It's time to upgrade my daughter's bike. Looking for a 20" bike and am considering whether it's worth looking beyond Torpedo7 bikes which I usually get when the 50% sale is on and going somewhere else for value when taking into consideration faftors like bike fitting / servicing as well. Any thoughts on this one?
Any advice on buying kids bikes?
jinxnz on 29/04/2025 - 13:59
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This, but gears or no gears really depends on what kind of riding will be done. My almost 6 year old at the time got a 20" bike with gears last year (2nd hand Giant XTC), we live on a bit of a hill and bike down to school most days, we also do easy mountain bike trails. The gears have been so useful for the hills and getting up trails, the grip\twist shifter was a bit tricky to start with but he quickly mastered it.
It's definitely worth looking elsewhere for good deals, but yeah, T7 is fine too.
You can almost always get a fantastic deal on a second hand bike on FB marketplace. Buying a new bike every time a young kid outgrows it is needlessly expensive when you can keep an eye on local listings and get a bargain. Just bought my son a 20 inch Avanti alloy bike for $100 locally, in very good nick.
As much as I have tried to buy second hand, the price you can get some of the T7 bikes (when on special) comes down so low, to the point where you factor in it being brand new, you can often get a choice of colour, warranty and the lack of anything needing to be replaced in the immediate future, even $100 makes it hard to rationalise a second hand bike.
Even more so as the bikes get larger and sellers are wanting to recoup their costs on that initial purchase. I am sure there are probably some awesome second hand specials to be hand etc, but my experience to date has usually sent me to the shop to buy new.
I have seen some of them just discounting it to 15-20% of RRP which could easily be what they actually paid for on special, which is ridiculous to pay when it is used for couple of years or so.
Yeah i'd get the cheapy in 20 inch as it will only be for 2-3 years. Strongly recommend getting onto an XS 27.5 wheel mountain bike as soon as possible. Worth spending a bit more money here as it lasts longer and is more capable especially if you get into mountain biking.
If you can get a second hand islabike in 20 or 24 for a reasonable price, jump on it. Got one for my little one and the weight and geometry makes it so easy for him.
Thankfully at 20" you the bike is big enough that it isn't impacted by the stupid coaster break law, and normal, duel hand break setups are common.
I tend to buy nice used bikes. (I sank a massive amount of effort into teaching my child to ride a cheap k-mart bike, then worked out the bike might be the issue, so brought a nice 14" commoncal and she was happily balancing on it (no peddles yet) on the deck in the first 30 seconds, so I decided cheap stuff wasn't worth the effort. Typically can flip the used bikes for a $100 - $200 loss when the child is done with them.
Have progressed from the 14" commoncal, to a 16" eairly rider, to a 20" specilised riprock.
In the 20" size, current favored approach is that (unless you go for $1500+ bikes with air suspension), that suspension isn't worth the extra weight. As such, our riprock has no suspension. Stull frustratingly heavy (weighs about the same as my high end adult 29" XC bike with a dropper post), ours is the old version with the super low hanging derailer. Ours has trigger gears which are generally favored, but hard to find in this size, and 160mm hydraulic disk breaks.
I have swapped the seatpost to an alibaba carbon one, the peddles to early rider knock off's, and the tubes to TPU, which cut more than 500 grams from the stock bike.
Generally I would recommend having gears at this size. don't need disk breaks (V-breaks are fine), but lighter is better, so avoiding front suspension is fine.
Kids grow real quick, so unless your little one is hitting the trails like a demon or showing mad skills at the jump park then the T7 variants are probably totally fine and a good option for the price.
The main thing that I looked for (and we did go with T7 too) was weight (of the bike) - because you will probably be lugging it around a fair bit - so having an alloy frame was important to us.
When we moved from the 20" to the 24" we did end up with going to something "better" (in our case we went Commencal) as we were able to get something with good components (esp disc brakes) which would handle some proper use/abuse (ie they are fit for purpose). Also the good thing about getting a decent brand is the ability to move it on once your child has outgrown it.
In terms of servicing/fitting - don't look for something with complexity. Gears IMO would be a waste of time, suspension too. It just means more chance of something going wrong or needing repair. Just keep it simple to ignite the fire/passion for riding. We only got gears at 24" and even then no suspension (kids being lighter weight often means it doesn't make much difference and just adds weight to the overall bike making it more cumbersome to move/ride). With our T7 (20") bike, we bought it, rode it for a year, replaced a rear tyre (yay for skids) and sold it - nothing else maintenance wise. The 24" one had nothing done to it over the 2 years of ownership before it was sold on. Do yourself a favor and get some chain cleaner and lube so you can do some basic maintenance to ensure the longevity yourself.
A trip in store should be able to confirm if the size is going to work - as all frames are slightly different (eg with standover design etc); but chances are just using the size charts on the site (if you can't get in store) will be totally fine. Kids usually favor a smaller size anyhow, as it gives more confidence as apposed to having to straddle the bike and sit with one leg on the ground on tip toes etc.
TLDR - yeah T7 is fine for the smaller bikes; just wait for the sales!!