Doodle Bike: let your kids personalize their bikes!

I’ll never forget the kind of bike I wanted as a little girl: one with a banana seat and those flashy streamers dangling from the handlebars.

My parents did the best they could and I ended up with a shiny red bike that had the beginnings of a banana seat, but was streamer-free. But it didn’t matter. I loved that bike, and not long after getting it at five years old, I woke up at the crack of dawn one morning and asked my Dad to take off the training wheels and let me at it.

I was the kind of kid who needed to conquer things immediately, and by myself.

So off came the training wheels and out I went onto my sleepy crescent. The sun was just barely rising, and as I gave myself a few confident pushes forward and started to ride a two-wheeler, down I went into a paved ditch. My knees were scraped and bloody. My bike was in a contorted mess beside me.

No one was there to pull me out of that ditch, so up I got and wheeled my red bike back up to the road.

I don’t remember falling again.

This hasn’t exactly been my son’s experience. He’s a much more cautious, hesitant child — consumed with fear about falling or embarrassing himself. And maybe we’ve coddled him too much. Maybe he’ll just snap out of it. We’re working on it.

Miss Q, on the other hand, is fearless. She’ll be going to Pedalheads next week, and I’m certain she’ll be riding on two wheels before the week is out. And thanks to Doodle Bike, she’ll be doing it in style. Doodle Bike lets your child, well, doodle on his or her bike.

THE GOOD

It’s such a smart idea. Personalization is an important part of the excitement quotient here. So if you have a reluctant rider, perhaps letting him make his bike his own will help.

The Doodle Bike comes with almost everything your young rider needs: thick tires, a sturdy frame, reflector lights, training wheels, and a pack of markers and solution to erase existing doodles. You need only add a bell, and — later — kickstand, and you’re off to the races.

Miss Q absolutely loves her Doodle Bike. She loves to draw on it. And she loves riding it. When I asked her if other kids would like the Doodle Bike, I was met with a resounding “YES! It’s the best bike in the whole world.”

Doodle Bike is built by SuperCycle, and sold exclusively at Canadian Tire across the country for a very manageable $115. Considering most kids’ bikes start at the $100 mark and can go up well into the $400 range, a well-built bike like this one that has that special extra-something is priced to sell.

The imaginative play that resulted from Miss Q colouring her Doodle Bike is awesome. After she finished her first round of Doodles, I asked her what she’d put on the handlebars in front of her. There were three “buttons” in different colours: one was the button that turned on the radio; the second was for windshield wipers; and the last was a turbo-booster.

The Doodle Bike is just FUN. Don’t we all need a little more fun in our lives?

THE GAFFE

The K Man was pretty disappointed that the Doodle Bike he wanted didn’t come in his size (in fact, there are only 12″ and 14″ options in the blue version, while the pink one comes in 12″, 14″ and 16″).

The markers, while not quite as permanent as a Sharpie, are definitely not washable like Crayola. If marker gets on your kids’ skin or clothes, don’t expect it to wash away with a bit of soap and water. For this reason alone, I strongly suggest you put your kid into mess-friendly clothes before heading outdoors to doodle.

Some of our markers dried up inside of a month. You can buy extra packs, and you can also use your Crayolas. But it would be nice if they were just longer-lasting markers in the first place.

I don’t know what to do once the eraser solution runs out.

THE GEARS

4/5