Our experts advise that learning to ride a bike has changed over the years (no more training wheels) and balance biking is the first step. Once they can balance, they learn to use a hand brake and, finally, learn to pedal, skipping training wheels altogether. Once kids have mastered striding, it’s time to attach the pedal setup, which like everything else Strider, is extremely clever. The pedal assembly arrives in a box that advises parents not to open it until your child is ready to pedal.
In terms of construction, the Banana Bike was nowhere near as easy to build as our other picks. It comes with axles and accompanying hardware pre-threaded and attached, but the trick was attaching them to the front huffy cruiser and rear forks so that they weren’t too loose or too tight. This required some attentive wrenching with two wrenches (the bike came with only one) and paying close attention to the diagram on the instruction sheet.
The bike also arrived with its headset a bit too tight, making it notchy when you turned it. You can use a bigger wrench (again, not included), yet even without loosening, the too-tight headset wasn’t a dealbreaker because you can still turn the handlebars and they would loosen a bit over time anyway. The basic, skateboard-style cartridge bearings also worked fine as soon we loosened the axle nuts slightly. The bike is nonetheless handsome, and it performs huffy trail runner well once it’s dialed in, allowing a kid to start and stop comfortably, ride easy or hard and fast, and to bail without issue in the inevitable wipeout. We spent more than 15 hours researching, and more than 20 hours assembling, dissecting, and testing 13 balance bikes. A few years ago, when my son was 2 and way too excited to ride his too-big pedal bike, I fashioned it into a balance bike by unscrewing the pedals and duct-taping the seat to the top tube.
The seat adjustability—between 10¾ and 15¾ inches—is also impressive and will easily suit children ages 2 to 4. The medium-long wheelbase of 24 inches (comparable to that found on the Strider and the Banana) gives the bike nicely stable handling. There’s also plenty of space on the rear fork for your child to prop up their feet if so inclined. To mimic the approach of Strider, you could also add a couple of strips of grip tape to the rear fork. The Strider 12 Sport’s functional design carries over into its very lightweight plastic wheels and foam rubber tires that never need inflating.
The clean welds, flawless paint job, and precisely fitted componentry create a bike as high in quality as REI’s famous customer support. Making a turn with training wheels with too much speed can throw a kid from their bike. Typically, too, training wheels encourage parents to buy bikes far too big for their kids.
20 years of bike enthusiasts,
using data and experience to teach you
how to choose the best bikes. This bike is the best alternative to each other, and when I saw the Huffy Trail Runner, I wondered if they had picked up the design of the Hyper 26″ Shocker Mountain Bike. Because the Schwinn High Timber is available in a variety of colors and has a sturdy aluminum frame, it can be used for an extended period of time with little maintenance. Of course, when compared to the faster Huffy Trail Runner 18 speed, the Shimano EF40’s trigger shifters make it easy for the rider to know which gear to shift to. It is very easy to damage the paint and make the exposed frame rust if you scrub it with a hardwire ball.
If you disregard that aspect of the complaint, I believe this is a great mountain bike for the money. Steel bicycles require some maintenance to keep them from rusting after a while of use. Because there will be moist air attached to the bare frame when riding in the woods or on trails, you can apply Vaseline or lubricant under the seat to extend the service life. Alloy linear tension brakes are not the best option, but if you have the money, replace them with front and rear disc brakes.