Mongoose Legion Kids Freestyle BMX Bike, Intermediate Rider, Boys and Girls Bikes, 20-Inch Wheels, Hi-Ten Steel Frame, Micro Drive 25x9T BMX Gearing

This Legion L20 is the third Mongoose BMX bike I've purchased over the last year, and I've been very happy with all three (Legion LSX, Title Pro, and L20). Assembly was very easy on all three bikes; just need to attach the front wheel, handle bars, and pedals. Took only about 15 mins. You just need to pay attention to the direction of the forks and remember the left pedal will be left-hand threaded. The forks and pedals have stickers denoting front/rear, left/right. Besides adjusting for height and putting air in the tires, there really wasn't any need for fine adjustments (chain tension, brakes, misc. nuts, etc.), as these things are being adjusted correctly from the factory (nice surprise). After reading the negative reviews on this bike and the others mentioned, it seems many of them are related to incorrect user assembly. If you put the forks on backwards or don't put air in the tire, you're going to have problems. The Legion L20 is reasonably light at roughly 25 lbs., easy to ride, and looks great. Note, however, that this is a freestyle bike, and probably not the best choice if you're just looking for a neighborhood cruiser. The crank bracket sits about 1" higher than on a race type BMX bike, making the apex pedal feel too high when in a sitting position. This may not bother some people. If it does, you could buy shorter cranks, but with the money you'd spend, it would be more logical to just go with a race style bike with the lower bracket (and larger front sprocket). The Title series with a lengthened seat post makes for a great lightweight cruiser. Not much to complain about on this bike. Excellent quality for the money. If you're looking for a reasonably priced freestyle bike with good quality, at $156, this is a great choice.

All you need are some tools, a brain, some patience and reasonable expectations for this to be put together and on the road. If you have half a brain and basic tools, you’re going to be able to put this together without even looking at the instructions. This will come in a box, front tire packaged off. It comes with no tools, everything zip tied so it could remain intact on the long trip from CHIIIINA to the US. Packaging is solid. There are several thick zip ties to cut to break everything loose. You’re going to need: Metric hex tools A 15 and 18 mm socket for axels 15mm wrench or socket to tighten handlebar alignment Scissors or utility knife for zip ties Phillips screwdriver (for the reflectors only) You’ll need an extension bar to remove the nuts from the axels to install the pegs on front and back. Will take you about 60 seconds to do this. Front handlebars install with hex keys. Honestly not sure how anybody could have problems with this. It’s four bolts. Secure them, and you’re good. But man, some reviewers couldn’t figure this out. Install the seat with another hex socket. Put on the reflectors, hook up the brake, fill the tires with air, and you’re riding. Btw, the factory purposefully ships tires with less air than you’ll need for your benefit. Any tire sitting for an extended period will last longer if not fully inflated. Hooking up the brake is a bit of a pain in the A, as you won’t have enough slack in the front to properly attach the cable unless you briefly disconnect the rear brakes. Once you pull the cable through in the front to attach, reattach the rear. Took me a minute to figure this out. The front break setup is such that you can spin the handlebars around to 1) look cool, and 2) not have the brake line get wound around the front of the bike. The bike is good, solid and worth the money. Assembly, with any mechanical skill (even entry level mechanical skill) will take 20 minutes. Also, warning: you’re buying a $200 bike. It will last like a $200 bike. Many people on here complain about the quality. This isn’t a $1000 bike. Don’t pretend it is. Take care of it, don’t beat it to death and you’ll be good. If this was at all helpful, please hit the button.

This bike is Amazing. And even though I got it Used it came in Mint Condition still in the Box. Great Seller. My 10 Year old Daughter wanted a good Boys Bike and this one is outstanding. Much better than the Mongoose I had in 1984. I had to pull the handlebars back a little bit for her. Brakes are real good to compared to most that come on the bike. I think if you can get this for under $250. It's a steal.

< Overall > So first off, this is a decent bike. Having twin boys this has all the cool features that they didn't even know they looking for (that's because these were features I was looking for at their age); free wheel, spinny handlebars, foot pegs, and a cool color scheme. I've read some reviews of this bike on other, bike-oriented sites that pick apart certain mechanical aspects of this bike and I must say people sure seem to expect a lot for this price point. From my perspective--and having grown up with a Huffy--this is about the nicest bike I could imagine having as a kid. < Assembly > Having twin boys meant that I got to experience assembly twice. Which is the reason I deducted a star from the bike, the assembly manual is generic and meant to cover several versions of these bikes. As such it does every version of the bike a disservice by not actually explaining things very well or at all in the case of the brake cable installation for the L20. There isn't a lot to the assembly. The main frame and all the components are already installed. You just have to put on the front wheel, mount the handlebars to the stem, install the seat, pedals, foot pegs (if you even want them), and finally attach the brake cable to the brake lever. Having a metric socket set and Allen key set are essential. < ASSEMBLY NOTE: Attaching the Brake Cable > I've seen more than a few reviews here decrying the assembly of the brake cable with folks going so far as to return the bike, buy additional parts, or dump it off at the bike shop. Let me say I understand your struggle. However, I did figure out how to install the cable without needing to go that route and it was actually pretty easy. The cable, as it turns out, is the right length, but I found it necessary to disassemble the brake lever and remove it in order to make it work. I takes the 4mm allen key to remove the screw. The lever components include two plastic bushings on either side of the lever and a spring. Pay careful attention to how these parts come out, because reassembly is the same. Once the lever is off and the brake cable is fed through the lever mount, you can line up the cable and the barrel in the hole on the lever and rotate it into place. Now you'll actually have enough leverage to easily re-seat the lever arm although it will require a modicum of coordination to make sure all the parts stay on the arm until you can get them back into the handle-bar mount. I don't know if I explained that well, I'm not even sure if that was the easiest way to do this, but it worked reliably for me. < FINAL NOTE: Test! > Once everything is assembled, test the bike. I cannot stress this enough. Don't assume that because it's all been assembled it's ready to go. The manual itself makes a big point of this as well.

