As the benefits of family cycling are becoming more widely realised elsewhere, we expect to see more and more families starting to use front seats to carry their children by bicycle. The Kids Ride Shotgun bike seats allow adventurous mountain biking parents to bring little groms along for the ride. Designed to fit a wide range of bike frames, the Shotgun seat will allow you to share your love of the shred with your little one. Start ’em young and raise ’em right!

The granting of a best price is not combinable with other promotions (e.g. "free articles) from Bike-Discount. The seat is made from smooth, soft rubber, and has soft shoulder padding too. It’s very ergonomic and fits our two-year-old toddler comfortably. It also has a minimalistic, modern design, with an integrated drainage system for rainwater, and comes in nine beautiful colours (the Chigusa green special edition is particularly lovely). We love that the entire seat detaches from the base which is fitted to the bicycle: a convenient feature for when you want to store it away. Unlike other open-style seats on this list, the Tyke Toter’s handlebar is integrated into the seat itself, so those little hands always have a place to land. The placement of the handlebars is close to the child’s seat, however, making the child sit more upright since they aren’t stretching to reach the handlebars. The shotgun seat has a range of adjustment to fit top tubes from 30 – 68mm wide, and down tubes from 30 – 100mm wide. We have not found any analogue mountain bikes that are outside of these specifications. If your dropper is slammed all the way to your seat collar, you can’t mount the Pro. (Unless you have enough dropper cable length to raise the dropper post out of the seat tube.) In our fleet of eight mountain bikes of our parent testers, we have two bikes that don’t have enough space here.

ABOUT THE SHOTGUN PRO KIDS MOUNTAIN BIKE SEAT:

To the uninitiated, it can be quite alarming when first looking at the Mac Ride and Shotgun kids seats. Where are the straps and seat belts? It’s true, aside from the footstraps there are no straps to hold your kid in. But have no fear, just like when they ride their own bikes, once on, straddling the top tube and in the footstraps, your kid feels really secure. After a couple of minutes of car park testing, our team felt 100% confident on mellow trails, with toddlers from 2 years old. As soon as your kid jumps on it all makes sense and feels very safe. Will a front-mounted MTB kids seat fit my bike? Fitting requires 10mm of clearance under the stem. Bikes with stems shorter than 50mm in length may require additional clearance under the stem, the minimum clearance required is indicated in the diagram below. The best thing about this seat is that you really get to cuddle your child as you cycle along - and for this reason the Little Explorer's predecessor, the Oxford Leco has been a firm favourite of ours. It also allows you to keep an eye on what they are doing, which is more difficult if they are in a rear seat behind you.

The height at which the adult rider’s seat post is positioned also plays a role in the comfort level of the riders. In most cases, the higher the adult seat is set on the bike, the more room the adult rider will have. We’ve reviewed a selection of the best bike child seats in a variety of different styles to keep both child and parent feeling safe and secure whilst riding together. Before we get to our roundup, though, we’ve provided a short buying guide on what to look out for when shopping around. Foot peg Settings: The Original Shotgun has only one setting for the foot pegs where kids rest their feet. The 2.0 has two settings so that the foot pegs can be adjusted lower as your child grows. Since the original seat was launched in 2017 the Kids Ride Shotgun brand have seen a big increase in the use of e-MTBs around the world and a large amount of mountain biking families wanting to fit the Shotgun child seat to high-end carbon fibre mountain bikes. Read more

Shotgun seat measurements

But often parents don’t know what they don’t know, and if you’ve never used another bike seat, you might think the iBert seems like a solid, affordable choice. The Shotgun is only compatible on bikes with front suspension forks, so it won’t work on most cruisers.

While we have used this on a sloped bar, it’s best fitted on a straight bar at the front of a bicycle as this prevents that sloped seated position. That said, our tot seemed happy in the seat for short journeys, even when slightly sloped. Overall, the seat feels secure and doesn’t take much space at the front, making it safe and comfortable for both child and parent. The inside of its metal frame is also lined with rubber to keep your bicycle from getting damaged. If, like us, you were planning your child’s first bike while they were still in the womb, you will also be keen to find a way for them to join you on bike rides as soon as possible. Specific baby carriers allow you to transport children from as young as three months, and we have a full review of the best bike trailers online, however, if you want to enjoy the freedom of a front-mounted child seat, you will have to wait a little longer until your child has the strength to sit dynamically. Most child seat brands recommend a minimum age of 12 months, with the more capable Mac Ride and Shotgun seats recommending 2-5 years. Most seats have an upper limit of 15 kg, with the Mac Ride and Shotgun suggesting 25 and 22 kg respectively. Building memories with every turn, your first ride with a front mounted childs seat will be a revelation Are front-mounted child’s mountain bike seats safe? We’ve ridden easily along canal towpaths and woodland bridleways. She’s even been down the Hope Line at Gisburn Forest, with cries of “Lean Dad, Lean!” as we whooshed around the berms. This seat places your child in between your arms and legs so that, even though they’re technically sitting on their own and have to maintain their balance, your body is offering them some sort of protection and support. It’s incredibly fun for both parent and child, with the close proximity allowing you to have a fully fledged conversation (or singing session) with them.The MTB child seat should be as light as possible as you will have to move that extra 15 kg + of seat and baby up each hill! Don’t forget to put extra pressure in your suspension or dial in more low-speed-compression to compensate or your bike will handle poorly. So is this a good or a bad thing? It depends. Overall, having the child higher on the bike (and in relation to your body) usually means there’s less interference with your pedal stroke – you’ll have to bow your legs out a bit less. Nice right? I feel certain that being upfront and being in the more natural riding position gives her a big advantage to then riding for herself and being confident to move the bike around under her. A socially acceptable way to cycle with kids It’s important to note that when using the handlebars, your child is in a more upright position than if they are leaning forward to grab onto your handlebars. For really young and small riders, this is probably more comfortable for them to not have to lean forward so far.