Glide Bikes Mini Glider Balance Bike Reviews

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $111.99
Sale Price: $99.99
Today's Bonus: 11% Off

I researched available balance bikes and decided that the Mini Glider is the best for my son. He loves it and couldn't be happier. (He has the blue one, but the color doesn't make a difference.) Here's what sets the Mini Glider apart from the other choices:

Super lightweight. Shipping weight is 6 pounds. Compare to the 14 pound Kettler Sprint. The lighter, the easier for a young child to manipulate. Watch my son mount, turn around, dismount, and even lift his Mini Glider with ease.

Foot pegs for ease of riding and transition to a pedal bike. Most brands have no foot rest for training foot position. The Glider Rider Bike has a 10-inch footplate, but my son's shoes are already 9 inches long. His big feet fit on the Mini Glider's foot pegs with no trouble.

Hand brake. Some others leave this out, saying that the child shouldn't go faster than his feet can stop him. My son figured out how to use the brake on his own. It is helpful to him when stopping at the bottom of a hill. At the end of the video, just before the last notes of the music, you can hear the "Shhh" of the brake as he brings the glider to a safe stop.

Solid, no-pump tires. With a vehicle this lightweight, you don't need the hassle of airing up tiny tires. These tires are sturdy and give plenty of traction.

Seat height easily adjusts with the turn of one bolt.

Minimal assembly required. Simply insert the handle bars, tighten with the included tool, adjust the seat, and go.

Excellent customer service from the manufacturer. I had a question about adjusting the brake, and when I called the # in the instruction manual I spoke to a real person immediately.

My son is a tall (44-inch) 4 1/2 year old. Not particularly athletic or graceful, it took him until the age of 4 to learn to pedal a tricycle. When he became interested in bicycles, I got him the Mini Glider. At first, he straddled the seat and waddled with the glider. He soon progressed to walking, running, one-foot-pumping, and coasting with his feet on the foot pegs. The video shows his amazing progress from his second day of riding the glider through 2 1/2 weeks of learning. He loves showing off his skills to everyone, and he wants to go riding every day.

Edit: The new model now offered for sale has a quick-release seat clamp. No tool is needed to adjust the seat. They have also made the handlebars adjustable, for an even more customizable fit. Excellent!

Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>

We bought two of these, one for our 3.5 year old and one for our 2 year old. Our 3.5 year old has been fine and has enjoyed it. But the handlebars are too high for our 2 year old. The handlebars do not adjust. In the photo, the seat is raised up very high. In reality for a 2 or 3 year old, the seat is much lower and the handlebars end up too high. We would have been better off with a Strider because the handlebars are low and also flat instead of curved.

So far, our 3.5 year old hasn't used the foot rest at all. I think it's easier for him to balance with his knees bent and feet dangling vs. putting his feet on the foot rest. The hand brake is also hard to operate without good grip strength. When I picked this bike over the Strider I thought the footrest and the handbrake would be added value but in reality they have not been used.

If your child is small and has short arms I wouldn't get this bike due to the high handlebars!

Best Deals for Glide Bikes Mini Glider Balance Bike

Pros:

1. So Lightweight it is easily controlled by an average 2 year old.

2. Hand brake is essential to me to teach that skill early.

3. Solid construction is perfect.

Cons:

1. expensive if you're buying this to teach balance in preparation for a pedal bike. Your child may learn so fast they don't use it very long! Probably has great resale value, though, as it is so well made.

2. On level ground, once balance is mastered, it is hard to get any speed to coast for very long without using your feet to push again. This is why my daughter wanted a pedal bike, because it is not designed for much speed on level ground. And obviously, it does not go uphill at all.

