Diamondback

Line 24 Complete Mountain Bike - 2016

Training wheels are ancient history, and your little ripper has been taking their old bike on plywood jumps and holding lines through the rock borders in your garden until dark every day for the last few months. You can breathe a sigh of relief; you got them hooked on mountain biking. Now that it's time to upgrade to something they can take out on real rock gardens, consider Diamondback's Line 24 Complete Mountain Bike. Offering entry-level adult components in a kid-sized package, the Line 24 is ready to help young riders confidently progress in the sport you — and now they — love.

Diamondback constructs the frame of the Line 24 out of 6061 aluminum, a treated version of the metal with an ideal blend of low weight and strength. Pedaling uphill will be easier for them than on a steel frame, while hanging the bike up in the garage or transporting it to the trail will be easier for you. The SR Suntour XTC Jr. fork provides predictable steering, while its 80mm of travel promises to soften their landings on those plywood jumps and add a little plushness to their trail riding. Rather than just shrink an adult bike, Diamondback designed the Line 24 with a similarly low-slung geometry to its higher-end sibling, the Sync 24, to optimize control and handling for young riders.

Youth bikes get as much, if not more, wear-and-tear as their adult versions, and Diamondback is one of the few brands that doesn't cut corners on quality components, making sure the Line 24 is durable enough to grow with young riders without having to spend weeks at a time in the shop. The brand switched its youth mountain bike componentry from Shimano to SRAM this year, building the Line 24 with SRAM's X3 8-speed rear derailleur to give kids plenty of gearing options as they confidently tackle new terrain — don't be surprised if you aren't waiting for them to catch up to you anymore. And as they get onto that new terrain and start riding faster, they'll enjoy the performance benefits and safety of Tektro disc brakes, as well as knobby Kenda tires with plenty of grip.