Yomo 20: A good bike with plenty of adjustment for growing kids

Yomo’s range of kids bikes go from balance bikes with 12 inch wheels to the Yomo 26, which is almost a full-sized hybrid bike. There is plenty of crossover across the six-bike range, with each model spanning 2-3 years, but of course that’s dependent on how fast your little Tadej Pogačar is growing.

Billed as a premium, lightweight bike, and retailing at £400, our six-year-old tested the Yomo 20, an aluminium framed bike with an age range of five to eight years and a height range of 115 - 135cm. Our tester was at the very bottom of that scale, if not, just below it, when he first rode it.

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unpacking and setting up the yomo 20

As a lot of the best kids' bikes are bought online, and considering many parents will have never built a bike before, unpacking and setting a bike up form a crucial part of our test. It also gives us a closer look at some of the components.

The Yomo was well packaged with plenty of card around the tubes with all parts protected from any knocks it might receive in transit. All packaging was easy to take off - take extra care if using a blade to cut the tape - and most was recyclable.

Unfortunately, the instructions were very badly printed, and hard to read. But thankfully there isn’t much setting up to do. The guidance is also a little vague. Most crucially, the instructions for adjusting the headset to set the handlebars in position. This said to ‘make sure the bolt is secure’.

That’s not much to go on for a parent who hasn’t set a bike up before, or a non-mechanically minded person. If that’s you, you have two options: watch some bike mechanic videos online, or take it to a mechanic to set up. An Allen key is provided, if you don’t have tools.

Neither wheel was 100% true out of the box, with enough side-to-side movement in the rim to gently rub on the brake pads. I had to adjust the V-brakes to get the wheels spinning freely - V-brakes being a system I never found particularly easy to work with, but are still common on kids bikes.

The Shimano rear mech needed a little adjusting to get the gears indexed correctly and could all be done via the cable adjuster, which is simple when you know how, but a minefield if you don’t. It's good to see a Shimano mech specced on the bike, as you know its a good product.

Popping the seatpost in is simple, as is attaching the pedals, although be very careful not to cross the threads. It’s easy to do. Thankfully, each pedal has an L and R sticker on, just remember that the threads run in opposite directions. Use your fingers to get the thread to catch, and only use a (15mm) spanner once the thread has taken. Pedals don’t need to be done up with any force, just turn them until they resist.

The pedal bearings are very poor quality; straight out of the box you can feel them grinding. Hold the axle, and the pedal body doesn’t spin when flicked. You can turn it, but it doesn’t turn freely. A plastic cap covers the outer bearing, and there is grease in there, but I don’t have the tools to take the pedals apart and inspect further. This shouldn’t affect the ride, but I’d be concerned they might seize up completely over time, especially when grit or water gets in.

The aluminium seat pin has around 14cm of vertical adjustment, two more than the 12 marked on it, and clamps nice and firmly in place with a quick-release skewer. Although there’s no adjustment on the stem - unlike a Woom bike that has some rotational adjustment built into the bars and stem - there is three centimetres of spacers between the stem and the headset, allowing a little vertical adjustment for those who know how to do it.

The bars are 51cm wide with rubber grips that feel nice and tactile although there are no bulges at the outer edge to help keep hands from slipping off. There is some adjustment in the reach to the Tektro brake lever. I adjusted them back from 7cm away from the centre of the grips, to 5.5cm. Just be sure to check that the brake pads don’t rub when doing this. You might need to let a little cable out to open the brakes, but if doing this, remember to check the brakes stop the wheels before the levers are pulled all the way back to the bars.

Components and finishing kit

Yomo’s 20 inch bike is the first in their range to come with gears. Seven at the back controlled with a Shimano paddle shifter on the right-hand side of the bars. The Shimano Hyper Glide cassette has a 12-18 range (with a 32th chainring) which gave a good range of gears.

But don’t expect a child to jump on and start changing gears. After a few months of riding, our tester still didn’t feel confident enough to change gear, but that’s more about him than the ease of use of this system. I prefer these under-bar paddle type shifters to a grip shift that my older child uses. Although she took to that system quicker, I think once they’re used to it, paddle shifters are easier to use while maintaining grip.

The wheels are Yomo branded aluminium rims with 20 spokes built into an unbranded hub. Unlike the pedals, these turned smoothly, had a nice finish to them and a chunky quick-release skewer that was nice and easy to grip and turn.

The chainrings are covered on each side, meaning no one can catch their shins, ankles of fingers on the chainrings, which is a nice touch. The cranks are 10.5cm long (2cm longer than the 16 inch wheel bike our tester was last riding) which is fairly standard, but the Q-factor is on the wide side - that’s the distance between the inside of the two cranks where the pedals attach. We measured it at 140cm compared to 116cm on a 20 inch Woom bike, which also has narrower pedals.

140cm is wide for a six-year-old (a narrower Q-factor helps keep feet inline with narrower hips when riding.) but again, pedals that are closer together aren’t essential for children who might just be playing on their bikes for 20 minutes at a time. All it does is highlight some attention to detail that you could argue is lacking. The width is all in the cranks as the bottom bracket shell on the Yomo was the same as the Woom bike we had for comparison.

The unbranded tyres have an open, knobbly tread, nothing too aggressive, just enough to give some grip on grass and loose surfaces.

Riding and general use

Our tester was excited to ride his new bike, which is always a good start. Having a new bike to ride is an easy way to get kids out riding in the holidays. He’s a competent rider who has ridden pump and BMX tracks (no jumping yet), knows how to use his front and back brakes and has just learnt to ride out of the saddle. This was however, his first bike with gears. He first rode it a few months out from his sixth birthday and was just under 115cm, which is the start of Yomo’s recommended height range.

We had the dark grey finish as you can see from the pictures, although green, orange and blue are also available. Bikes are commonly referred to by their colours in our household, and our rule is the brighter the better, so it gets remembered. Despite being below the recommended height for this model, he was able to comfortably pedal with the seatpin down as low as it will go, and get his toes on the ground when at a standstill. The sloping top tube gave him ample standover height.

The bars were too high, but this didn’t faze him or cause any problems as steering is nice and light. They're 51cm wide, the same as his previous, smaller bike, while the reach to the bars was 6cm longer. All this took a little getting used to, especially the longer reach to the brake levers, before he was fully confident, but that is perfectly normal.

He found the bike a little cumbersome to manoeuvre when walking with it (still his preferred option when it comes to turning in tight spaces), but this will become more comfortable as he grows. Weight wasn’t a problem in this regard. He could just about pick it up off the ground and onto it’s two wheels. at 8.01kg its comparable to other bikes we've tested at this size.

At the time of writing, he still hadn’t attempted to use the gear shifting paddles. I suspect they might still be a little bit stiff for his fingers - especially when he’s concentrating on holding the bars - but kids's riding progression is full of Eureka moments, when they suddenly discover with great excitement that they can do something. I suspect that moment isn’t too far away.

One thing he did miss was his kickstand. Kids will climb off their bikes and just drop them to the ground. Having a kickstand prevents this. Some of the time at least. It would add a little weight, but when you have a bike with a rear mech, it’s worth the penalty.