All told, this is a seriously nice bike for such a young rider. Our little guy was on a Seeker 16 for a couple years, and he'd both grown enough and progressed enough that bigger wheels were warranted. We've currently got it converted to a singlespeed so he can get used to the new bike before we add shifting into the mix. The sliding dropouts made the conversion super easy, and were ultimately the main reason we stuck with Early Rider instead of giving more consideration to other options. Had there been an option to add a reasonably priced, suspension-corrected aluminum fork in addition to the suspension fork, I'd have probably jumped on that as well since this bike, while crazy light for a kids bike, represents a pretty substantial increase in weight from the Seeker 16. The RST fork works well, my kindergartner is heavy enough to actually have it work like a suspension fork and not a pogo stick or a heavy rigid fork (which, honestly, I wasn't entirely expecting it to achieve and have been pleasantly surprised by), but he would likely benefit more from having a lighter bike to pick up and haul uphill than he will from having the travel, at least for now.

The tires included with the bike are not tubeless-ready, but they were hooked into the rim well enough that I felt safe in converting the wheels to tubeless and hoping they'd seal. A couple passes of tubeless tape (stock config has old-school rubber rim strips), a couple valves, and a couple ounces of sealant later and…