Strider 14x Balance Bike

this was our 3rd strider bike, our 5th balance bike. These are the very best ones. Light and easy for the kids to get up and go on and they hold up. Kids moved to electric bikes and didnt do petal bikes until after that. bought the petal kit for my daughter's and she had it in 5 minutes.

My daughter loves this bike. She's 3 years and 3 months old and 36.6" tall and she learned to pedal this bike in a day. It didn't all happen in a day, she's been practicing on other bikes (read on for more), but she's super happy and proud of herself to put it all together and start riding a real bike with pedals. This review is a personal account of lessons learned getting here. We started off with the Strider 12 balance bike (to learn to balance!), then added a Diamondback Lil Impressions 12" pedal bike with training wheels (to learn to turn the pedals), then finally moved to the 14X without pedals at first, then added the pedals (putting it all together). This is the lightest weight pedal bike I could find anywhere, weighing in on my scale at 15.6 lbs including the pedals. For comparison, the smallest Strider balance bike is significantly lighter at 6.6 lbs on the same scale, while her Diamondback Lil Impressions comes in at 20.0 lbs with training wheels. For a 32 lbs child, the extra 4.4 lbs made a big difference in how quickly she was able to climb, balance, push, and pedal the bike with confidence. The seat is closest to the ground, compared to other bikes with pedals that we've tried. One of the great features of the smallest balance bikes is how early kids can get on it. We got the Strider 12 when she was about 18 months, and she has been practicing balancing for quite a long time, and became quite proficient. The only reason it has taken this long to move to a pedal bike is because she was just not tall enough to reach the floor. On the lowest setting, the top of the Strider 14X seat is just about 15" off the ground. For comparison, the Strider 12 was about 11", while the Diamondback Lil Impressions was a horrible 18". For a 36" tall kid, these 3" are big difference. This height meant that she couldn't reach the ground from the 14X seat until very recently after her last growth spurt (and who knows when she'll reach it from the Diamondback...). The removable and narrow pedals are absolutely brilliant! She was pretty confident on the smaller Strider 12 balance bike, so we started off on the 14X without pedals and spent an hour just getting comfortable balancing this new, bigger bike. Then we came home and added the pedals. The first instinct she had was to try to pedal from a cold start, the same way she's done with her Diamondback. The next thing she tried was to just push the bike with her feet like a balance bike. This is where the narrow pedals shine, because it allowed her legs to reach the floor even with the pedals on and push it like before. Then as she picked up speed, she naturally just tried putting one foot on a pedal. Then the other. Then turning them. Finally, it all came together and she was able to bike around like a champ. So here's some free, unrequested advice, and basically my own advice for our second child who is not even a week old yet. Learn to balance on a balance bike as soon as you can comfortably reach the floor from the seat. Learn to turn the pedals on anything that has a pedal (ideally, something lighter than 20 lbs!). Then as soon as you can reach the floor from a seat that's 15" high, get on a Strider 14X! It's awesome, five stars. PS: and my advice to myself (and other parents) -- the best you can do is encourage the little one to practice, and cheer them on! (i.e. don't try to push them or balance them with your hands, you're probably just distracting them)

My twin boys were riding with training wheels and when they were 4.5 we took the training wheels off to teach them riding on a bike with 2 wheels. It was really painful. One of the boys is more adventurous and he was happy to try riding on a lawn with a small downward slope. However, after falling/crashing a few times he refused to try it again. I don’t blame him. It was really hard to watch and seemed like a tough way to learn. My other son is less adventures and we took off the pedals of his regular bike to turn it into a balance bike. However, it didn’t work well (maybe we couldn’t get the seat low enough, maybe the seat is not as far back as it is on the actual balance bike). We were hesitant to buy 2 new balance bikes because we thought they were for younger kids and that we missed the opportunity/time window for our kids. We were looking into getting a pole/stick to put it on the back of a bike but it didn’t seem like the bikes we had were designed for that. Then we found then that Strider has a larger size of bikes and purchased two of these balance bikes. They are AMAZING. The boys got comfortable riding on them right from the start and they began enjoying biking again. We just added pedals to the balance bikes because we thought the boys were ready and both boys started riding comfortably on the bikes with 2 wheels almost immediately. It seems like a miracle given our experience with regular bikes and I am so happy that I don’t have to watch the painful falls any more. It was the easiest transition to a 2-wheel biking I could hope for. The pedals that one can order with the Strider bikes are smaller than on regular bikes so it is still possible for the child to put their feet on the ground and not to bump into the pedals all the time. I highly recommend these balance bikes, even if your children are on the older side.

