Archive for category: Reviews

When you’re looking for a new cross country mountain bike for your kid, chances are you want something that is lightweight, stiff, and spec’d with a great drivetrain. That is the exact thought that went into the Scott Scale RC JR 24 mountain bike. This is a “race ready” children’s mountain bike that can have your little rider flowing along the trails like never before.

Our First Look At The Scott Scale RC JR 24 

Race ready is a strong way to describe any bike, but for the most part, this Scott bike lives up to the expectations. There are a couple of things that you may need to change depending on your child. For example, the pedals are the typical inexpensive plastic pair that comes with most bikes. The other thing that might need changed is the fork. For smooth paths the rigid fork will be fine. However, our little mountain biker needed a fork with suspension to help absorb some of the nastier terrain found on trail rides. Overall the bike is a solid build that will encourage natural progression.

Let’s start off with the frame. It is constructed out of 6061 aluminum that is double butted to increase strength around high stress areas. As a result, the frame is super light and a great platform for the build. Another nice thing about this frame is the curved top tube. You will notice that when looking at the bike, the tube has a flat spot in front of the seat before bending upwards to the head tube. This makes it easy for little riders to swing their leg over the bike when getting on and off.

Next is the drivetrain. It is a simple yet efficient 1×10 speed set up. This means that there is only one chain ring at the front and 10 gears at the back. Our rider loved the simplicity of only having one shifter to worry about. The shifter itself is a SRAM X5 trigger shifter which seems to work quite well with the SRAM GX rear derailleur. The wide range cassette offers quite a good array of gears enabling your child to ride at a fair pace, and climb and descend hills with ease.

A bike encouraging your child to pick up their pace can be nice. However, without good brakes, it could get a little bit scary for us parents. Thankfully Scott took this into consideration and gave the bike Tektro hydraulic disk brakes and 60mm rotors to make sure there would never be a problem slowing down. It is especially nice that they used hydraulic brakes over cable as it gives the young ones a chance to control the braking power rather than just being on and off like most cables brakes.

This bike has been designed to fit riders from ages 8 to 10 and is offered in one frame size. It is based around 24” diameter wheels. These work well for short riders because they don’t raise the height of the bike too much. Another great feature about this Scott is that it only weighs about 23 pounds. Most children’s bikes are a fair amount too heavy for them. And, they can tire your kid out quite quickly. This bike on the other hand can be tossed around easily by children on a ride. You’ll immediately notice that they can ride for longer when on the Scott compared to many other bikes.

Kids don’t want boring looking bikes. They want color and a design that will make others double take. This Scott is surely a looker (even from an adult’s perspective). It has clean lines, and a head turning black and neon yellow paint job. It just looks fast, and our rider loves that. Even the Syncros components have been color matched to the frame. This bike gets two thumbs up in the style department.

Our Upgrade – SR Suntour XCR Air Fork

We chose to put front suspension for on our rider’s bike as he is no stranger to rough terrain. In fact, he tends to gravitate towards it. Unlike most kids’ forks, this Suntour is something that really works well for lightweight riders. Since it is air sprung you have the ability to adjust the air pressure for their weight. Once the air pressure is set, you can easily make smaller adjustments to the preload via a knob on top of the right fork leg. Fully extended, the fork offers 80mm of travel but is internally adjustable via spacers to offer as little as 63mm. The XCR children’s air fork turned out to be the perfect complement to the already capable Scott Scale RC JR 24.

Final Thoughts On This Kids’ 24 Inch Wheel Mountain Bike

The Scott Scale RC JR 24 is a true cross country bike. It looks fast, and rides extremely efficiently under the power of little legs. Depending on your child, upgrading the fork might be a good option for you. However, this is personal preference and many kids will not need it. Our rider loves the bike and always has a good time on it.  If spending a little more than average money makes every trail ride that much more enjoyable, then it is worth it in our minds.

Mountain Bike Shoes for Kids That Don’t Cut Corners

Do your little ones need to have specialized shoes for mountain biking? Probably not. Can shoes like the Five Ten Freerider Mountain Bike Shoes for kids make a positive difference in the experience of riding a mountain bike? Absolutely!

