The Best Bikes For Moms | What to Look For

Video Blog

August 25, 2020

The Best Bikes For Moms What to Look For

Hey guys, Dustin here, CEO of sixthreezero. Today I'm going to talk about what is the best mom bike or what is the best bike for moms to ride with their kids? I get a lot of questions or we get a lot of questions around riding with your children, both on the front seat or the rear seat, and what is the best bike to choose for you? So let's talk about it. Here we go.

So when looking for a bike to ride with your children, I think there are many factors to consider, many questions to ask. I think number one is what type of riding are you going to do? How old are your children? So let's try to break this up into a couple of different segments. First, I'm going to start with children ages six months to four years. And let's talk about it as if you're going to bring the children with you on the bike or attached to the bike in some fashion. Now I wouldn't necessarily advocate for bringing children on bike rides in a trailer or a seat less than six months of age. That's obviously up to you and the child, but typically kids don't have enough head strength to sit upright really before the age of three months at the absolute soonest. So I think six months is probably a good age where they can hold their head up and you could get them strapped into the bike.

So the question then is what kind of bike should you choose and what would work well, if you do want to bring your kids with you? So I'm not going to necessarily tell you a specific bike to choose from. I'm going to give you some of the features and options that I think are a good idea. And I'll narrow it down to a few categories for you.

So, number one, I think really important when looking to ride with your children, either on a seat attached to the bike or a trailer, you really want something with a low step-through height. And I say this because especially if you have kids in the seat with you, you want to make sure when you're stopping, you can very easily get your feet onto the ground. Something that has a higher top tube, it's going to be a little bit dangerous if you have to stop and balance the bike, and you're going to have that added weight, whether your child is on a front-mounted seat or rear-mounted seat, or the trailer, that weight of those things is going to pull on the bike. Having a lower step-through is going to be advantageous and more safe for you to come to a stop and not having to worry about balance. Again, if, if you're higher up, it's going to be more difficult to get your feet down and maintain that weight. I'm not saying it's impossible and it can be done. My suggestion would just be a lower step-through height.

Now, typically women's frames do have a lower step-through height than most men's. Don't ask me why, that's been the design and it stuck through the ages, but that's typically how it is. So there are some, if you're looking at our bikes, in particular, the Every Journey has a decently low step-through or Body Ease bike has an even lower step through. So those are two really great options. Our Cruiser Around the Block does as well, but that step through height on the Around the Block is a little bit higher than the Every Journey. So I would lean towards the Every Journey or the Around the Block.

The other thing in the vein of the same conversation is actually potentially looking for a forward pedaling design. Now what this is going to allow you to do, like our Every Journey, if the pedals are shifted forward, it's going to actually bring you lower to the ground. And you'll still be able to get that ample leg extension while riding. But I just like the idea of keeping the rider close to the ground when you have a child on the front or the rear, because again when you're balancing the weight as a mom and you're riding, you want to be able to get your feet on the ground as easily and quickly as possible. Especially if you should need to stop quickly or abruptly. It'd be important to me as a parent. I have the Every Journey myself and I think it's a great option. So again, the forward peddling design will keep you lower to the ground. You can get your feet down safer. So that's the next most important.

After that, moving on, you're going to want gears. And I say this because you're going to be adding additional weight to be towed. Whether your child is going to be on the front, rear, or the trailer, you're going to be carrying extra weight. Now obviously a smaller child may only weigh 10 pounds. Up to four years old you're probably looking at about 40 pounds, in that neighborhood. And that can add some strain. It's not going to be a walk in the park. Most of the trailers are designed and the bikes will do the work. But having the gears is going to allow you, if you're going up hills or you're riding extra distance, to really let the bike do the work. If you have a single speed and you're bringing your child along, you're going to feel it a little bit more in your legs. Having the gear ratio is going to is, as I said already, is going to allow the bike to really do the work and let the gears do the work and make it much, much simpler for you.

So the other thing is you need to make sure that your bike is even capable of mounting a seat, whether it be front, rear, or trailer. Now in my experience, looking at all the sixthreezero bikes, for the most part, and most bikes out there, most front seats, rear seats, and child trailers can be attached to most bikes. Now don't hold my feet to the fire on this one. There's obviously situations where that's not true, but sometimes it may just take a little adaptation or changes or fixes. In some cases, you need special parts to make certain seats work, but for the most part, they do work. However, I would advise when you're choosing the bike that you're looking at, whatever seats you're interested in as well before choosing the bike. You'd hate to get into a situation where you really want to bring your child on the front of the bike and you buy your bike. And all of a sudden you realize you can't fit a front child seat.

