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and the MX and Dimension came to share some fit and ergonomic aspects to make fitting easier for all, while maintaining competitive RRPs and quality parts specs and adding a transferable warranty across both ranges adds reassurance for both retailers and customers. It’s taken three years to meet the aims we set and get the bikes to a place where we have a range we’re confident will give as many children as possible a great start on a bike, hopefully an experience that starts a lifelong love of cycling.
How would you describe the core mission statement for this new generation of bikes? How does it build upon the Ridgeback legacy while moving the brand into this new, more technical territory? The bikes had to function great. Here that means fitting really well, increasing the ease with which children get to grips with riding and learn better handling and co-ordination confidence. They need to be fun and durable, before that though they need be easy to ride and that comes from fit as well as being lightweight.
You’ve leaned heavily into data from the Dept of Health and the Royal College of Paediatrics. At what stage of the external medical/health data sets, and did they reshape your traditional design approach? Right at the start, while we were talking to retailers about how they sell childrens bikes and what helps or hinders that. Without the fit data in front of us we can’t decide on the sizing
32 | May 2026
of key components that dictate frame geometry so it was part of the research stage.
Can you walk us through how the health data translates into frame geometry? For example, did “inside leg length” data change the standover height compared to previous generations to ensure the bikes “fit right, for longer”? If I know an adult’s height I can estimate inside leg length because it’s proportional and then work out some of the basic bike fit from there. But although adults do vary in proportion, children’s body proportions change much more as they grow. I wanted to understand leg to body proportions at different ages and the only way to get that data was to reference ergonomic studies and work through them until we had a scale of the key measurements by age and percentile. The end result are bikes that fit better when the child is just about able to ride that size of bike, or bikes that fit a younger/smaller child on a given wheelsize earlier. Some of that is stand- over height and some of it is better crank to saddle height proportions. If they fit better at the start the child has a better starting experience.
You’ve implemented 19mm OD bars across the entire range. Why is that slim grip consistency so vital for a child’s confidence and control as they move up through wheel sizes? It didn’t seem to make sense for a child’s or a woman’s bike to use the same grip size as adult’s bikes which are based on an average male rider’s needs. Most bike grips feel ok to riders
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