Early Rider Hellion 20 review

Triple-butted aluminium frame, thru axles, internal cable routing… Its long, low, and slack geometry boosts confidence too.

Words and photography Antony de Heveningham

• Brand: Early Rider
• Product: Hellion 20
• Price: £1,249.00
• From: Early Rider
• Tested by: Tilda for 3 months

Pros

• Confident handling
• Nicely put together and specced
• Has decent resale value

Cons

• Not cheap
• Fork will be overkill for some kids

I’ve been aware of Early Rider as a brand for way longer than I’ve actually been a parent. Their original plywood balance bike was a thing of loveliness that wouldn’t have looked out of place adorning a designer’s studio (even if the thought of carrying one while my little darlings throw a tantrum and refuse to ride makes my arms twinge reflexively).

A range of much more portable balance and pedal bikes has followed, mostly in a signature tasteful brushed alloy finish, and in 2018 Early Rider took over kids’ MTB specialists Lil Shredder, adding some full-blown kids’ mountain bikes to its range.


My daughter is now 6, and after happily razzing around for a couple of years on an Early Rider Seeker X16, it looked like gears and bigger wheels might be required. The Hellion 20 adds these. And also features an air-sprung fork, alloy platform pedals and even tubeless-compatible tyres and rims.

The alloy frame is very nicely finished, with details like a bottle cage mount and dropper post-compatible internal cable routing. I’m glad Early Rider are now offering a couple of colours, while still keeping things plain – you could always jazz it up with some patterned stick-on frame protector film. My daughter happens to be very keen indeed on purple things, which helps.

The frame and fork feature thru-axles rather than the bolted quick release of Early Rider’s other models, and you can also tweak the wheelbase length slightly, thanks to the rear sliding dropout.
Vee Crown Gem tyres in 2.25 inch width are proper mini mountain bike jobs with a decent balance of grip and speed.

Mud clearance is excellent, which is good because kids on bikes tend to make a beeline for anything that goes splash or squelch.

Brakes are Shimano Deore units with short levers and reach adjust via hex key, letting you dial them in for little hands.

Speaking of size-specific features, previous versions of the Hellion were criticised for having a wide Q-factor – that’s distance between the pedals for any non-nerds reading this – something the new version addresses. It’s now around 140mm, not the narrowest but easier for little bodies to get used to pedalling. Similarly the 127mm cranks aren’t the shortest but haven’t caused any issues.

Speaking of pedalling, the pedals on the Hellion are some of the best I’ve seen for a kids’ bike, with a very low profile, six alloy pins per side that seem to give lots of grip without causing pedal bites, and built-in reflectors. I’d happily buy an adult version, if they did them. The small grips and saddle are similarly spot on.

Finishing kit from Ritchey rounds out the build and adds to the impression that this isn’t a kids’ bike at all, but an adult’s bike which has somehow been hit by some kind of shrinking ray.

On the tracks

I wasn’t sure how our daughter would take to the Hellion, as we’d just got her a second-hand 20in wheeled bike with rigid forks, and the Hellion is noticeably heavier, with wider tyres. However she immediately clicked with the bike despite the extra weight and rolling resistance.

‘Clicked’ is definitely the operative word here; the 10-speed SRAM gears are easy for small hands to operate, and forgiving of my daughter’s technique of changing down multiple times while stationary, then setting off to a symphony of metallic crunching sounds. I haven’t met anyone yet whose kids get on better with twist shifters than trigger type ones – at 6 years old a lot of kids just don’t have enough grip strength – and it’s another thing that Early Rider have got right first time. The only slight downside is that she’s not always sure what gear she is in.

The RST Spex fork has a really usable range of adjustment, including a low speed compression lever that works as a lockout. Tech support for the 20in version of this fork is rather lacking, and I set ours up a bit too soft initially, then noticed it was diving under braking. About 50psi seems to be a good starting point for 25 kg riders.

The geometry is pretty progressive by conventional wisdom on childrens’ bikes, which tends to assume they’ll need quick steering over stability(!) The 67° head angle may not be too exciting by the standards of large wheel adult MTBs, but it’s great for a kids’ bike.

It’s instructive to compare it side by side with my daughter’s 20 inch wheel Islabike. The head angle is much slacker, the front centre of the bike is longer, giving a full 80mm more reach, and the stack is higher, giving a really confident position for mountain biking even factoring in a bit of suspension sag.

Aboard the Hellion, my daughter was able to pedal up and down a bunch of rocky Lake District bridleways. The family loop at Llandegla. And have her first proper go on a tarmac pumptrack. All without serious incident (by which I mean, nothing that couldn’t be smoothed over with sympathy or sweets). The slack head angle was particularly helpful at the pump track, where she was able to ride the tight turns without the front end tucking under and sending her into the long grass. Friends’ kids who wanted a go were able to jump on and pedal off confidently straight away too.

The components on the Hellion do add up in terms of weight and price, but they also work much better than cheaper equivalents. The grippy, low profile pedals are much less likely to roll or slip a foot. The disc brakes aren’t overkill on a childrens’ bike; my daughter used to have to pull the front v-brake on her old bike so hard that eventually it needed replacing. The tyres and suspension have got her out of all sorts of trouble.

While their bikes are only in a handful of physical shops, Early Rider’s website deserves a shout out for being amazing on tech support and stocking pretty much every spare part for its bikes you could ever want. On kids’ bikes, parts like grips and pedals tend to get trashed by general abuse rather than riding, and it’s nice to know you can get like-for-like replacements to bring a bike back to showroom spec before selling it or passing it on.

Overall

Being honest, when we were looking for our daughter’s first geared bike, the Hellion 20 wasn’t really on our shortlist – it’s a big old wodge of money for a kids’ bike. But it’s been great at building up her confidence off-road, and would be perfect for anyone encouraging their small people into mountain biking, or supporting an existing little shredder in their adventures. It should hold its resale value decently, and there’s an official Preowned Early Rider Bikes for sale Facebook group. If more than a grand for a kids’ bike is too rich, the Early Rider Seeker 20 is £724 and has rigid forks, lower spec brakes and drivetrain, more conservative geometry, but shares a lot of the good points of the Hellion and weighs 1.2kg less.

Early Rider Hellion 20 specification

• Frame // Alloy triple butted
• Fork // RST Spex, 80mm
• Wheels // Early Rider 20x28H, tubeless compatible, sealed bearing
• Front tyre // Vee Crown Gem 20 x 2.25in, tubeless ready
• Rear tyre // Vee Crown Gem 20 x 2.25in, tubeless ready
• Chainset // Samox 127mm direct mount, 30T chainring
• Drivetrain // SRAM GX 10 spd
• Brakes // Shimano Deore
• Stem // Ritchey 35mm
• Bars // Ritchey OS double butted, 560mm
• Grips // Early Rider
• Seatpost // Ritchey 30.9mm
• Saddle // Early Rider
• Size tested // 20 inch
• Sizes available // 16 inch, 20 inch, 24 inch
• Weight // 9.6kg

Geometry

• Head angle // 67°
• Effective seat angle // 73°
• Seat tube length // 245mm
• Head tube length // 100mm
• Top tube // 455mm
• Stack // 468mm
• Reach // 312mm
• Chainstay // 335mm
• Wheelbase // 880mm