Our experience:

We bought this for our daughter's 3rd birthday. She was 41 inches tall barefoot. Within 15 minutes she was starting to balance by putting her feet out, just for a couple seconds. The second time we took her out, we found a very small incline that flattened out, and that's where she very quickly learned to balance and glide, even while turning. After that she enjoyed the bumpy little dirt hills and pretty steep (for biking) concrete trails, where we taught her to "drag" her feet to control speed, as well as use the hand brake to stop. It wasn't long before she was asking for a bike with pedals, so at age 3 and 3 months, we bought her a 16" bmx style bike with no training wheels. That very day, with just a couple pushes from mom, she took off pedaling, and already knew how to use the hand brake. With a little more practice and coaching on how to start off from a stationary position, she has learned to start on her own, without a push (that's the hardest part when you're learning). Now little 2 year old brother has inherited the balance bike, and is beginning to balance. He is shorter (35" now), so seat post is all the way down for his feet to be flat on the ground, and since the post sticks out the bottom with only about 1" of clearance, it will hit on a rock or some bumpy ground, but we mostly avoid obstacles like that for now, and he just loves it.

I would highly recommend this bike, if you can afford it, for kids age 2+ between about 35" and 43" tall. Taller than that, I would recommend the larger version. It is best to have a slight incline that flattens out to learn balance fastest. My daughter really had a blast on the small dirt hills and valleys behind our house, and impressed the heck out of bystanders everywhere who hadn't yet heard of balance bikes or teaching kids this young to ride. I think many to most kids can learn to ride a bike pretty easily using the balance method.

Honest reviews on Glide Bikes Mini Glider Balance Bike

I purchased the mini glider for both my son and daughter. Both loved the bike, my son at age 17 months was gliding in a matter of days. My daughter at 4 took a little longer. The bike took a beaten and would not break even after every kid in the neiborhood cruised around with it. I also purchased a go glider for a friends 7 year old, who loved the mini glider and who was already riding a two wheeler but was hooked on the graceful gliding. This was the best gift I could have purchased. I called the manufacturer with a question, I got a live person without being placed on hold! The picture on this website doesn't due the product justice! The colors are metalic and bright, and bike is extremly light weight and easy for the kids to handle. I wish I had this bike as a kid.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Glide Bikes Mini Glider Balance Bike

I bought this bike about a year ago for my son who was 26 or 27 months old at the time. He is quite tall for his age (90-95 percentile in height) and at that point it fit him perfectly at the lowest setting without taking out the plug at the bottom of the seat post. He was really not ready for the bike then, with a lot of prodding I could get him to walk it along for about 10 feet at a time before he abandoned it. We decided not to push him at that time. He is now 39 months old. We pulled the bike back out about two month ago. At first, he was scared to even walk on it but this time he progressed quickly. After about 7 weeks of riding once or twice a week he is now gliding like an expert. He is now 40-41 inches tall (he is the same height as a lot of the 4.5-5 year old kids that we know) Several inches of the seat post are showing, but I still have another inch or two of seat post left to raise the seat when I need to. This bike would probably fit a small to average sized 4-5 year old, but if you have a tall 4-5 year old this bike would be too small for them or they would out grow it really quickly.

I also have a 23 month old son who is average height. He is currently about 34 inches tall. We took the plug at the bottom of the seat post out so that we could lower the seat all the way. Even with the seat all the way down, it is still slightly too high for him. This bike would probably fit a 35-36 inch tall kid perfectly at the lowest setting. We will pass this bike down to my younger son next summer when he turns 3. I let him try it now and then, but he still needs me to hold the handlebars for him to even make it a couple of feet without falling over.

I love this bike, but there are a few things I am still a bit unsure about. I did not take any starts off for any of these issues because none of them seem like that big of a deal to me.

1. The kick stand is both a blessing and a curse. It is nice to be able to prop the bike up when not in use. That said, my son has hurt himself on it a few times. He is not very good at getting it up before he starts riding. He pinched his finger in it once when putting it up (when he remembers to put it up at all, he uses his hand not his foot). He has also kicked it once or twice while riding and scraped his ankle. All that said, if I do find it to be too much of a problem, I could always just take the thing off.

2. The handle bars on the bike keep twisting a bit, so that when the front wheel is straight the handlebars are not. I fixed it once about a month ago and have noticed they are twisting a bit again. It isn't that hard to fix, just a bit annoying. I may be able to tighten them down more if I try.

3. The brake on the bike does not currently work. I may be able to fiddle with it and get it to work, but it has only been in the last week that I thought he needed it at all and I wanted him to learn to use his feet to stop first. A lot of the balance bikes don't have a break at all.