How to Choose a Kid's Bicycle

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Will from the Outspokin Bicycle and Sports Shop located in Newbury, New Hampshire. Today we're going to talk about kids' bikes. Once you get away from the super small bicycles with training wheels; you feel comfortable your child can actually ride and you're hoping that they can keep up on you on a ride, go a little bit faster. We have to discuss two different types or sizes of kids bikes. The first one is going to be what we call a twenty-inch bike; the second one is going to be a twenty-four inch bike. So when we're talking about kids bikes, we're really talking about tire size. Once you get up to adult sizes, it's just a twenty-six inch tire and there's different frame sizes. But with juniors, there's essentially one frame size and a different size tire. So in this case it's a twenty-inch tire; so it might just probably good to around nine years old or someone who's a little bit younger; would be a smaller nine-year old will fit this bike nicely. Essentially, you want to be able to have the child stand over the top toe comfortably without having to, you know, one foot up in the air; just safety one. And essence, we're looking for comfortable fit in the cockpit between the seat and handle bars. If this is too much of a stretch, it's going to be really hard for the child to control the bicycle. If they're nine years or older, probably up to roughly twelve or thirteen years, we have what we call a twenty-four inch bike. One frame size available, twenty-four inch tire; still small than adult bike. Mostly components here are very similar to an adult bikes. The shack it's a little bit easier; there's more gears to choose from; you get far hand rear shifting; all hand brakes. But the same idea holds true here, you want to make sure that the child is comfortable in a stretch. If it's too much stretch, this could be very awkward, very hard to handle and lose a lot of control. If it's too tight, same difference. But in essence, first year clear from too big a bike; always there on a small size. Plenty of time to grow. And that is how to size a kids bike."