Comment by p0ckets
3 days ago
I always wondered why almost all the kids bikes sold in Canada have coaster brakes. I actually thought all kids bikes had coaster brakes until I saw some at Decathlon with hand brakes (turns out it's a French company).
3 days ago
I always wondered why almost all the kids bikes sold in Canada have coaster brakes. I actually thought all kids bikes had coaster brakes until I saw some at Decathlon with hand brakes (turns out it's a French company).
The ones in decathlon are great because they have levers designed for smaller hands. We went with rascal bikes, they are expensive but extremely light weight and no coaster brakes, they also have belts so no lubing and no clunky chain guards. I think the idea behind coaster brakes is that kids have weak hands and that it's easier for their brain to only think about what their legs are doing, pedal forwards to go, kick back to break. I know I had them as a kid back in the late 80s and it was fine, even cool. My recent experience with my own kid was opposite to that. We started on a second-hand Specialized Jett 16 with a rear coaster brake (before I realized it was a mistake and ordered the much more expensive Rascal). The coasting brake makes the bike heavy, it prevented her from pulling up the pedal at start and it also confused the hell out of her while pedaling, she would sometimes mistake the direction of pedaling and activate the break, causing her to stumble or fall. It would also be one more thing to unlearn later on.