The UrRider child bike seat is one of Amazon’s best-selling family biking products. As an “open style” seat, the UrRider doesn’t have a harness system and is designed for kids about 2 to 5 who can sit still and hold onto the included handlebars.
The primary appeal of the UrRider is four-fold. First, it allows you to ride with your kids in front of you for much longer than a standard front seat (those max out at about age three). Second, kids can hop on and off quickly and easily.
Third, the UrRider seat is attached or removed from your bike in just seconds. And fourth, the UrRider folds down compactly for easy storage, or even to bring in your suitcase on vacation.
Whether you need to drop your child off at pre-school, get them to a playdate, or ride local trails on your next vacation, the UrRider makes biking with kids accessible for many families. Read our full review below to determine if its the right fit for you and your bike.
UrRider Overview
RATING: Recommended
MSRP: $159
BEST FOR: Paved trails and casual biking
WEIGHT LIMIT: None given, but 125 cm (49″) height limit
AGE RANGE: 2 to 5
PROS:
- Fits on a wide variety of casual bikes
- No mounting hardware required
- On and off the bike in less than 30 seconds
- Padded and ventilated saddle
- Handlebar to help kids feel more secure
CONS:
- Potential fit issue if you don’t have several inches of exposed seat post
- Feels a little bit basic
- You have to bow your legs out to make space for your child
UrRider Child Bike Seat – Results of our Test Rides
Before we dive into all the nitty gritty details about the UrRider, let’s explore why this type of seat has become so popular in recent years. Traditionally, kids older than 2.5 or 3 (33 pounds) couldn’t be carried in a front baby bike seat because they were just too big! As a result, larger rear child bike seats have been the next best step.
Rear child bike seats are wonderful for many reasons, but they are NOT wonderful for your balance, especially if you’re a timid rider. With the weight distribution on your bike anchored in the rear, riding a bike with your child behind you can be more difficult.
Open style seats like the UrRider place your child directly in front of you, keeping the weight of your child centered on the bike’s frame with your own body weight. It feels natural, and doesn’t affect your balance much at all.
So when your child hits that 33 pound weight limit of their regular front-mount seat with a harness, a rear mounted seat isn’t your only option. UrRider, and other seats like it, are the future!
Apart from the physics of it all, riding with our kids in front of us might just be our favorite way to bike with kids. Actually, it is. It’s like a big long bike hug. It’s much easier to have quality time, sing together, and have your toddler experience the true thrill of the ride when they are practically sitting in your lap. They also get to experience everything from your point of view.
How the UrRider Works in a Nutshell
The UrRider consists of a saddle on a rail, a set of handlebars, and a set of footrests. Your child is not strapped in at all, so you should only use this seat if you’re confident in your child’s ability to sit still and hold on! Because your child is nestled between your arms, you can control their movements somewhat, but not entirely.
There are two points of contact with your bike. (1) The rubber support bar rests on your bike’s frame and is adjustable up and down to accommodate different bike frame styles. (2) The rear hinge wraps around your seat post and tightly secures the UrRider in place.
Performance
While not our favorite open-style front mounted seat, the UrRider is a solid option that gets the job done for a decent price. Due to the mid-quality construction, our opinion is that the UrRider is perfect for neighborhood and shorter paved rides.
If you have dirt trail or single track plans in your future, this is not the seat for you. You should look at a sturdier seat with tighter connections to the bike like the Mac Ride or Kids Ride Shotgun.
One important note about riding with a seat like the UrRider. Because your child is almost in your lap, you have to bow your legs out to pedal. And even when you bow your legs out, your inner thighs or knees will rub against your child if they are a bit older and wider like my 3.5 year old.
This happens with all seats in this category, but because the UrRider places a child lower on the bike than some other seats (like the Shotgun, seen below), it does require you to bow your legs out a bit more. It’s mildly annoying, but is fine for shorter distances. Also, it’s much less annoying if you’re wearing pants or very long shorts!