This has been a great purchase. My 3 (almost 4) year old was ready for a pedal bike, but was too big for a 12 inch and seemed too small for a 16 inch even though we went to several bike places that told us that was the right fit. She is on the smaller side (32 lbs, 39 inches), so all the 16 inch bikes we tried just seemed too heavy. This bike is perfect and extremely light weight which I liked. We kept it as a balance bike for a couple of weeks just to have her get the hang of it. We switched it over to a pedal bike and it took her maybe 30 or so minutes and she was pedaling, with no help from us and her just figuring it out. I think a major part of the success was the ability for her to still give herself a running start same as if she was on a balance bike. The back pedal brakes has been harder for her to understand, but seeing as she will move on to hand brakes, I am not soo concerned about this. The one thing that did make it slightly hard is the pedals themselves are about half the size of a regular pedal. That was one of her 1st comments was that they were too small for her to be able to put her foot on it. She has figured that out as well, and I imagine they are like that so kiddos still can balance if they need to, so they won't get in the way. Overall, I am very happy with this purchase and think this is really a great transition bike before they get to the much heavier 16 inch bikes that are found at most bike stores.

Bought this floor my daughter, it was easy to assemble! Only took a few minutes. She quickly got the hang of it. I love that it had the option to add pedals later! She is becoming a trickster on this! She’s tall for her age so it is a little on the smaller side, she won’t get as long out of it before she completely outgrows the frame.

Heavy bike, but okay for our larger 3 year old. He complained about the seat cushion, so we bought a gel pad, but just like for an adult, riding frequently is the key to avoiding a sore bum. We also bought the pedal kit. Pretty soon (he didn’t care to ride it as much as expected) his balance was great and we decided at age 4 he was ready to try pedals. They were difficult to rotate, which led to some major frustration, but after just a few days of trying (and adjusting the chain), he was successful at riding a bike having never used training wheels. He was proud! We quickly noticed, though, that he needed another bike in order to keep up with other kids who had common 16” non-balance bikes. We had hoped we could use the 14x balance bike with pedals for a longer time (he used it 3 months) before needing another bike, but found that while the 14x is great for learning to balance and pedal, it isn’t a long term use bike—not as long as we wanted anyway. It’s heavy and more rigid in its movement. Our near 4.5 year old son is now enjoying a 16” common pedal bike. It only took a couple tries to be confident and no training wheels were used. Overall we’re glad we bought this; he was very successful in learning to ride. The 14x bike with pedals was used for just over two years (age 3-4) for one kid.

The Strider 14x is very high quality, super easy to assemble, adjustable for growth and lightweight. The bike has excellent geometry that promotes stability and builds confidence quickly. After a season of "striding", I added the pedal kit and watched my 4 year old granddaughter ride away under pedal power on her first try!

My 4 YOA loves it. It’s been going pretty good teaching him how to ride.

Easy to build. Good bike. Much bigger than the original model. My son is learning to adapt to it.

SUPER BONITA Y PRACTICA

Bike has been great 3 year old daughter loves it

Recomiendo mucho este Strider. Es decir, es de la marca Strider precisamente, muy buena calidad de materiales. El caja viene compacta y desarmada, es fácil armarla. Tiene un aditamento que se compra aparte para volverla bicicleta más adelante. Este tamaño (14x) es perfecto para niños mayores de 4 años, que las striders pequeñas ya no les quedan, pero quieren seguir rodando con la libertad de solo usar su impulso. Usar strider (bicicleta sin pedales) ayuda mucho a que aprendan equilibrio y confianza. Con eso, la transición a bicicleta normal es mucho más fácil. En la foto la azul es la Strider de esta publicación, que reemplaza a la roja, y la foto busca comparar los tamaños. No se aprecia tanto en la imagen, pero la roja es mucho más pequeña.

My 3 year old grandson loves his new Stride bike .. It was a great choice because we will eventually put on training wheels. The height is perfect for him and made well …