Thinking about a GOMO 3 Wheel Scooter? Your child isn’t yet old enough for a bicycle, but they are old enough to learn the joys of outdoor activities. A three-wheeled scooter is a great tool for bridging that gap, and with plenty of adult-sized scooters on the market, perhaps learning to ride one isn’t as niche a skill as it once was. You are ready to take the plunge, but you want to be sure that the scooter you give to your child isn’t just fun, but safe, a good value, and bound to last until they are ready to graduate to a two-wheeled scooter or a bicycle.
Buying a three-wheeled scooter for your child is more than just providing a form of entertainment that puts your child outside and away from video games, it’s an investment in safety and long term health. There are dozens of three-wheeled scooters out there, but getting the right scooter for your child means parsing through many options, looking for the best one.
First of all, why buy a three-wheeled scooter for your child in the first place? One reason could be that you want your child to get some exercise in while out of doors. Children already spend far too many hours indoors in front of a screen, not getting the physical activity they need to stay healthy and develop healthy habits. If you want your child to enjoy riding their scooter, then it has to be easy enough for them to use, and safe enough that they don’t come to associate it with falling over too often.
Starting with one of the simplest and yet least scrutinized details, consider wheel placement. Not all three-wheeled scooters use the same layout. Some mimic the wheelbase of the famously unstable Reliant Robin, a three-wheeled car from the 1970s noted for losing balance and rolling in corners. This is because it, and some three-wheeled scooters like it, have two wheels in the rear and one in the front instead of the other way around. When steering at speed, two wheels in the front grants increased grip and stability, as the rider’s inertia presses on the inside front corner. If there is only one front wheel but two back wheels, the scooter can slip, or the rider can overcompensate for wobble, falling due to centrifugal force.
Does Expensive Equate to Better?
For the exceptionally well-heeled, there are expensive three-wheeled scooters designed in Switzerland and made with all the attention to detail of a Rolex. Priced accordingly, these three-wheeled scooters aren’t functionally different from most of their rivals, and in fact they are made in China. To be honest, they don’t even look any different from most other brands’ scooters and lack many features of their competitors. Moreover, would you really want to give your toddler a Rolex?
At the other end of the price spectrum there are scooters that look great but aren’t made to last, with clip-on components like baskets that are made of flimsy materials that will inevitably break and become not just unsightly, but a safety hazard.
Marketed as the reinvented wheel, there are some three-wheeled scooters that are built with useless gimmicks that are marketed as making the scooter safer or more stable but, in fact, have not been proven to accomplish either goal. If peace of mind is what you’re really after, these scooters aren’t going to help after their first day in the playground.
There are even scooters that are themed on other children’s products, like characters from successful franchises. While these scooters may look cool to a child, they aren’t usually well made, and they are often aimed at the very young, meaning that after a year or so, your toddler will no longer want to ride it because it’s a bit too young for them. More importantly, because they are built around these very young age demographics, they aren’t big enough to adjust to children entering kindergarten.
The GOMO 3 wheel scooter features custom co-molded grips that allow hours of comfortable riding for your little ones.
Not all scooters are designed for children, and not all three-wheeled scooters are suited to all children. Some three-wheeled scooters have seats so smaller children can kick their scooters along without exhausting themselves. This may be fine for toddlers, but it defeats much of the purpose of such a toy in older children who may be fit enough to get some exercise from their scooter. Giving a seated three-wheeled scooter to an older child isn’t likely to teach much aside from how to steer a mobility scooter.
Some scooters aren’t made for heavy use or for use over a long period of time, suited only for very small or much older children. These may be fine for a time, but parents will find themselves having to replace them over and over again as their children grow up. These scooters may seem inexpensive at first, but when one has to purchase them two or even three times as a child ages, the costs add up.
Some scooters aren’t designed for the kind of punishment they will receive at the hands of your child. These “bargains” are often designed around pointless features, and built with materials that will not stand the test of time: the punishment only a toddler can dish out. Children treat their possessions harder than just about every other age group. When you’re putting the safety of your child in the hands of an engineering team, you had better seriously consider the product’s ability to be thrown, slammed, and trampled before handing it to your child. This is important to keep in mind because if a scooter fails, that unfortunate fact will likely make itself known while the scooter is under your child.
GOMO 3 Wheel Scooter -The Best All Around Three Wheel Scooter!
Of course, there are some scooters that combine the best qualities of several models. The GOMO line by Nextsport is designed to encourage kids to be active in ways that aren’t just fun, but promote physical fitness and talents like coordination. Their entry into the three-wheeled scooter space is the GOMO 3 wheel scooter.
The GOMO 3 wheel scooter has two advantages which immediately become obvious upon examination: the GOMO 3 wheeler has an adjustable steering bar that allows a child to grow with the same scooter. This means that for most children it is possible to ride the same three-wheeled scooter until the age of five. Additionally, the GOMO 3 wheel scooter has a reinforced frame, with a rigid structure less likely to get bent out of shape by repeats falls, or being cast to the ground while your child runs toward the sandbox. At only 5.5 pounds, the GOMO scooter is light enough that you can easily take it with you on family trips, but more importantly, it is light enough for your child to chuck about, carrying or dragging it with ease, and all without damaging it of course.
GOMO features a soft nose bumper to prevent damage during collisions.
Perhaps most interestingly, the GOMO 3 wheeler is designed to teach children the essential skills necessary for many types of human-powered transportation. Many forms of transportation require a mixture of balance and leaning to steer. The GOMO 3 wheeler teaches these skills safely and with stability. The frame is designed to steer by gently leaning to one side, which naturally re-positions the front wheels as one would on a bicycle making a gentle turn. Perhaps best of all, the GOMO three wheel scooter has a soft front nose, so if your child runs into your legs or your car, it won't dent it or you.