UrRider vs. Shotgun Seat – Child Height on Bike
Parent Height and Child Age/Height
With your child in front of you, you’ll need to be mindful of your height and their height. If you are short and your child is tall, they could potentially have their helmet in your chin or face. When a child is young, this most likely won’t be a problem. However, it is something to keep in mind if you’re considering this seat for a 5 or 6 year old.
This issue also depends on your bike frame and how high your saddle is, which together will dictate how high the UrRider sits compared to your own saddle. As you can see here, the UrRider sits several inches below my saddle, and fairly low in relation to my body on my Priority city bike. I’m quite tall (5’10) and my 3.5 year old is also tall (42.5″). But she sits low enough that I have no visibility issues whatsoever.
Saddle
The UrRider’s saddle is soft, cushioned, and ventilated – quite comfortable for little bums. This saddle you see here is new as of 2021. Previous versions featured a wider saddle that rubbed against your thighs when you pedaled. It was the primary reason we used to categorize this seat as “not recommended.” We were pleased to see this small change with a big, positive effect in the newest model. The saddle is not adjustable.
Foot Rests and Stirrups
The stirrups were another upgrade to the 2021 UrRider. We appreciate the effort to better secure little feet, but we do wish there were another notch or two to make the stirrups even tighter.
Our 3.5 year old here wears size 11 shoes. The stirrups are adjusted to their tightest position. This setting will be loose for younger and smaller riders.
The footrests are a bit flimsy, and UrRider advises against your child standing up on them. We agree, as there certainly is some doubt that they could support a heavier child’s weight safely. That said, kids have a natural inclination to stand up when riding – and our kids do it often! While our footrests have never broken, we do immediately remind them to put their bums back on the saddle!
Handlebar
The lightly padded handlebar gives little ones an extra sense of security as they can easily “hold on”! The oval shaped bar can be rotated forward or back depending on the size of the child.
Attach or Remove the UrRider in Seconds!
If you only ride your bike with your child, getting the UrRider on and off your bike won’t matter much. But if you’re like us and often ride without the kids, the UrRider’s quick release attachment is incredibly convenient.
The weight-bearing portion of the seat is on the frame of your bike, where the front of the seat has a rubber support bar that rests on your top tube. The rear hinge wraps around the seat post, and is first hand tightened, then secured by a quick release lever.
Whether you’re riding with your little, or without, getting the UrRider on or off is a breeze.
Folds Down Compactly
Another super convenient feature is that the UrRider easily folds down compactly, and fits in an included bag. While we normally just throw our stuff on a shelf in the garage, we do love that we could pack it in a suitcase and take it on vacation!
Bike Compatiblity with the UrRider
The 2021 UrRider child bike seat is designed to fit a wide variety of bike frame styles, but whether or not it will fit your bike has a lot to do with your seat post. If you don’t have several inches of exposed seat post, you may have an issue. Before we dive into that, let’s establish a few important things:
(1) The UrRider seat rail should be as close to horizontal with the ground as possible. Angling the rail in either direction will cause the saddle to angle as well. If the saddle is too angled, your child will be more likely to slide forward or backward on the seat.
(2) In order to keep the seat rail horizontal, you’ll need to move the UrRider’s support bar up or down based on your bike’s frame design (specifically the placement and angle of the bike’s top tube).
(3) Every bike we tried the UrRider on required the support bar to be in the highest setting. Lower settings may be required for foldable bikes or very steeply sloped women’s bikes.
Seat Post Height
With the rubber support bar set to the highest setting (which places the UrRider as low as possible on the bike’s frame), you’ll rest that support bar on your frame and then attach the UrRider’s rear hinge to your bike’s seat post. We quickly discovered that the new UrRider design is more likely to be a good fit for riders that ride with their saddles high and plenty of seat post showing.
Even looking at all of the images in UrRider’s videos and website, their example bikes have the saddles raised quite high. If you ride with your saddle slammed down to the seat post collar, or only have an inch or two of visible seat post, you may have a fit issue.
