Trek’s Roscoe 24 Kids' Bike Looks Like a Mountain Menace Ready for Anything

To answer the question above, Trek’s got you covered. What the cover photo shows is not the next downhill monster from this biking powerhouse but rather your child’s first trail-rated bicycle. That’s right, folks, the Roscoe 24 you see is a bike meant to introduce your children to the pleasures of doing a trail run.

However, anytime you look to manufacture a product for children, safety seems to be of the highest priority. Don’t worry, though, when a team like Trek that has been around since the late 70s gets to make a children’s toy, you can bet your $519.99 (the price for this bike) that your kid will be as safe as possible, from a bicycle point of view anyway. So let’s see what’s in store for the new generations.

Just like any other bike we cover here on our site, we can start by looking at the frame’s construction. What the team has used to put together this bike is Alpha Aluminum. That would be Trek’s in-house, lightweight, durable, and rustproof stuff. It makes sense to use this sort of material for the kind of riding you’ll be exposing your child to. Heck, even my trail rider is made of the same aluminum, and I've no problems with it.

From here, I would normally bring up the suspension systems that may be in place. However, the Roscoe has none. That’s not entirely true, though. After all, one of the main suspension components of any bike are the tires. Since no front or rear suspension is available, Trek has equipped a pair of 2.80-in (7.1-cm) wide tires to help smoothen out the ride.

One thing that your child will certainly find different on this bike if they grew up like me is the introduction to shifting. That’s right, your little one will now learn how to shift a gear and what that all means. To make things easy, however, the entire bike is set up on an 8-speed rear cassette, with only one chain ring. This gives your soon to be Red-Bull'er just enough to think about while still being able to handle the trail you’ve chosen.

That drivetrain will also introduce your pedal pusher to another system, or rather, manufacturer of systems - Shimano. For the shifter, an 8-speed Altus M315 is supplied, while the rear derailleur is a Tourney TX80. That cassette I mentioned earlier is an 8-speed SunRun 11-34. Nothing too fancy, but, again, you kid might not be able to handle any more than this, for now anyway.

Other components you’ll be introducing your kids to are the disc brakes. To cover braking, Tektro steps in with a pair of mechanical disc MD-M280 with 160-mm (6.3-in) rotors. Those are enough to stop even larger bikes and riders, and to really get a feel for the response level of discs over V brakes. Everything else is using a full Bontrager setup, with the seat post, handlebar, and stem coming from this team.

All in all, the entire setup comes in at an acceptable 25.58 lbs (11.60 kg) of weight for a pair of training legs to lug around. As for myself, if this bike were bigger, maybe adult-sized, I too would be seen riding something similar. Why not?