Bikes for kids

[redshoes]

I would love some opinions on purchasing a bike for my 4 DS. He has shown no interest in riding until we moved into our new neighborhood, all the boys that are his age and older are always out riding and now it is all he has talked about. We have a cheapy little bike that we purchased last spring, but it is much too small for him now. I went to Toys R Us and a small town bike store today. Toys R Us had bikes that were about $20-$30 cheaper than the bike store, but the bikes at the bike store seemed to be better quality. This will not be my DS's only bike, he is not big enough for a 20" one so I'm postive that we will be purchasing another one in a few years for him. My questions are: what do you look for in a kids bike? How do you determine quality? What is a reasonable price for a 4 year old's bike? Is there anything else that I should think about before I purchase one? Right now the only thing DS is concerned about is the color (did you know that red bikes travel faster than blue ones?- me neither). Give me your advice, please.

 

[Raysplus1]

We have always purchased cheaper bikes at that age, mainly do to the fact that they only fit them for about 1 year. Then you are purchasing a larger size bike. Not until our DS9 was 6 or 7 that we purchased better quality bikes. At that age he started jumping curbs and wearing down the tires by making skid marks in the street and rarely uses the kick stand.