Guide

What size bike
for my child?

Age is the worst way to pick a bike and it is the way everybody starts. Two eight year olds can be a head apart. Go by the child, not the birthday.

Measure the inside leg, not the height

Stand them against a wall in the boots they will ride in, and measure from the floor to the crotch. That number, not their age, is what decides which bikes are worth sitting on.

A confident rider wants the balls of both feet down. A nervous one, or a first bike, wants both feet flat. If only one foot reaches, the bike is too tall for now, whatever the box says.

Seat height is the number that matters

Every maker quotes a seat height and they are not measured the same way, which is why we list ours from the maker's own figures and then let you sit on the thing. The table below is the current range.

Seat heights are the makers own figures and they are not all measured the same way, which is why we would rather sit the child on it. Not stated means the maker does not publish one.

Room to grow, but not too much

A bike bought two sizes big is a bike nobody rides. Kids grow into a bike over a season, not over three, and confidence lost on a machine that is too tall takes longer to get back than the money saved.

If they are between sizes, the adjustable ones buy you time. Several in the range have an adjustable seat or an adjustable power setting, which does more for a nervous rider than any amount of extra frame.

Power matters as much as height

A small bike with too much power is worse than a big one with too little. Most of the electrics here have two or three speed settings so an adult can cap it, which is the single most useful feature on a first bike. Set it low, let them get bored, then turn it up.

The bit we cannot do from here

We will not tell you a bike suits a particular child over the phone or in a guide. Height, weight and how much they have actually ridden all pull in different directions, and the only honest way to settle it is to sit them on a few. Ring us, tell us the age, roughly how tall they are and whether they have ridden before, and we will have two or three ready.

Common questions