As an example, take our XS Diamondback Lux. The primary rider is 5’4. In order to get the UrRider to sit horizontally, we had to raise the seat almost 2 inches. Raising the seat 2 inches won’t lead to a comfortable or safe ride.
Here you can see how the UrRider sits when we raise the saddle (mostly horizontal), vs how it sits at an angle with the seat post at its lower, normal height. Honestly, I couldn’t even get the seat to secure to the seat post in this position, but we’re showing it as an example.
The horizontal rail you see above has can be adjusted longer or shorter by just a few centimeters, but has just two settings. If you’re having trouble fitting the UrRider on your bike, try shortening the rail before you resort to raising your seat post. The rail is shortened on the Diamondback above.
When set to the shorter setting, the rail is 14.5″ long. If you’d like a rough estimation of if the UrRider will fit your bike, measure a line parallel to the ground (or slightly angled up) – from the front of the top of your seat post to about two inches above your top tube.
Seat Post Width
We spoke with UrRider and they stated that the seat post hinge system is universal and should fit on pretty much any seat post width.
In our testing, the hinge system was a good fit on our Priority bike that has a 27 mm diameter seat post. Almost all leisure and recreation bikes have posts this size. While the hinge didn’t sit completely flush against the post, it was close enough and I felt safe riding with it this way.
If you have a true mountain bike (meant for single track) with a wider seat post, you could run into an issue. Our Diamondback Lux has a wider seat post – 30.9 mm. There was a lot of gapping between the seat post and the hinge system. UrRider looked at the photos and said this was completely safe.
It also feels pretty secure, but I personally didn’t feel comfortable with all of that gapping and didn’t use the UrRider on that bike as a result. (I admit, I’m a safety paranoid parent.)
Seat Post Fit – Diamondback vs. Priority
If you have a wider seat post, be aware that you will have gapping between the seat post and the UrRider’s hinge system. Whether or not you are comfortable with that is up to you.
UrRider Leg Width
The legs that attach to the footrests are set wide enough apart to accommodate a top tube or down tube that is 6.2 cm wide or less.
The frame side of the legs are covered in a rubber layer to protect your frame. This is a huge upgrade from the original UrRider seat.
The UrRider seat can shift from side to side at the point where the support bar rests on the frame. As a result, it’s entirely possible that the vertical legs will come into contact with your frame at some point. Good thing they’re now padded.
UrRider Child Bike Seat vs. the Competition
There are several front mount child bike seats like the UrRider on the market, and we’ve pretty much tested them all – from Tyke Toter, to the Shotgun Seat, the Mac Ride, and Do Little. The UrRider isn’t our favorite, but it holds its own.
While the quality of the UrRider is solid enough to make us feel comfortable using it with our own kids, it feels a bit basic at times. It’s like a rough draft of a term paper that will eventually get a solid A, once it’s been polished up a bit.
So why would you get the UrRider instead of any of those other seats? That ever-present cost/benefit ratio. If you can get it at a good price, it really does work well enough for you to feel happy about your purchase. And it’s just sooo easy to use!
The MacRide is even easier to use, but significantly more expensive. The Shotgun is about the same price and much better quality, but it’s more complicated to set up and take on and off your bike for the average parent.
The Do Little is often on super sale, but you can’t take it on and off your bike without a lot of time, effort and tools. The TykeToter is about the same price and as easy to use, but its foot rests are awkwardly tiny.
UrRider Child Bike Seat Bottom Line
While not perfect, the UrRider is a solid-quality child bike seat that’s really easy to use. If you’re looking for a super simple way to bring kids 2 to 5 along on quick bike rides, the UrRider is a no-brainer.
FTC Disclosure: Affiliate links are included in this review. No monetary compensation was provided for this review, however, the reviewed product was supplied by the manufacturer or distributor to help facilitate this review. All opinions and images are that of Two Wheeling Tots LLC. All content and images are copyrighted and should not be used or replicated in any way. View our Terms of Use.
