How to Buy a Kids Bike

Daddy Troy Welcome back to Gear Daddy I am your host daddy Troy, and today we're going to be talking with Chris Carter from the bicycle sport shop, and he is going to tell us about not only about how to buy a kids bike, but some of the things you might get if you come to a specially bike store like the bicycle sport shop. Chris Carter So bikes come in a range of different sizes and we offer all those. Kids bikes anywhere from 12 inches to 24 inches, and that's based on of the wheels. So this particular bike, this will be a 12 inch wheel, Daddy Troy That's the diameter of the wheel? Chris Carter The diameter of the wheel, yes, correct, and one of the cool things about this bike by specialized is this bottom bracket. It has been moved forward. Typically it would reside just underneath the seat post, by moving it forward it puts it between a regular bike and a trike. The trike you know the paddling action is up on the front wheel. So this allows a child to understand the paddling motion a little bit soon. Daddy Troy And that something that you might not get if you just bought a standard bike from a big box store. It actually goes there to design of these specialized bikes. Chris Carter Correct. Down at the materials that they use, the bearing that they use inside, who puts the bike together, all of those factors are going to come into play. Safety and durability is something that we all should be concerned about when buying a kids bike. A bike that's not manufactured well, put together will, breaks quicker, breaks down faster, and if the child is driving a bike that's breaking, obviously that's not safe. Daddy Troy And as a dad, will require more maintenance by me, trying to tighten things up then fix things a lot more. So it would actually takes, not only safety issue, but also the time it takes to keep things fixing it up. Chris Carter No doubt. And which is nice here too, when you purchase a bike at our shop, our bicycles sport shop, you get two or three tune ups within the first year. So that's a service that we are already given to you on the front end, and that you are not having to worry about. Daddy Troy And what about my kids back here the day I walked out, you guys had tuned it up, and adjusted it. It has everything, that's all good to go that day, we are ready to ride. Chris Carter Exactly, we were going to fit him up. Daddy Troy Well, tell me more about the bikes then. Chris Carter Sure, this bike seem to be sitting here, it's very light weight, which is good, again, back to my son, he was able to just walk it around, put it away, so he was learning his responsibility on how to treat the bike, as well as learning how to ride the bike, which is definitely an important thing to little guys. It's aluminum frame, alloy wheels, so these are the same components and materials that they are going to use on an adult bike, on this child's bike. So that's definitely a great value. Daddy Troy Great, super, until you fix it, the wheels come in 12 inches, what are the other diameters that are typical for a kids bike, certain bikes here? Chris Carter Sure, 12, 16 and 24. Daddy Troy Now, I thought an 18 inch, I thought 18 inch at a big bike, a big box the other day, but you guys don't sell, you guys don't make 18 inch. Chris Carter No, the standard sizes are going to be 12, 16, 20, and 24, these are for the child's bikes. There may be other manufacturers that are making in between sizes. Daddy Troy Correct. Chris Carter That's not as important. This is based on your stand over, and then you can adjust saddle height per fit. Daddy Troy And this saddle height is pretty easy to adjust on these bikes? Chris Carter This particular one is just an Allen wrench, and some of the bikes will have a class one, a quick release class, where you can just slide the saddle. Daddy Troy And it looks like this bike doesn't have hand brakes on it. The next size up or a few sizes up do, do you want to show us some of these bike that are over here? Great! Chris Carter So the other bike was a specialized bike, that's a brand name. This is brand name Track. Daddy Troy This is a Track, super. Chris Carter This is a girl's bike. You can tell by the paint job for one. It used to be the down tube was different on the girl's bike. You would always see the down tube slope away down on the girl's bike and the boy's bike here. Daddy Troy Which never really made much sense to me, you know for the guys. Chris Carter Right, right. So they are not doing that as much any more the boys like slope down as well. Daddy Troy Okay. Good, good team. Chris Carter So one of the cool features about this bike again, the frame materials, the wheels, these are all the same types of materials that they are going to use on an adult bike. This particular bike what I think is really cool is the track a dial fits system. What the dial fit system is, this allows your child to grow with the bike. As the child grows, the bike grows with him, rather than having to replace the bike. Daddy Troy Sure. Chris Carter The paddles, you notice there is another screw hole right here. So you can make the cranks longer,you know the seat height is of course adjustable. Some of these will also even have an adjustable stand to allow for the handle bars to come further up or further away from the rider. Okay, so this is another specialized bike, and I notice this one has the hand brakes on it. The first one we looked at, didn't have hand brakes. When does the kid -- why do he need hand brakes, why? Other one has a -- what's that brake called, you go back, a coaster brake. Chris Carter So coaster brake typically for the younger kids, lot of it is the fingers, not long enough to reach the brake, it needs to be able to sit far enough out for the braking action. Daddy Troy Do you ever have both coasters and the hand brakes? Chris Carter They do, actually there is an intermediate bike, I believe it's a 16 inch wheel bikes, have both coasters and hand brake, and that's to get your child used to using the hand brake. Once you move up to a geared bike, this one has gears. Then you lose the coaster brakes. So you need to have that free wheel. Daddy Troy So the first bike we looked at wouldn't have had these brakes. It wouldn't have had gears, what else does this have that the first bike we looked at doesn't have? Chris Carter Sure, shocks, this bike has shocks. Suspension that might, sure suspension, either one. So this is a comfort feature or a fun feature, if you're taking your kid on the trail, then you want them to be able to learn how to use that suspension to climb up a road or a rock. Daddy Troy Is kick stand standard with every bike that you get here or do you have to buy a kick stand? Chris Carter A kick stand comes on the majority of the children's bikes. So that comes with it. Daddy Troy And unless there are training wheels on this one. I guess by this point your kids wouldn't have training wheels. Are training wheels standard on certain sized diameter bikes? Chris Carter You can get training wheels, or they come on any bike that does not have the gearing. Once you get into a bike that has gearing, then the training wheels are off. Daddy Troy No training wheels. Chris Carter A lot of the companies are lowering the top tubes now because it allows a smaller rider to ride a bigger bike. Since they are learning to ride a lot sooner than they had before. But you are still concerned about stand over height. Daddy Troy So, they can access stand when the bike stops. Chris Carter Correct. Daddy Troy Correct. Super. And their seat's adjustments are different on this one as well? Chris Carter Yeah, this is different, so before you had the Allen wrench, and you needed a tool, well, this child is a little bit bigger, and he need to make adjust himself. This is a just quick release lever. Daddy Troy And I know some seats how to line which don't go beyond that line. Chris Carter Yes, on the seat post, there will be marking series that say, minimum insertion point. So you never want to have it. The bike looks like this, it's probably time to buy a new bik