Baby Bike Seats: Buyer’s Guide & My Top 10 Picks for 2020

How Do I Know If My Bike Is Compatible?

Bike seats are notoriously difficult to work with for many parents, leading to rampant frustration and negative feedback over simple issues. In order to avoid this trouble, ensuring that your preferred seat is going to work beforehand is a must. Each type of seat has slightly different requirements.

Requirements for Rear-Mounting Seats

Rear-mounting seats will typically attach to the seat tube of your bike. In order for your bike to allow rear-mounting seats to be attached, your seat tube will have to be rounded and will have to have 4 to 6 inches of available space. As well, if your saddle is set too low, there won’t be any room to mount the seat.

If your bike does not allow for a rear-mounting seat to be attached to a frame, you may opt to use a rack. A rack will create a platform that will allow for a rear-mounting seat to be used and they are typically compatible with most bikes. However, racks come with there own complications and are not always ideal.

Requirements for Front-Mounting Seats

Many front-mounting seats will take up nearly a foot of room between the saddle and the stem of your bike. Depending on the length of the distance between your seat tube and your handlebars, a front-mounting seat may be an unwieldy prospect. Whether your bike can handle a front-mounting seat is oftentimes up to the comfort of you and your child.

Requirements for Mid-Mounting Seats

One of the selling points of mid-mounting seats are how easy they are to fit on most bikes. However, given their increased age minimum when compared to the other types, this ease-of-use isn’t going to help in many cases. There are both recreational and sport-type mid-mounting seats available, with the sportier variety being typically designed to take up even less room on your bike.

What Are Some Other Features to Consider?

There are a variety of other features to consider once you’ve determined the basic type of baby bike seat you would like to purchase. These include the types of harnesses available and the unique level of comfort offered.

Types of Harnesses

The two typical harness designs you will find on baby bike seats, and most other baby seats, are the 3-point harness and the 5-point harness. Both offer shoulders straps, with the difference between the two being a lack of waist straps. A good baby bike seat will have straps that can be adjusted as the child grows, allowing for a greater window of use for the bike seat.

Considerations for Comfort

There are some additional design features that are available to increase the comfort level of your baby as they ride along. Such considerations include helmet pockets, recessed areas that allow for the size of your little one’s helmet in the headrest, and bumpers, which are utilized to help prevent your baby’s fingers from being squished between the seat and an outside object.

Other things to consider when it comes to comfort are adjustable footrests and whether or not the seat you are eyeing can recline. On front and rear-mounting seats, footrests help protect your child’s legs from getting caught in the moving parts of your bike. For this reason, ensuring an appropriately-sized footrest is a must when determining your ideal baby bike seat.

Finally, reclinable seats will offer your baby an opportunity to rest on long rides. If you want your baby to truly enjoy the time you spend riding together, going all-out in allowing them the most comfortable experience possible should be seen as a necessity. Overall, safety and comfort are always going to be the main things to keep in mind when determining the best bike seat for you and your baby.