This point, however, is disputed by John Bradley, who said that, just like an adult, a child will be more likely to want to ride a lightweight, high-quality bike (which proved true among our testers). He also pointed out that such a bike will also sell on Craigslist for a pretty good percentage of what was paid for it, provided it was taken care of, making it a more digestible investment. The single-speed bike has a durable steel frame showcasing the Huffy ornament, while the ribbed-style chainguard completes the classic look. 26” cruiser tires are smooth-riding, and provide huffy cruiser good traction for a confident ride. All these details add up to one fantastic bike that is so comfortable to ride. Many kids need a little encouragement (and flat, paved terrain) to get into balance biking.
Final assembly consisted of fitting a couple of nylon bushings that comprised its super-tough and simple steering headset, then tightening the quick-release levers that raise and lower the seat and handlebars. The quick-release levers are even notched where they’re supposed to sit. The gorgeous, huffy cruiser aluminum LittleBig 3-in-1 is a hybrid balance pedal bike like the Strider 14x. It is a step up in quality, weighs less (11.2 pound without pedals, 14.5 with), and has excellent front and rear hand brakes and an ingenious system that allows you to flip the midpoint of the frame.
Though not as polished as the Strider or Co-op, this lightweight, low-slung bike will get most kids up and happily gliding along—and won’t bust the budget. After all this—and after consulting with fellow parents and industry professionals—we’re huffy nighthawk judging the Strider 12 Sport as the best balance bike for most kids (and their parents). We spent about 40 hours researching and assembling 13 balance bikes, and subjected them to a cadre of highly energetic 2- to 8-year-olds.
At first Horace manufactured products for service stations and steel bicycle rims, but sensing an opportunity during the Depression in 1934, he switched to making bicycles. You can get your kid started with balance biking as young as 15 months with a light bike with a low seat so they can simply sit, hold the handlebars, and walk around. With Strider’s excellent step-by-step instructions (here’s a video), buildout was a simple, 10-minute matter of slipping on a few nylon washers at the headset, sliding on a self-aligning clamp, and inserting and tightening the handlebar assembly. A properly fitted balance bike can enable children to balance on two wheels even as young as 18 months and is a fun first step toward learning to ride a bike. The Huffy Trail Runner women’s mountain bike is quite good in terms of quality as an affordable, well-built, and long-lasting Full Suspension Mountain Bike for girls to ride. The frame design is very similar, with the same 18-speed configuration, but the Hyper Shocker is a men’s mountain bike, whereas the Huffy Trail Runner is a women’s mountain bike.
In contrast to the Huffy Trail Runner’s poor chain quality, this mountain bike has almost none. For this great Outside story, “Inside the Cut-Throat World of Toddler Bike Racing,” writer Ian Dille’s son actually competed in the race Gay was covering. Balance biking also gives small children the chance to build the coordination, balance, leg musculature, and confidence that they’ll need for pedal biking—all things they won’t get if you start them on training wheels.
Our test kids generated slightly greater speed with the REV 12’s fat, inflatable tires, which are semi-knobby and offer good off-road traction. The bike’s 24-inch wheelbase, common to most of our picks, gives the bike a good mix of stability and agility. The tire valve stems also feature child-resistant valve caps—which you push down to turn like a child-safe lid on a bottle of pills—to keep your toddling tyke from mistaking them for raisins. The kids also liked the customizing sticker pack that came with the bike—letters, numbers, and illustrations of dinosaurs, birds, bunnies, and robots.
Strider does sell a $20 simple add-on foot-operated brake, which can also help teach coaster braking skills. This is an important safety feature for hilly terrain, but we’d love to see a hand brake option. These models can further be subdivided into adult model bikes and children bikes.
The 14x also has a nicely narrow Q factor—the distance between the cranks—of 5.9 inches, which keeps a child’s legs from splaying out while on the pedal and allows them to generate power more easily. These are features other pedal bike manufacturers would do well to consider. The Strider 12 Sport comes without a rear linear-pull hand brake—the ideal kind for a balance bike. Most kids can indeed stop a balance bike even on moderate hills with nothing more than their feet or simply step off the back of the bike, but a good squeeze of a hand brake can stop them faster.
If you’re confident that you can persuade your youngster to give push biking a go (and money is a secondary concern), the aluminum-and-stainless-steel Woom 1 is a work of industrial art. With a featherweight frame and rubber-tired wheel set, custom-built and -selected componentry, a powerful hand brake, ideal geometry, and solid customer support, the Woom 1 is the perfect balance bike for kids age 18 months to 4 years. Geometry-wise, the Banana is very similar to our runner-up pick, the Co-op Cycles REV 12. The curved frame is well-engineered with a very low step-in height of 8.5 inches. The handlebar grips are marginally kid-scale with a grip circumference of 3.5 inches, and the seat is also right at the edge of what a little kid would need at a large 5.5 by 8 inches.