New bike day is always one of those fun days. Usually prefaced with so much time scrutinizing build options, geometry, gauging how much trouble you’re going to get into with the wife, you know all the things. This time new bike day wasn’t for me, Lizzie turned 3 this week and we got her first pedal bike (with some help from Poppy). I can say with fair confidence that I probably over thought this just like any other bike purchase. Kids bikes are tricky and buying one with pedals for a 3 year old is a little interesting and for a few reasons. We put a lot of time and effort into figuring out which way to go, if it was even a good idea, and time will only tell how that works out.
The first thing we realized is that to get a kids bike of high quality you’re probably going to spend a few dollars. You’re generally looking at something over $250. Which when you think about a bike that is only going to be used for a year or two before they’re too big seems a little silly. What I quickly realized though is that these bikes have been designed as much as possible to actually help a kid ride and enjoy it. Things like the geometry of the frame, parts selection, etc. are all largely done to help their enjoyment and make it work for them. When you compare things like riding position or even small things like could my kid actually pull the brake lever and stop between a nicer bike and a cheaper bike it starts to become pretty apparent where the differences are. For us, we also have a 2nd kid who will likely use this and I suspect we’ll be able to sell it for a decent amount even after both kids use it for a little while. I think we’ll still be able to sell it since most of the parts on the bike are good quality and should hold up really well. There are a lot of really good reviews on the internet if you’re willing to do some research.
The next thing I agonized over was sizing, at 3 Lizzie is not all that big. Kids bikes seem to be even worse than adult bikes when it comes to size and how they fit. A 12″ for one brand is not even close to a 12″ for another. Knowing that we’re probably on the borderline of too early for a pedal bike I wanted to get something that she could grow into but at the same time wasn’t so big she couldn’t deal with it now. I ended up finding this guide to sizing ( https://www.twowheelingtots.com/kids-bike-sizing-guide/ ) and figured out that the 14″ Norco should in theory be a pretty good fit for her and give her some room to grow on it before needing to size up. The Norco is also one of the bikes that you can get without the coaster brake. After watching her try to ride a tricycle and a bike with training wheels, the coaster brake seemed like it would cause more issues than help.
When thinking about whether or not the pedal bike was a good idea we considered a few things. She has done well with balance bike, which in our case was a Strider we picked up for $20. She rides that thing almost daily both in the house and outside. She can balance and glide, turn, and do all the basics. I wouldn’t say she’s done all she can with it, but she handles it pretty well. She’s been begging us for a pedal bike for a few months now. I feel like we’re in that in between of maybe we hold her on the balance bike longer or find a decent pedal bike to try and see if she can handle it.
We obviously opted for the latter. We got a Norco Roller 14″ , based on the sizing guides I could find, measuring her strider bike at her comfort levels, and the lack of a coaster brake it really ticked the boxes I was trying to tick. It didn’t hurt that Sycamore Cycles carries Norco and we could get it locally. I really prefer to get things like that locally when possible so if there is any issue with the sizing or anything really we can get professional help quickly.
When we gave it to her, she loved it, she wanted to pedal, but wasn’t quite ready to pedal and balance and be on a bigger bike. So for right now we took the pedals off and she’s using it as a big balance bike. She’s doing great with it, we’ve even had requests to put the pedals back on. I think we’ll wait for the rain to stop so we can try it in the grass first and see how it goes. We’re going to keep the strider bike handy so she can use both as she tries to learn but so far it’s been good.
Being a fairly avid cyclist, I do try not to push what I’d love to see her enjoy too much. We do try to provide the best opportunities for her to enjoy those things though.