Received the bike within a week. Assembly difficulty was medium-low. The instruction manual was more general for all Mongoose BMX bikes. The simple order of assembly was: handlebars, brake, seat, wheel, pedals, pegs, (F&R) reflectors. Previous reviews claimed the brake line was a pain to install. Found out the hard way was to install the line into the handbrake right before mounting the handlebar. After everything was installed, i inspected the bike and tightened as necessary. The axel nuts were different sizes in the front and rear and pegs were properly sized for each. The brakes did require adjusting. I used a Park Tool 4th Hand. The tires needed a little bit of air for the recommend 40 psi. Both tires out of box were in the 30s. My son had no problem with this bike. He is 10yo and about 4’9”. This was not his first hand brake so no issues there. His previous bike was an 18” with coasters and hand brakes. He said this bike seems heavy but rides very smoothly. His only complaint is the whistling from the hollow stem bolt while he rides. I have even taken his bike for a few spins and it’s the perfect size and weight for your basic tricks and jumps. I did add a children’s Bell adjustable kickstand but doesn’t appear to last much longer. We want the kickstand because he’s always parking in the garage by the cars and doesn’t like the bike just laying on its pegs. Any questions, please feel free.

Please when ordering this bike have a professional check the breakline and break handle before letting your child or loved one ride it. My 11 year old son worked very hard for several months saving up money to purchase this bike only to be let down twice and end up with some pretty bad concrete burn on his knees, elbows and hands. We are on our second bike of this model because the first ones break line was too short to finish assembly so Amazon picked that one up and sent us another one. (that arrived 2 days later then promised) When we received the second one we were able to complete assembly but when my son tried to ride it for the first time he had a pretty bad crash caused from the faulty breakline. When he tried to pull the break handle the breakline ripped through the handle which caused the breaks not to work and since he was unable to stop the bike he crashed. I took the bike to the same bike shop I had taken the first one and they said that the bike was assembled correctly and that they were able to see where the breakline ripped through the break handle and that should not have ever happened. They also sais that since this was the second bike that I had brought to them with this same issue that there must be something wrong at the manufaturer with the breaklines for this bike model. So again, if you purchase this bike make sure you check and double check the safety features on this bike before anyone rides it.

Let me be up front, I paid $179 for this bike. It is the gray L60. I just looked again and the bike is now listed for almost $350. I’m not sure I would pay that for this bike. Not because it’s not worth that, but because I would probably buy a higher end brand for the same price. But, that’s just me. I bought this for my son on his 9th birthday. He is very tall for his age at a little over 5 feet. According to the specs, he would be on the bottom end of the height range for this bike and it fits him perfectly. I am 6’ 2”, 250 pounds and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy this bike for myself based on the dimensions. The handlebars are a really nice height for me to ride. I could not find out what the exact material the frame is, but it is very light. I was hoping to get him a Chromoly frame, and I would say that this would fit in that weight range. Everything is very stout and tight. I would not personally hesitate to take this bike to the park and jump it… Which I did. The crank did not flex at all, and I really love how fat the tires are. All around, I am impressed with the bike. The paint job had a nice detail in it near the welds to mimic a heat blemish, which is a throwback to the old days, when chrome bikes were welded and the heat would blemish the chrome and turn it a rainbow color. The only Cons that I really found with the bike was under the fork where the neck stem passes through the fork and is welded in place, there was a really bad cut and weld. There are also a hint of rust on a few parts of the bike. I’m assuming from being shipped overseas from China. The metal Mongoose decal for the front of the head stem was a stick on thing. It may be that kids these days want a clean look and they did that as an option. Other than those things, I can’t find anything else mechanically or geometrically wrong with the bike. To be clear, this is not a Walmart licensed product. This is a mongoose bike produced by mongoose or the company that owns mongoose. p.s. it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make sure that the neck, crank and wheel hubs are all at the correct tightness. They feel a little tight out of the box. This is super easy to do yourself, but if you’re unsure, just take it to a bike shop.

My son likes it. Welds look good. All components except brakes are good quality. The brakes are the only issue. No matter what adjustments I made (and believe me, I made them all), they were basically useless. But, I purchased a new inexpensive set of brake pads that had good reviews on Amazon. And I also switched the brakes to the standard cable option, instead of the bmx brake mechanism that allows the handlebars to rotate 360 degrees. I used a brake system I had lying around to accomplish this. With these two cheap DIY upgrades, the bike now stops on a dime, leaving 9 cents of change. I would recommend this bike to anyone needing a bike for their kids. Changing the brake system with your child is a great intro into bike ownership and maintenance!