Hyper 20” Nitro Circus BMX Kids’ Bike Review

December 8, 2017

Hyper 20” Nitro Circus BMX: Kid Tested On Dirt and Street

Our family loves riding motorcycles, but let’s face it, time is a precious commodity. We try to schedule one family dirt-bike riding weekend each month, but that still leaves 25+ days a month where our moto-obsessed kids are left staring at their idle motorcycles parked in the garage. As parents, we can better.

Travis Pastrana to the rescue! The moto-genius and global icon behind the live-action sports phenomenon known as Nitro Circus, Travis Pastrana has teamed up with Hyper Bicycles to debut the Nitro Circus BMX bike aimed at making action-sports more accessible to families and the next generation of young riders. These are full-featured, entry-level bikes designed to look just like the freestyle Nitro Circus BMX bikes that inspired them, but also to be light on the wallet for busy hard-working parents.

It’s a complete win-win. Kids get their two-wheeled fix any day of the week and sharpen their moto skills such as balance and weight distribution, and parents can feel good about their little ones enjoying the outdoors, getting some exercise, and giving the iPad a much-needed break.

Our test bike was delivered via FedEx partially assembled. The handlebars, forks, seat, and front wheel needed to be plumbed together. In total, an easy job requiring about 20 minutes of parental contribution—15 minutes for assembly, 5 minutes for adjusting cables, and a concurrent 20 minutes of patience from the kids asking if it was ready yet.

A cool feature that is buried in the back of the product manual is that the brake levers can be adjusted up and down on the handlebar for a bias towards a standing or sitting riding position. Importantly, there is a small set-screw that can be turned to bring the levers in closer to the handlebar to better accommodate smaller hands.

We rounded up a couple of Ultimate Motorcycling’s most energetic moto-groms to put the 20-inch Hyper Nitro Circus bike through the kid-test wringer. Tindra and Gavin were champing at the bit to ride the metallic-red machine, and commented on how “cool” and “awesome” the bike looked. Their favorite aesthetic bits were the free-style handlebars with red anodized bar-ends, and the custom looking stitched seat with matching logo.

We adjusted the seat all the way down to free up as much room for “leg suspension” as possible before conducting three rounds of roshambo to see which of them would get the first ride on the Nitro Circus bike. Gavin’s rock crushed Tindra’s scissors to establish the riding order, and they were off, heading down the street to the dirt and gravel of the Malibu Creek barranca.

The 20-inch Hyper Nitro Circus bike has a ton of cool features inspired by the pro-bikes ridden by R-Willy and James Foster in the Nitro Circus show. A steering stem rotor allows for 360-degree handlebar rotation and extra wide grips and axle pegs facilitate freestyle tricks. The micro-drive sprockets save weight and increase ground clearance and wide alloy platform pedals round out the drive package.

On the ride down to the barranca, Gavin thought that the handlebars felt comfortable and the seat was soft and his smile was an obvious indicator that he was super stoked to be riding such a cool bike. Tindra mentioned that although the 20-inch wheel size was on the large size for her, she wasn’t going to be denied as she practiced her stand-up riding over the undulating bumps.

Gavin was ready to go big right from the get go. Wheelies, jumps, and endurocross-style obstacles were all fair game. We removed the kickstand and the front pegs to save a little weight and make pulling up the front wheel a little easier. Still, at just under 33 pounds, the 20-inch Hyper Nitro Circus is on the heavy side, but the styling and cool features make up for the extra weight for the non-professional.

After a great riding session both kids were worn out but their enthusiasm kept going. Taking turns on the new bike was an exercise in patience, and I didn’t really have any good answers when they asked me why I didn’t get two bikes—one for each of them.

They were right, but I quickly reminded them that if they were good and listened to their parents, that maybe Santa would deliver one to each of them this Christmas!