Navigating the childrens’ bike market with Prevelo

The childrens’ bike market, having for some years been dominated by the chains, is bouncing back with the indie store. Now a Windwave carried brand, Prevelo’s Jacob Rheuben outlines why a quality product is winning round parents in store…

Tell us about how Prevelo came to be?

When I was teaching my oldest son to ride it was really hard to find a quality bike with kid friendly geometry. At the time the premium kids’ bike niche was in its infancy and quality bikes were scarce. So, I had this vision for a brand and I told my wife about it over dinner. Normally in these kinds of moments my wife’s role is to exercise her authority as my partner in life and stop me. I fully expected this idea to vaporize after that conversation. But when I told my wife the idea she loved it. Now we own a bike company; this is all her fault!

Kids’ bikes are not just small adults’ bikes – what have you done to adjust geometries and components and what research is behind these changes?

I’ve taught so many kids how to ride bikes that I’ve lost track. The biggest thing I notice is that young people learn to ride easier and ride better when they are close to the ground. There’s some physics involved – when the rider is lower, they have a lower center of gravity and become more agile. With a young rider it’s really important to make the rider feel confident. The key to getting a rider low to the ground is a low bottom bracket. We also use short cranks with narrow Q-factors. In addition to being ergonomically correct for small legs, these crank preserve ground clearance and lean angle with the low bottom bracket.

We also nit-pick every detail on the bike to try to optimise everything for children. We use rounded axle bolts instead of nuts on the axles to reduce harsh edges. We use small diameter grips and short reach brake levers, so the cockpit fits small hands. We also know that kids are rough on the bikes in ways that adults aren’t – for example, young kids tend to drop their bike on the ground a lot more that adults (often not gently), so our single speed bikes have forged reach dropouts that shroud the rear axle. We even worked with a pedal manufacturer to design special narrow pedals that fit kids’ feet while maximising ground clearance and lean angle.

The kids’ bike market has been a notoriously difficult place to compete in the past where big retailers brought in their own lines – how has this special focus on quality given the bike shop a product worthy of stocking in number again?

There may be some differences between the US market and the UK market in this area. In the US market, I would break the kids’ bike market down into three categories. The first is mass market (bikes sold at big box retailers like Walmart). Second is the independent bike shop for mainstream bike shop brands and, finally, premium (this is the niche that we are in).

The premium childrens’ bike niche is the smallest of these three segments. In the US this segment is dominated by small niche brands that are focused on kids’ bikes (some of the bigger brands are just starting to dip their toe in this market). There is little available industry data on this niche, but anecdotally, my observation is that it’s growing rapidly.

I have theories about why this is happening. Many of today’s parents have been lifelong cycling enthusiasts and they want quality bikes for their kids (and they recognise quality when they see it). Also, many parents see their children glued to screens. They want their kids to be outdoors and active, and believe that if they get their child a good bike they will be more likely to choosing cycling over screens.

Tell us about the build quality and idea that resale value can be factored into a quality kid’s bike purchase:

This is a point that is often overlooked by parents. Prevelo bikes are built to adult bike standards. Our frames and components are robust, plus our bikes are easily serviceable by bike shops, so they are easy to fix if things ever go wrong. Parents with multiple children will find that the bike lasts through more than one rider. When it comes time to move on, our bikes often resell at a price that allowed parents to recoup a good portion of the purchase price. In the height of the COVID supply shortage, I saw used Prevelo’s selling for over retail, but that was an anomaly. When you factor this in, the cost per year of owning a quality kids’ bike is actually pretty low compared with the cost of other activities like football, camp, music lessons, and other extracurricular activities.

Does the market suffer any of the same supply hold ups adult bikes do, or is it less affected?

The kids’ bike market was hit by supply holdups. Like all bike manufacturers, we are at the mercy of the slowest component supplier. However, we have had some luck. Some of the longest lead time items right now are drivetrains and brakes. By coincidence, prior to Covid, Microshift started working on kids’ bike drivetrains with short cage clutched derailleurs and Radius was developing kids’ hydraulic levers, so we were already planning on moving spec around. Moving to these suppliers has insulated us from the ultra-long lead times that we currently see from some of the larger drivetrain and brake suppliers. Lead times are still long, but not as long as they would otherwise be. While we are not out of the woods, lead times appear to be improving.

How deep is the range and is the range unisex, or is there separate lines?

We have a 12” balance bike. We have our Alpha Series hybrid bikes in 14”, 16”, 20” and 24” and our Zulu Series trail bikes in 14”, 16”, 20” and 24”. The entire range is unisex. We do not believe that young girls and boys require functionally different bikes.

What advice would you have to the bike shop staff member looking to introduce the parent to a quality kids’ bike for the first time?

I think it’s important to know your customer. For the mountain biking parent the benefits of Prevelo bikes are easy to explain. We have trail bikes all the way down to 14” that have slack trail geo and hydraulic disc brakes. Parents that ride trails themselves often immediately recognise the benefits here without me even having to open my mouth. Parents that haven’t given bikes a lot of thought can understand the benefits of a quality bike. I’ve never met a parent that didn’t want their child to enjoy riding their bike.

Buyers of premium childrens’ bikes understand that by purchasing a quality bicycle for their child, they are offering their child the best bike riding experience. Parents that are reminded how bikes were an amazing part of their childhood are more willing to invest to help their kid have an amazing childhood biking experience.

Those that understand that a bike can weigh 70% of their child’s body weight understand that it is going to be difficult and less fun to ride if it weight and spec are not carefully considered. Those that are helped to envision how much they will value the time with their child riding bikes are more likely to spend money on a premium bike that will allow their child to enjoy that time more.