comfort. Here are the most important adjustments to consider:
Seatpost: The seatpost is a tube of metal that telescopes up and down in the frame to adjust the saddle to the proper height for pedaling. Proper seat height allows your child&#;s knees to have a slight bend at full extension. If their stroke is too short, they&#;re getting less power out of every revolution. And if they&#;re sitting too low, that can mean their knees will rise higher than is comfortable.
One caveat: Rypkowski says that for newer or less confident riders, your child might not be ready for the proper seat height because sliding off the seat to stand flat-footed could be a big jump for them. Her advice for less-experienced riders is to start with a lower saddle and just adjust it up a little bit at a time as your child gains confidence.
Adjusting the seatpost is easy to do. Take a permanent marker and draw a line on the seatpost for a reference point. Open the quick-release lever (that uses friction to hold the post in place) and slide the seatpost up just a hair; be sure the seat is aligned straight, with the nose of the saddle directly over the top tube of the frame, then close the quick release.
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Saddle: Burton Avery is Cannondale&#;s senior product manager for their kids&#; products. He says that just like for adults, &#;the No. 1 thing that you should consider changing when anyone buys a bike is the saddle.&#; The best analogy: shoes. You have to try them on to know they fit, no matter if you&#;re a child or an adult. Specialized, Woom, and Cannondale all spec far narrower and shorter saddles for kids than you&#;ll find on adult bikes.
One telltale sign that your kid&#;s seat is too wide is if you see them inching far forward on the seat, riding the nose rather than the paddle portion. That could mean it&#;s too far for your kid to reach the handlebars, or it could mean the seat&#;s too wide, which hurts their bottom and also forces their legs to splay wider while pedaling, potentially causing knee pain.
Stem: Your bike will come with a stem (the linkage between the front of the frame and the handlebars) that&#;s replaceable, so you can make it shorter if your child has to reach too far&#;or longer so that the reach isn&#;t cramped as your kid grows. A stem has an adjustable clamp for the handlebars, which are also replaceable because the right width and sweep can further help your kid get comfy.
Brakes: There are two main types of brakes on children&#;s bikes: coaster brakes and hand brakes, although some bikes have both. Part of this is regulatory and beyond the control of manufacturers; they may have to spec a coaster brake because there are legacy laws governing how bikes are sold.
Coaster brakes work by pedaling backward. Lots of bikes for smaller children have them. Hand brakes operate via a lever attached to the handlebar, and most bikes for children only brake the rear wheel. There are two types of hand brakes as well. Disc brakes tend to have more power and are a bit more expensive, and work better in all kinds of weather. Rim brakes clamp against the wheel&#;s rim and may be less potent, though they frequently offer at least the same level of modulation as disc brakes. If your child&#;s bike has lever-actuated brakes, those levers most likely have a reach adjustment. This brings the lever closer to the handlebar, so it&#;s easier for smaller hands to grab, which is critical for safety. If the bike you purchased doesn&#;t have this feature, a bike shop can swap out the levers for adjustable ones.
Bike shifters: As with brakes, your child needs to be able to easily operate their bike shifters. Avery at Cannondale says bike makers are increasingly building bikes with low-effort shifters, meaning the mechanism isn&#;t as stiff as in adult bikes. One expert we spoke to says you want to hold a bike statically and watch to see whether your child can easily operate the brake levers and shifters. Again, the local shop should make this evaluation. Know that, like brake reach adjustment, shifters can be repositioned for better leverage for your kid to use.
Tires: Knobby tires might look cool, but they add friction. Cannondale&#;s Avery says that his brand has gone to either a tire with a very low knob pattern, with fewer cuts (called sipes), or to one with no tread pattern at all, because this reduces rolling resistance, so it&#;s easier for a child to keep up with their parents. He says if you buy a used bike for your child that has a tall knob, take it to a bike shop and swap the tires for something that rolls more quickly.
Weight: A general rule for kids&#; bikes is that the bicycle should not tilt the scales at more than a third to about half of your child&#;s weight. The younger your kid is, the harder it will be to find a bike that&#;s light enough.
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