The Pedals You Use With These Shoes Make A Difference

Flat mountain biking pedals with metal pins are also a necessity for these shoes to perform their best. Standard metal “rat-trap” or thick plastic plastic molded pedals with the orange reflectors on them will not take full advantage of the tacky Stealth rubber on the soles of the Five Tens. We currently use flat pedals with pins on our younger son’s bike, a Trek Fuel Ex Jr.

Our boys can be hard on shoes – so much so that we have burned through skate shoes in the span of a few months. However, since we opted to buy big, we are on the second year of use of these shoes (pictured) and they barely look worn. All of us are careful to only wear our mountain biking shoes only for biking so the soles don’t get unnecessary wear-and-tear. The uppers are made with suede leather and mesh.

The shoes perform well off the bike providing decent traction on dirt. And of course, excellent grip on rock and pavement.

If your family rides several times per month, the Five Ten Freerider Mountain Bike Shoes for Kids shoes may make riding even more fun.

The only issue we have had with these mountain biking shoes is that the long laces don’t seem to stay tucked in the shoes well for our younger rider. The laces loose laces have gotten caught on the bike/other objects a few times. If I were purchasing new, I’d buy the Velcro closure shoes for him.

These are not cheap for growing kids. Like other youth mountain biking gear – you can clean them up and try to re-sell them. We have seen used kids’ MTB shoes like these for sale on our local online buy/sell websites and Facebook groups.

Until just a few years ago, part of being a kid meant having to make use of a poorly spec’d, heavy bike with outdated components that really didn’t ride that well. Our favorite bike mechanic called this “The curse of the kid bike”. However, it seems those days are over. Several bike manufacturers are producing high quality bikes aimed at little shredders. Take a close look at the 2016 Trek Fuel Ex Jr.

Dropping In With The Trek Fuel Ex Jr. 

This mountain bike is one of the first full suspension trail bikes that has the geometry and components to make it perform for a child just the same as a full-sized trail bike works for an adult. Saying that, it also comes at a higher price tag than most kid’s bikes. So the question is, is it worth it? Well the answer to that will of course depend on the types of trails she/he likes to ride.

Our test rider is ten years old, weighs 63.6 lbs. and it 56” tall. His inseam measures 26”. He’s competent on a mountain bike. This allows him to use all the bike’s features to their limits and and offer credible feedback. The bike perform as well as Trek advertises it to. Just like an adult on a full sized bike, our rider was pushing to improve his skill level by riding things that quite frankly, would not be possible on a lower-end children’s bike. Our kid has climbed hills much more comfortably and descended technical terrain with confidence on this rig. He has enjoyed the bike on cross-country rides over 20 miles long. The bike also performs without a flaw on a bike park’s flow trails and technical terrain.

We really wanted to have our son try this bike at the end of last season and get him off his old 24” bike with a cheap seized-up fork and cantilever brakes, but he just wasn’t tall enough. As we’ve been riding with our kids, we’ve discovered something we like to call the Bail-ability Factor. This is when your kid has to quickly get off the bike due to steep terrain. a narrow feature, or other technical gnar. The standover height regarding a bike’s Bail-ability Factory is the critical variant. A mountain bike too big will not allow your kid to firmly plant her/his foot on the ground fast enough when they need to his the eject button. Of course crashing happens – but you can limit some of them by having the right size bike.

What Helps Make The Trek Fuel Ex Jr. So Good? The Suspension

The Trek Fuel Ex Jr. has been given a low volume 90mm X-fusion Microlite RL air shock at the rear which works very well under our kid given his light weight. It features a lock-out adjustment for climbing. On the front is a 90mm X-fusion Velvet RL air sprung fork with a lock-out feature as well. Together the front and rear suspension provide all of the traction and bump absorption that your little one will need on a moderately technical trail ride or laps in the bike park. The air suspension also means you can set the air pressures for your child’s specific weight and riding style. Depending on the terrain we’re riding, our young mtb rider will request adjusting the air in the suspension.

