Customer Reviews

GMC Denali Girls' 24-Inch Road Bike

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is the only road bike we found designed for 9-12 year old girls. With one limitation, this is a great transition from a 20" child's bike.

Our oldest daughter was outgrowing her 20" child's bike. Both of her parents are traditional road bikers as compared to cheap mountain bike riders. She wanted gears and a freewheel, and we determined 24" was the desired wheel size. Bike shops and the Trek monster only offer mountain bikes as the next size up after a 20" child's bike. The geometry options were terrible. They forced the young riders to be too stretched out in length. It may not be as bad for larger boys, but definitely incorrect for smaller girls. Additionally, these mountain bikes have value added marketing destroying any other potential. Shocks are added which add weight and bulk, making them hard to maneuver. The shocks are ridiculous since few children are heavy enough to activate them. The bulk, weight, and poor geometry hinder the ability of young children to ride the common 24" bikes. In short, most bikes for this age group are built to sell and not to ride.

Then we finally found two options. LL Bean offered a mountain bike specifically designed for 9-12 year old girls. This was a fine choice although we preferred traditional drop handlebars and road geometry and gears. This Denali 24" girls bike is perfect. The 19" bar height allows a safe stop and start. While it comes with lower end Shimano grip shifters, they work smoothly and are appropriate given the aggressive pricing of this bike. The frame is a nice 7005 aluminum and the other fine components offer a decent weight.

I wrote Terry bikes to suggest they consider this age group as potential future customers, but Terry never responded.

Our daughter is a small 9 year old weighing only 51 pounds. She is also on the shorter side of girls her age. It took only a day for her to get familiar with the handling and shifting. She is riding faster and longer distances than she ever could with the 20" child's bike and we are enjoying our times together. I fully expect this bike to last her for many years.

The only negative was the brakes. The traditional brake levers, under the drop bars, are too low and need a wider hand to reach than our daughter has. The brakes took too much strength to pull given the grip width and position. The solution was easy. We added inline break levers on the top bar. This was not ideal given the bar shifters are in the same location we wanted the new brake levers. I needed to move the shifters inwards to make room but in the end, the new brake levers works. If Danali would consider adding the shifters as standard, this bike would be perfect out of the box.

In summary, we are grateful to Denali as a bike manufacturer for considering this age transition as important for creating long term riders. This is a great bike for 9-12 year old girls and was a great price on Amazon. I wish our local bike shops would consider carrying this type of product.

I bought this bike for my 10 year old daughter. I bought this so that she could ride further and faster when going on family bike rides. With her Mountain bike (Giant MTX 225) she is always the first one tired. I looked into buying her slick tires for this bike, but the decent ones, with shipping would have cost $40-50 for the set. This bike at 3 times that price and everything included was a better deal.

In short, the market for kids road bikes is highly limited. Everyone makes nice reasonably priced mountain bikes. Trek and Felt make road models that are quite pricey for a kid who is just getting started. I'd love to get her one of those, but I just can't justify the price.

This bike was a good alternative. It uses mountain shifters/derailleurs to save money, but that is fine. She is already used to the twist shifters, and the gearing is fine for her. For the price you pay, it is a decent bike. We've been on a few 10-15 mile rides with it, and it has worked fine. (11/21/07 - She has since completed a 1/4 Century on this bike with over 1000 ft of climbing. She and the bike both performed flawlessly.)

The bike, as shipped, just has the brakes and derailleurs slapped on. They had not been adjusted at all. I work on my own road bike, so this was not a problem for me, but others may want professional help. The front derailleur was actually bolted on too low and rotated, so that the chain rubbed in almost every gear combination. There is no inline adjustment for the front derailleur. I just picked up one from Jagwire and I'll be installing that this weekend.

It would be nice if there were some braze-ons for mounting a water bottle cage. But there are solutions to that also.

I did remove the brake levers and replaced them with my ancient brake levers from my late 70's Fuji road bike. These old levers have the secondary lever that you can pull from the tops of the handlebars. I did this solely for my daughter's convenience.

