by John Cane

Created on: June 26, 2009   Last Updated: July 01, 2009

In theory, any bike you purchase from anywhere should be safe. Unfortunately, most of the quality controls that ensure that this is the case are on the manufacturing level, not at the assembly level. Most bikes are partially assembled by the manufacturer and shipped to retail locations for final assemble an safety check. The assumption is that a skilled mechanic will run though the bike and make sure that it is 100% ready before it goes out the door. What this means for the customer is that the final safety of the bike is largely dependant on one mechanic unless the retail location has a method of double checking the work.

What this means for you as a consumer is that you either need to purchase the bike from a retailer with good mechanics and a system for double checking the work, or you need to be able to check the bike for safety yourself. As a professional mechanic who has built bikes both for high end bike shops and for big box discount stores, I will always recommend that you buy your bike from a bike shop, but at the very least you need to have met the mechanic who is going to go over the bike for you. On the other hand, with kids bikes, people have a hard time paying the bike shop premium for a bike their kid will outgrow in one season. With this in mind, here is my checklist of things to consider. I will discuss each point in detail below.

Understand your retailers business model - Big box discounter vs. Sporting Goods Store vs. Bicycle Shop

Performing your own safety check

Ongoing Maintenance

Understanding your retailers business model

The first type of retailer that people typically go to for a kids bike is what I call a big box discounter. If you pull the bike off the rack carry it through the hunting section, past the baked goods isle, to the register to pay for it, without ever seeing a mechanic or sales person, you are at a big box discounter. This is fine for a kids bike, but you need to be very thorough with your safety check. Without going into horror stories, let me just explain why I worry about bicycle assembly at this type of retailer. Bikes at these retailers are typically assembled by contractors who are paid by the number of bikes they assemble. So if you are making $4 a bike and trying to assemble 8-10 bikes an hour you are not as thorough as if you are building one or two bikes an hour. On top of this, once you get to your fifth or sixth bike they all start looking the same and it is easy to forget if you

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