A Modified Trail-A-Bike

I bought the folding model from Adams, sold by Norco. Sheldon Brown sells them online. Norco dealers are hard to find in the US but you can get them through the US distributor and your local bike shop.

The review. This bike gets a big thumbs up from my four year old daughter. She can ride with dad and not worry about wiping out, a constant concern with training wheels. All she has to do is pedal and hang on, which greatly simplifies the process of riding a bicycle for her.

I like it too. A lot of toys made for small children are junk. While the cheese factor for this bike is higher than what I'd tolerate for one of my bikes, it's still lower than for most kid's bikes. Sheldon laments the cheap tires, but we wore out a set on our trailer so I figure these will meet the same fate and get replaced in time.What bugs me much more is the open ended 25.6mm seatpost, a size so rare and bizarre that replacing it with a real seatpost is not really an option. Additionally the hinge joint requires a bit of muscle to unfold completely because the tubes are off just a little. But the amount of muscle required has been less recently so maybe this is just something that needs to wear in.

Why the folder? I was concerned about travelling with it. I've got a roof rack and I couldn't see how I was going to get it up there securely. I definately want to bring this thing along on trips and excursions to Grandma's.
 

	The frame of a Trail-A-Bike is longer than an adult sized frame.
	The hinge lets it fold to a compact size.

And then there's the gear. The folder comes with a 5 speed freewheel rather than the single speed BMX cog that the cheaper models have. The problem with the single speed models is the child gets a gear that is much to easy to spin out. What you've got to remember is:

• You've got 44 teeth on a kid's crank. You can't swap it out for a bigger plate.
• You've got a 20 inch wheel in back.
• Little kids don't have a lot of leg speed.

Even with the freewheel I found my daughter a little undergeared. I had a 7 speed corncob freewheel laying around from my racing days with a 12 tooth high end cog. My idea was to swap out the 5 speed freewheel and shifter with the 7.

	There's 120mm between the dropouts. 7 cogs is the most you'll be able to put back there.
	Shimano has come out with a 7 speed grip shifter. I chose that over the comparable unit from SRAM because it had a lighter action, easier for small hands.

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