My major concern is that the front wheel is too close to the pedals. The front fork is straight, and it would be better if it swept forward a bit. My daughter's foot hits the wheel when turning some times. I may consider replacing the fork at some point. But even if I have to replace the fork, this bike is still a bargain.

And she LOVES the color!

I bought this bike for my 9 year old daughter. Overall it is a good bike for $[...], however, there are 2 major design flaws I have found already. The braking system is RIDICULOUS for a child of 9-10; perhaps ok for an 11 or 12 year old, but a 9 year old does not have the finger strenght to operate the brakes from the top of the drops, and they can just barely reach the lever when they go down in the drops. Moving from the top riding position, grabbing the brakes and stopping quickly in an emergency is next to impossible and EXTREMELY DANGEROUS if your child hands are not big enough. The other minor flaw is that the handlebar has an adapter to fit the stem, which is cheesy. The correct size stem should have been used, but the manufacture cheaps out on this feature.

I spent another $[...] to get the bike modified to a straight handlebar, correct stem, brake levers and other minor parts and labor so that it would be safe for my daughter to ride.

The bike is much more appropriate if your child has larger hands, but without in-line brake levers added, I think its still a little dangerous.

It is an attactive bike, and my daughter loved it, but unless your child is bigger, I would suggest spending $300 (cost of the bike + needed modifications) on an nice Trek kids bike.

My husband and I have been runners, but wanted to start biking and did not want to spend a lot of money. He did some research and according to other people who had bought it, this was a very good bike for the money. I enjoy it immensely. Of course, it's not as light as the bikes that are over a thousand dollars, but it is fun to ride, shifts fairly smoothly, brakes well and feels good on the road. Definitely the bike to buy if you want to try cycling without the huge investment!

This is really the only option for a kid who's outgrown a starter bike and enjoys longer rides. That said, it's a really good option. Got this one for my girl, 8, and the boy's version for my 11 year old.

Tip: use Amazon Prime for shipping these... it pays for itself!

Bad:
- you'll need to do some basic adjustments like brakes, check and tighten the various mouting and adjustment bolts etc. This is typical in this price range, same problem you'd have with a walmart bike, but if you're not a bike mechanic it could be a challenge.
- the reach to the handlebars was too long for my 8 year old, so I swapped the road racing bars for the upright kind that flare towards you a bit. Also had to switch the brake levers for this. Again, not something most parents could / would / should do but it makes the bike great for my girl.

the good:
- overall, it's a heck of a deal. Good range of gears, easy shifting, smart component choices.
- nice paint job, my little girl who's into all things pink and purple is very happy with it.
- comes with a kickstand! yay!

First of all, a Thank You to the previous reviewers. The bike arrived 3 days after I ordered it and was exactly as I expected. Assembly required, brakes and shifters needed to be adjusted, but the frame was reasonably well put together, and everything worked. And the brakes were useless for small hands. I added inline levers the way others have suggested, but I moved the shifters to the barends. There is a "customer image" showing this. I also wrote a detailed web page with instructions, but I believe I'm not allowed to link to it. So I will quote it instead:

>>Finding a road bike for a small child turned out to be really difficult. I thought I'd make this page to write up what I learned in the process. The "GMC Denali," possibly the worst name for a bicycle ever, is made by Who Knows What company, and it's available at amazon and department stores. What's nice about it is this: It's readily available, the standover clearance is 21 inches, and it's inexpensive. What's not so nice is that it's definitely a department-store quality bike, so some assembly is required, and even then it's not ready to ride for a child with small hands.

Following the recommendations of some amazon reviewers, I addressed the problem by adding auxillary or "inline" brake levers.

Because there isn't room for the levers and the shifters on top of the handlebar, I messed with the shifters for over an hour, trying to get them off. By process of elimination, I finally figured out that the handlebar comes apart in the middle, and then the shifters slide right off.