Sizing And Components

As far as sizing goes, this mountain bike will fit riders around 4’4” to 5’ tall. The 12.5” frame has been sized to fit small riders but makes use of 26” wheels. 26” wheels might be coming to an end in the adult mountain bike world, but for smaller riders, they offer the ability to roll over terrain relatively easily without raising the bike’s stand over height too much. We love the 26” wheels on this bike because even though our kid may out-grow it in just a season or two, it is the perfect fit for now. It allows him to control the bike and pedal efficiently. We are going to upgrade the wheels to tubeless wth a D-I-Y method or invest in 26” tubeless rims and lighter hubs.

The top tube on the frame is quite short, there are no reach issues. Just a comfortable and natural riding position.

As with everything else on this bike, the drive train is also child friendly. The cranks used are 160mm long, which are perfect for keeping the little legs spinning. 10 gears are found on the back cassette, and there are two gear rings up front. This offers a wide range of gear ratios for your child, making it easier for them to tackle obstacles such as steep hills. If your child does not have experience with multiple gears, this bike will encourage them to learn when to shift properly.

The cockpit is also, you guessed it, child sized. The bars are a narrow but fitting 580mm. Attached to them are good quality Shimano Deore trigger shifters, which is a huge step up from the awkward twist shifters that are often placed on children’s bikes. The brake levers are not adjustable which may not be optimal for shorter fingers. Most kids should not struggle with them though, and if need be, they could always be swapped out. The hydraulic disc brakes do provide ample power which is essential considering the fact that this bike may just make your child ride faster than ever before.

The Bottom Line

This isn’t the bike to buy if your child wants to ride to ride around the neighborhood. If go mountain biking with kids in the dirt, or your child is pushing the limits of their current trail bike, the Trek Fuel Ex Jr. is absolutely worth it. If your child is into downhill racing or taking on expert terrain in the bike parks, you should consider a downhill rig with a 1x drivetrain and dual crown fork. A lighter, hard tail cross-country mountain bike may be the best option if your mountain biking family’s idea of the perfect ride is hammering out climbs at a quick pace and racking up the miles on less technical terrain.

This is a killer all-mountain bike for the right sized young rider. It doesn’t matter if your your mountain biker has strong cycling skills, or if she/he is just starting out. The comfort, and superior build quality that this machine offers will inspire confidence and have your little one excited to hit the trails.

Check out Trek Bikes for their latest updates.

UPDATE: Read our review featuring the Bell Super 3r, too.

Our kids have both hit their faces while falling off a mountain bike. A few years ago, we were making them wear their full-face helmets on any ride that was even slightly technically difficult. They hated wearing their hot full face helmets on cross country trails. But I was traumatized by visions of knocked out teeth and fractured jaws inspired by their previous falls.

The Bell Super2R was a great solution for all of us. This helmet covers more of the head than a regular cross-country helmet – extending farther on the back, sides, and forehead. Bell helmets are comfortable and are easily adjustable to fit securely. The 23 large vents keep it much cooler than a traditional full-face helmet.

Chinbar Details

We love that the removable chin-bar can easily be secured hydration packs (and can fit inside a small backpack) for the climbing portion of the trail. The bar can snap onto the helmet while you’re still wearing it, but we usually are not in that big of a rush.

There are three lever buckles that secure the chin-bar to the helmet. These latches are easy for the kids to do by themselves. Note that it is possible to close the latches without having them secured to the helmet, so it’s a good idea to give the chin-bar a tug before you start to ride. Once the chin bar is snapped on, the helmet feels very solid.

There’s a mount on the top of the helmet which is formatted for a GoPro camera. Additionally, we also discovered that some light manufactures also offer adapters to fit this bolt-on connection.

We have had these helmets for over a year. We have not had any problems with durability. Personally, I feel more confident on descents when I have the “face saver” chin bar snapped into place. Luckily we have not had the opportunity to test the ability of the chin-bar to protect the face in a crash yet. Knock on wood. However, the Bell Super2R helmets are certified with CE EN1078 and CPSC standards, so I still feel that this helmet would be much more protective than a half shell in the event of a crash.