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.
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 nighthawk 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.
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.
Other bikes with wider pedals will catch kids in the leg if they put their feet down. If your beginner kid is old enough or large enough to graduate from a 12-inch balance bike to something bigger that will balance now and pedal later, the Strider 14x Sport should merit your serious consideration. Along with the also impressive but more expensive LittleBig 3-in-1, the Strider 14x Sport comprises half of a tiny market huffy trail runner in 14-inch bikes that easily convert from a balance bike to a no-compromises first pedal bike. We were highly impressed with the 14x Sport’s under-$200 price, comfortable geometry, wide adjustability, the sheer genius of its add-on pedal/sprocket setup, and its excellent printed and online instructions and technical support. More than a good balance bike, it’s an ideal bike for learning the pedal basics.
For this guide, I interviewed John Bradley, formerly the editor in chief of VeloNews magazine and before that, an editor at Outside magazine. Bradley has a son named Max who had recently, at the time, graduated from a Strider balance bike to a 14-inch Islabikes Cnoc pedal bike. Bradley is fanatical about riding with Max and observing his young cycling habits with the eye of a scientist. I also emailed with Ivan Altinbasak of WeeBikeShop and Woom’s Dave Norris.
After determining that at least one Strider bike would be a final pick, I also spent an hour on the phone with Strider inventor Ryan McFarland. If you’re huffy bikes mostly riding on paved trails, then a Huffy mountain bike with wider tires and a suspension system may not be necessary. When it comes to choosing a bike, it is important to consider what kind of frame you want. If you are looking for a lightweight and durable option, then a huffy bike might be the right choice for you. Brake-wise, we would like to see the 14x Sport come with a non-coaster setup such as hand brakes and a freewheel, allowing a child to “pedal backward” when they need a quick stability check (while climbing hills, for instance). But due to US regulations, so-called sidewalk bikes—the simplest, smallest type generally ridden by little kids—must be equipped with friction coaster brakes.
For our testing subjects, we enlisted our friend’s adventurous little kids, including 2-year-old Elle, 6-year-old Luke, and 7-year-old Fleet here in Charleston, South Carolina. River, who is 3 and a proficient balance biker, took to our fleet with enthusiasm. So what about skipping the balance bike and heading straight for a small pedal bike (like a 16-inch model with training wheels)?
The Strider’s straight, mountain bike–style handlebars are a kid-size 14.5 inches wide, which makes the bike very responsive, while the tapered grips are toddler-friendly at 2 to 2.5 inches in diameter. Like most balance bikes sold today, the grips feature bulbs on their ends that prevent not only torso impalement from jackknifed handlebars but also scraped fingers from inevitable visits to gravel or pavement. The narrow seat allows for easy mounts and dismounts and features a gentle tilt downward from front to back to help keep your child saddled. Its surface is not too slick and not too sticky and comprises a durable yet just-soft-enough foam rubber. The bike comes with two easily interchangeable seat tubes—one short (8.6 inches) and one long (11.5 inches)—allowing adjustment heights from 11 to 20 inches, the widest range of any bike we tested and among the widest of any balance bike. Combined with handlebars that can rise nearly 5 inches on their own, you have a tiny bike that could be comfortably ridden by our 2-year-old tester and even my 8-year-old son.