Royalbaby Kids Mountain Bike Aluminium 20/24 Inch MTB Sports Bicycle, 1-Speed/8-Speed Hardtail Dual Disc Brakes Front Suspension Boys Girls Teens Ages 7+ Years

After being satisfied with the quality and value of the 16” Royal Baby bike I bought for my young son (which he had ridden over a couple hundred miles...yes, we bike a lot!), I decided to stay with the Royal Baby brand for his next bike. This 20” Royal Baby Explorer bike did not disappoint! I was distressed that the shipping box was banged up and partially open, but luckily everything was safe and sound. I found the assembly to be pretty straightforward (you do have to install stem/handlebar into frame, screw in pedals), but I do have a lot of experience assembling bikes. I am very impressed with the fit and finish of the bike. The welds and matte paint on the aluminum frame were nearly impeccable. My son tried the bike, and found it a little too big. I am going to try a shorter, less angled handlebar stem for him. However, I have ridden the bike myself to test it out (I’m a relatively small adult). The bike handles great and feels very solid. The front suspension soaks up bumps fairly well. The brakes (front and rear discs!) are very strong (requires some adjustment). The front brake disc is slightly warped, so there is slight rubbing no matter how I adjust it, but it is not that noticeable. The wheels were fairly but not perfectly true.Overall, I highly recommend this bike. At around $150 shipped with tax, it is an incredible value for a well made bike with aluminum frame, front and rear disc brakes, and front suspension!Addressing some issues mentioned in other reviews…1) Stem not being able to be fully tightened into fork steerer tube…I did not have any issue. However, I did use an allen socket and torque wrench, so I was able to really tightened it down (12 ft-lbs). I suspect people are not adequately tightening the stem bolt, which honestly would be hard to do using the included allen wrench. It is also possible that their stem bolt was cross-threaded?2) The left pedal being reverse-threaded…ALL bikes are like this, so that the left pedal does not work its way loose. There are stickers on the pedal and crank arm to remind you of this.3) Rear brake cable preventing handlebars from fully turning…again ALL bikes are like this. Besides, when normally biking, there is no need for 360 degree rotation of the handlebars, unless you are doing BMX tricks.

The bike is very nice, looks very durable and the weight is proper for my kid.

As of the product I purchased a few weeks ago... The cranks are sort of snug but not tight on the square taper spindle. They need to be tightened. If you don't know what I'm talking about, ask an experienced person or bike mechanic.

Very impressed with the quality. Setup was pretty good out of the box, but you will have to tweak the shifting and the brakes. These brakes are really easy to adjust with barrel adjusters at both ends of the cable. I was especially glad to see a real handlebar stem that is a standard size (rather than the type that is integrated into the steering tube). I ended up swapping it out for a shorter one to make it a little more comfortable for her. The configuration allows for a pretty wide range. 24" would probably be pretty big for my daughter on other bikes. But she fits this one great with lots of room to grow!

I ordered the bike for my 8 year-old Grandson. The bike arrived with problems. I contacted the company thinking I could just order a missing piece, then realized that there was more than one issue, so I returned the bike and replaced it with a new one that was delivered in perfect condition.None of this is exceptional except that Royal Baby, customer service representative, Akash, helped me every step of the way! He offered to order replacement parts, then helped to reimburse me for the expense of putting the bike together and take it apart for shipping. Then he had a bike pump sent to my home to alleviate the aggravation of having to return the original bike.I understand that there may be problems when purchasing items site unseen. I would have much more confidence in shopping if all companies tried to help customers the way Royal Baby/Akash has helped me!

I think I listed, in the order I dislike the most, the worst aspects of the bike.. sure! it's cheap and all, but it is terrible value for what you get in this bike.My analysis of this product is that they hit every single check mark in the list to make it "trendy" and marketable, but they chose the worst, cheapest; designs and/or components to implement them.1.- The disc brakes work, but the breaking pad adjustment is the worst I've seen by far.. the pads are adjusted by turning a super coarse threaded screw that pushes the pad in or out, so a 1/8 turn makes a LOT of difference, from not breaking at all, to contacting the disc all the time and hearing the grind while your child pedals.. I had to adjust it 5 times until I hit the sweet spot, and then after he rode it for a while, he said it wasn't breaking as much anymore. Sure enough, the coarse screw got pushed back by the disc (no I don't think he used the breaks as much to wear out the pads to that extend), and when I re-adjusted it, the screw fell super loose.. There's no way to fix the screw in place with a counter nut or setscrew, not at least without substantial modifications.Disc brakes? Check!... Are they good? Heck NO!2.- The instructions are terrible, missing components (item W to cover the nuts was not included), but I survived... Until I figured it didn't have instructions at all to assemble the front wheel... I tried contacting the customer service lines and chat, and guess what... not available at this time. OK how hard can it be to assemble a front wheel, legos for adults right? Saying it was a pain the rear is an understatement.. It was during the wheel assembly that I noticed the break pad system was awful and had to strong arm the fork open because it was way too tight, I couldn't even get the wheel in smoothly! Anyways.. awful overall.3.- I don't know how to describe the front suspension, it's absolutely useless. I weight a lot, I pushed hard on it with all my might, and barely got it to move... when you are riding you have momentum factor etc, but there's NO way that a child's weight will make it move at all.Front suspension, check!, useless, but check!4.- To finalize, and just to make emphasis on another aspect that I hated from it, is that this is not a lightweight bike for being aluminum. It is in fact heavier than the steel bike it is replacing (we gave the old one away to someone who needed it more), so I was dumbfounded when during assembly, I couldn't keep steady without another adult holding it... I'm like.. what?? How is this thing heavier if it's aluminum? So apparently the answer is that manufacturers know that aluminum is more brittle than steel, so they make the frame thicker to compensate, to the point that they only end up saving 10-15% in weight versus the expected 40-50%. This manufacturer made the frame extra extra thick (are they using cheap aluminum alloys?) so they ended up with a weight gain instead.Aluminum? Check! Heavier than steel??? Yes sir!Summary:So as you can see, they grabbed a check list, tried to fill it, and succeeded: pedals spin, wheels turn, seat is kinda comfy... but the overall execution, and the "features" make this bike a terrible value for the customer. I would have not paid more than $100 if I knew what the quality was, in fact, higher quality used bikes go for more that because of that particular reason: quality... This is an amazing example of "you get what you pay for" instead of an "entry level bike on a budget".