Kids' Bike Review

Sizing up reviews of kids' bikes

Experts generally advise purchasing bicycles at bike shops, because they sell high-quality bicycles and because the knowledgeable employees will fit the bike to your child. The bicycles sold at big-box stores are typically lower in quality and may be set up incorrectly. However, the bicycles sold at bike shops are usually more expensive, and parents may be hesitant to spend hundreds of dollars on a bike that will be outgrown in a few summers. In addition, there are few professional or user reviews of name-brand kids' bikes sold in bike shops, so it's difficult to evaluate those models. While experts may recommend that parents avoid kids' bikes sold at big-box stores, several standout models get very good user reviews. If you do buy a bicycle at a big-box store, it's well worth it to pay for a tune-up at a specialty bike store to ensure the bike is assembled correctly.

We found few recent professional reviews for kids' bikes, especially those designed for older children. Bicycling magazine has the most recent coverage in its latest buyer's guide, but it only covers a handful of bicycles, and the bikes aren't rated. There is more information available for tricycles, although even there the coverage is slim. Babble.com has a relatively recent test of several tricycles, and ConsumerReports.org tests several outdoor summer toys, but only one tricycle is included. We expected to find bike reviews at Good Housekeeping or Cookie magazines, but these publications have little to offer when it comes to rating kids' bikes. The most useful reviews of specific kids' bikes are generated by consumers at retail websites, including Amazon.com and Walmart.com. When it comes to kids' bikes, information provided by parents is very useful in narrowing down the best models.

While bikes sold at big-box stores get a bad rap for poor quality from sources like ConsumerReports.org and Bicycling magazine, the only kids' bike recalled recently was a name-brand bicycle sold in specialty bike shops. In 2008, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled 49,000 Trek MT220 Girls bicycles sold between April 2004 and June 2007 because of reports that the frame could break spontaneously during use. Twelve incidents, including four injuries, were reported. Big-box bikes have had their problems, too: Specific models sold at Toys "R" Us and Kmart were recalled several years ago. However, we saw no recalls affecting any of the kids' bikes reviewed in this report.