By Byron Thornton
We plan to buy our child a bike for Christmas. Any advice?
Parents should consider the age of the child and how much they care to spend. Discount store bicycles will definitely cost you less than a bike purchased from an independent bicycle dealer (IBD), but most IBD customers are thrilled with the great service their few extra dollars have purchased. Professionally fitted and assembled bicycles from an IBD will outlast and outperform a discount store bicycle, so think long term when you buy an IBD bike. Is there someone to whom I can hand the bike down?
It is a great idea to develop a relationship with a local bike shop when your child is young. The “wrench” (mechanic) at the bike shop will take an interest in your child and will be a great source of information for your family as your child grows into their new bike.
How do I decide what size to buy?
Have the child straddle the bike in front of the seat and pick the bike up until the top tube (bar) touches them. You want at least two inches of clearance between the tires and the ground. If they can’t pick it up at all, you’ve got a problem. If they’re riding down the road and have to jump off the bike, you want to have that clearance from the top of the tube so they can launch off the bicycle without injury.
What type of bike is best?
It depends on what type of riding the child wants to do. If you are just going to ride with Mom and Pop on the streets, pretty much anything would work: hybrid, street or mountain bike. A lot of people buy mountain bikes, put slick tires on them and ride them on the street. They save their knobby tires, so if they ride off road, they can pop the tires on. Some people actually purchase extra wheel sets for both types of riding. That’s the nice part about a mountain bike.
A hybrid bike is going to have a little bit of tread on the tires, but not enough rubber to take them into the woods. You can take a hybrid bicycle on dirt and gravel roads, and you could probably ride into sand. But as far as aggressive off-road riding, I wouldn’t recommend it. Hybrid bikes have 26-inch tires with a smoother tread. A road bike was intended for street use and street use only. A nice road bike is going to be fairly expensive. They start at $650 and go up from there. An entry-level mountain bike, for example, a Trek 820, is $230.
Your $230 investment will buy you a decent mountain bike with the type of tires on which you can do all types of riding: on-street, off-road and trails. And for a child, that’s probably a better buy because the child may not take good care of the bike. An entry-level mountain bike from a bike shop is going to be better quality than anything you get in the discount store and more versatile than anything you get as far as the kind of riding your child might want to do.
I bought a bike that arrived in a box. Should I assemble it myself?
Would you ask your local plumber to do your tax return? I’d recommend you let an IBD mechanic make sure your child’s bike is safe and sound. We have customers who purchase bikes online and bring them to us to assemble and tune. We’re qualified and we know what we’re doing. The normal rate is $65 to assemble and tune. Full-blown mountain bikes break in harder. They take a couple visits to the bike shop. The nice thing about getting a bike from a bike shop is that your purchase usually gets you a year of free service. That’s a big deal because a tune up averages $45. Say you bought a bike $200 cheaper from the Internet and you needed it tuned four times during the first year ($180). You could have spent the same money and have received great local service at the IBD.
Byron Thornton is head wrench and co-owner of Ride On Bikes, 1036 Broadway, www.rideonbikes.com, 706-324-1132.