So again, there's also lots of seat options out there that have different connection points. But if you're really in love with one particular seat, make sure it will work on your bike in advance. Now the other thing is on the trailers again, those do fit most bikes as well. You attach them to the axle, for the most part, the rear axle. There have been instances where I've seen wider axles than is normal. And sometimes those don't fit all trailers. So it's important to find a bike, again, that will work with that and will attach correctly.

Also in the rear, if you're trying to get a child trailer, for some reason, there's something covering the rear axle or something preventing it from attaching, you need to make sure to look out for that.

In the case of a sixthreezero, a lot of our bikes do come with racks. You actually would have to remove our rear rack in exchange for the rear rack that comes with the rear child's seat. So you cannot use our rear rack for the child seat. You need to make sure you install the actual rack that came with the manufacturer because those are rated for the weight and they'll be able to hold your child.

So I would say important things: low step-through, forward peddling is a plus, make sure that a seat can attach in the location that you want it to attach.

Now moving up in age, if you just want to ride with your kids and they're going to actually ride their bikes and you're going to ride by yourself, what do I recommend? So I would say a lot of the same things hold true as well. If we're looking at an age group, maybe five to 10, what's going to be a good option? Well depending on how athletic your son or daughter is, how fast they ride your bike, you may be riding at a pretty leisurely pace.

So a lot of the same things I would say are true that I would recommend from ages five to 10 as in six months to five, which is you're probably going to want a low step-through height, something you can mount and dismount pretty easily, because of the fact that you may have to stop frequently or slow down, or even glide along with your feet on the ground a little bit while you're trying to let your son or daughter catch up. That's something I deal with now where I can very quickly or easily ride ahead of my daughter. And I find myself having to slow down and put my feet on the ground. So for me, it's really to have a bike that's low to the ground, which is like our Every Journey. Also with the forward peddling so I can get my feet down and be ready to stop on a moment's notice.

The other thing I would say, if you're riding at a leisurely pace, it would be okay to consider a single-speed or a three-speed for kids between the ages of five to 10 because I think that will give you enough gears for you to ride with them. My assumption is they're not going to be riding at a super-fast pace, although as you get into the eight, nine and 10-year-old age group, they are going to be able to pick up the pace. So five, six, seven, you could probably get away with a single or three-speed. Eight, nine, 10, you might want to be looking at a seven-speed depending on how fast your kids are riding.

Then as you get over the age of 10, it really depends on the riding that your kids are getting into. If they really like to ride fast, I would say, you're going to want to look at something with a little bit thinner tire, maybe a hybrid, something around the 1.5 inches, 1.75-inch tire width. But again, it really depends on the riding your kids are going to do. If you're going to go off on trails, you might want a thicker tire, something a little bit more rugged. So there's a huge variance I would say over the age of 10. It's really going to come down to just choosing a normal bike, where your kids want to ride, how fast do you want to ride, things like that.

And there's actually one more point I wanted to bring up around riding with your children six months to really eight years old is the tires. At those ages in particular, for putting a trailer or a seat on your bike, I'd recommend a wider tire in the 1.75 inches to 2-inch range. It's going to give you a lot more stability to the bike, and it's also going to really absorb shock. So that's just going to allow more comfort for your children on the bike. They're not going to be vibrating quite as much, especially if you're rolling over curbs, riding through the park, hitting bumps and things like that, the wider tire is going to be a really great option for both you and your son or daughter that are either attached to the bike in the front, the rear of the trailer.

So I hope that helps. I know there's a lot more to be discussed. Again, if you have specific questions about riding with children over the age of 10, please comment below. I'm happy to make suggestions. There's just a huge variance in the kind of suggestions I would make there. But if you are looking for a bike, take our body fit quiz. We will help fit a bike to your body and to your lifestyle, and we'll suggest the bike that's right for you. And don't forget, we have a 365-day test ride policy. So if you don't love your bike in 365 days, you can send it back, no questions asked and we'll refund your money a hundred percent. So enjoy the ride. It's your journey, your experience.