It helps to have some experience working on bikes; even so I labored for about 4 hours total, trying things, measuring once and cutting twice... Tools you'll need are metric open- and box-end wrenches (8,9,10,15 mm), Allen wrenches (3,4,5,6 mm), good diagonal cutters for the cable housings -- file the ends flat after cutting -- and if possible, a cable cutter. Diagonal cutters squeeze the cable ends apart and make them hard to push through.

I bought Cane Creek inline levers for from the local bike store, plus 8 feet of brake cable housing and a couple of brake cables, because I didn't trust the stuff the bike shipped with. I reused the bar tape, but once I'm sure things will stay where they are, I'll put fresh tape on.<<

EDIT: The bar diameter is 22 mm, and the inline levers are available for 31.8 mm and 24.0 mm bars. I got the smaller ones and used heavy-duty aluminum foil to shim.

This was the only option we could find for our growing daughter that wasn't closer to a grand in price. As a family we tend to take off and ride our local rail trail for several miles, often riding to other nearby towns. Our daughter was doing up to 15 mile trips on her 20" that she outgrew. We really wanted a bike with lightweight wheels and tires for long rides. Her 20" that she outgrew was 7 speed, and therefore she was already comfortable shifting on hills. Also her natural cadence is much higher than her friends that learned on single speed bikes.

There are at least 4 different 24" tire sizes that are not interchangeable. This size is the only one that has the option of using skinny road tires. However the tires that come on it are a medium width that's about perfect for our local rail trail made of packed gravel. It's nice knowing we have the option to use pavement tires if we want to.

Our daughter actually didn't like the road handlebars, but everything else was good considering the price (not high end components, but serviceable). I switched the handlebars to an alloy straight bar ($10), and found Shimano 7x3 combined trigger shifters/brakes (another $35). The stock twist shifters will actually go on a straight bar, with the addition of simple brake levers.

She now has the equivalent of a fitness bike, with geometry appropriate for her age, That rolls easily on lightweight wheels, that allows road tires if we want to add them, that allows shifting to go over hills... for very little money compared to the other options. But more importantly our daughter loves it.

Like a few of the other reviewers, my girls really struggled with the drop bars and included brake levers. I purchased two of these, one for my 9 year old and one for my 8 year old. We live in the mountains of Colorado and brakes are pretty important. I swapped out the drop bars for a midrise bar and bought a couple sets of Avid reach adjustable brake levers. I should point out that for maximum braking power, the brake pads should be sanded with a medium grit sandpaper to remove the factory shine. Once the new bars and levers were installed and the brakes were adjusted, the bike worked great. Know that you will need to plunk down an extra $50-75 to make this bike safe. Beyond the brake issue, this is a nice quality bike for the price. Not knowing how fast your kids are going to outgrow a bike, it's really hard to justify spending $500 or more for a 24" wheeled bike. Don't hesitate to buy one of these for your kid!

This bike is really nice. It looks sharp, is built great for the price point, and is the only thing I found under $300 that was the right size in between the avg 24" kids bike and a small framed adult bike.
We bought this bike for our 7 yr old daughter. She is avg size and strength and could not use the hand brakes at all. We had to spend another $80 to modify the bike so it was safe for her to ride. After several prof opinions we ended up replacing the twist gear shifters with thumb leaver shifters plus added another set of small hand brakes under the handlebar at each side of the stem. We could not safely fit a second set of brakes on the bar without switching the shifters out.
If GMC could just add another set of hand brakes this bike would be perfect!

It was time for our daughter to graduate to a bigger bike for her 7th Birthday. We searched for "best girl's road bike" and were directed to this one. Read the other reviews they are accurate: assembly, fine tuning, and mods required. I decided to flip and clip the bars, add a brake/shifter combo, a picture is posted if you're curious. The result is a safer, more capable road bike that she is excited to ride and having a great time learning to shift and go fast! Good value if you're willing to put in some work.