16 inch bike with gears: Five reasons your toddler/preschooler (and you) needs one.

Children are often ready for gears before they are big enough for a 20” bike. For riding up and down your driveway, a regular bike works great. But if you want to get your family with small children out biking more, farther, and more comfortably, here are the reasons your preschooler/toddler needs gears:

  1. To conquer hills. Stop stalling bike rides by walking your child’s bike up a hill. It dips your child’s confidence and it is very boring to climb off of bikes to walk up hills. If you’re going to travel any distance, you’re going to encounter uphill sections. Get to the park, grocery store, ice cream shop, or swimming pool without walking a bike up a hill.
  2. Learn to shift early. It is fun. It is time to learn something new and be prepared for a bigger bike with gears later. At the toddler/preschooler stage, conquering a slight sidewalk hill on the way to the swimming pool might be an accomplishment, but later they’ll be ready to hit the mountain trails quicker after learning how and when to shift on their 16 inch bike.
  3. New top speed. If you want to see a small child get excited, put them on a geared bike, tell them to switch to gear 3 and pedal as fast as they can, and then gasp and exclaim that this is the fastest they have EVER gone on a bike!
  4. To pedal downhill. As adults, we go downhill way faster than small children; thanks gravity. And a 16 inch bike without gears provides no solution for a child to propel themselves to keep up. With that top gear added, a child can actually pedal to keep up with the coasting parent while flying downhill. Then YOU don’t need to use your brakes.
  5. Grass, mulch, dirt, and other rough terrain. It is pretty much inevitable that you’ll run into rough terrain if you ride enough. And depending on where you live, you might not have a lot of paved bike trails to take your kids on. Don’t walk your bikes through the grass to get to your destination once you’re at the park. Ride your bikes right across the grass in 1st gear.