am I an idot spending for an isla bike?

might get my four and a half years old girl an isla bike for Christmas. shes got a balance bike but needs a regular bike now.

should I spend the cash £200 or am I an idiot – I keep telling myself the resale value is high so we can sell it for good money when she grows out of it

From what I have seen they are worth it, friends’ kids with other cheaper bikes don’t want to ride tem so much, end up braking with their feet etc as the brakes are so crap.

For the smile it will put on her face, it’s worth it! I bought my lad a Beinn last year and he loves it. Build quality is great too. My mate sold a cnoc for £20 less than he paid for it brand new

No they are great

I know everyone on here will disagree, but why not spend £50 on one that will do the same job

or look on ebay

Your daughter is 4, she will only care about the colour

They are a great bit of kit

The neat touches for me are all the little parts designed around little people, such as, smaller brake levers, pedals and cranks, that make it just that little bit easier for them to ride with, they are also a stack load lighter than your normal £50 buy.

If you can afford it and you’re kid actually wants a bike then why not.

but why not spend £50 on one that will do the same job

My 5 year old nephew is in a 7 speed Islabike with gears that he can operate and actually, reliably work. If you could get a £50 that did that I’d be riding one.

Isla bikes are doing something important – reversing all the damage Raleigh did selling shit bikes like tomahawks, choppers and grifters to kids. They turned bikes into unridable toys and killed the culture of cycling in the UK.

I say keep buying Islabikes until it forces other brands to stop selling crap. That said – aren’t Ridgeback (in their clever jump-in-second kind of way) making a few decent kids bikes too?

Worth it.

No other wee bike comes close.
They sell for £160 second-hand on ebay, and that’s bike the parents paid £120 for – so yours will probably go up in value too.

And here’s my four-year old riding the skillz park at Comrie Croft:
The joy of watching this is priceless.

We went for Ridgeback MX20’s for our boys as they were able to try them for size in local shops. They have been great bikes… not sure what the resale will be like although both bikes still look great.

she has actually got a regular bike too but its too small (her heels are on the pedals and make her feet slip off) I swear it weights around 18lb too plus the brakes are the worst and her little hands can’t squeeze them

My son has had both a Rothan and a CNOC 16 and has ridden both of them to death.

Just sold the CNOC 16 and got £15 less than I paid. Which is pretty good after 2 years.

I thought hard about going cheap for his next 20in bike, and so got him a cheap £50 in the interim. He hated it and complained all the time that it was too heavy. So he hardly rode it and when he did he didnt enjoy it.

I looked at Hardrock & Ridgeback 20s, but they are only £50 less than the Isla but weigh 5 or 6 pounds more.

So in the end I have just ordered him a Beinn 20, as I know he will love riding it and I will get good money for it afterwards.

Forgot about the resale values, they do seem to hold their price very well second hand compared to other makes.

Other brands are available 🙂

In general, I’d say it’s worth spending a bit more than the budget end. A decent brand like Isla, Specialized, Giant, Cube etc will be put together properly and with decent components. That means it’ll be safer, but also it’ll retain a good resale value so, over the time you own it, it’ll likely cost no more than the budget bike would have.

Yes the initial outlay is big, but if you get almost all of it back after 2 years, then it softens the blow in the long term.

sold thanks guys!

as above, we have two Islabikes at the moment & about to get another. The kids love ’em!

Yes, they hold their price very well for eBay sales, even creeping up as the RRP increases. Remember, though, that eBay will take around 10% off you in selling fees if you sell through them. I got a lot more interest from eBay than I did advertising here, but YMMV.

What if she doesnt want to ride it ?

Our 4 year old has a £30 bike (its pink and that all that matters) from ebay. She has really got into cycling and now rides it quite happily for 6 or 7 miles along trails. (Camel trail, high peak etc). Its been perfect so far, with very little outlay. I am now looking at an Isla now that I am ahppy she will use the thing !

I was staggered by ebay resale values.
6 years old, 4 years use, two children, a bit battered, although obviously still worked perfectly. They fetch 80% of their original cost!!!
Total cost of ownership after fees, brake pads, etc £40!

They are good, and do hold their value, so no you are not an idiot.

Another Comrie skillz park pic, another Isla bike:
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Comrie Croft pump jump track[/url] by matt_outandabout[/url], on Flickr

You get what you pay for. When I took delivery of my daughters Islabike, I wished every bike I’ve paid an inordinate amount of cash for was as well built.

I sold it on the classifieds here, after she’d used it for 18 months, for £20 less than I paid for it new

Do it, there’s always buyers for after you’re done with them them or get a used one? There’s plenty about and usually in better nick than most kids bikes, probably because their parents have good bikes and teach them to look after them.

The only downside that I’ve experienced is that their friends always want to ride them because they are lighter and easier to ride with better brakes for skids!Grrrr. They also tend to chuck them down afterwards too, so I’ve had to get my lad a shit bike too for when he goes to friends houses or they come to us. The Islabike gets hung out of reach!

I should have added… my wife forced me buy a cheap 16″ wheeled bike for the youngest boy as he didn’t like the hand-me-down balance bike and wanted to be on a real bike like his big brother… HUGE MISTAKE. It was a total POS and ended up meaning none of us rode much until he outgrew it and he could get an MX20 like his big brother.

Awesome bikes. I wasn’t convinced at first so bought a Ridgeback for my daughter – £120 bike that sold for £40 at 2 years old. She now has an Isla Beinn 20 and my son has a CNOC16 – both will serve at least 2 kids before being sold for almost what I paid for them so they make a lot of sense I think.

No you’re not, the only reason I didn’t get an Isla balance bike for my little one was that I got such a good deal on a Ridgeback one.

My little girl had the smallest pedal bike but was too little for next one up by a small amount, so as a stop gap til she was big enough for next one I had bought her to save buying two little islas for a couple of months I got the little lad a fireman bike from Halfords and he struggled like mad but could ride the isla, so I got his bigger sister who had been riding over a year to try it and she couldn’t ride it as it was too heavy and seemed to be all out of proportion. Luckily tho after about two months she could get on the bigger Isla and now flys round on that 😉

my eldest has gone through a Rothan and a CNOC 14 and 16, which will be recycled (youngest on the CNOC 14 now, Rothan with a cousin).

My eldest is on some crappy apollo now while we try to find a Beinn 20 and the difference in quality is shocking. The weight of the cheapo means he struggles when it comes to negotiating things at a slow pace, and the weight and awful gear ratio means it’s tough for him to get going on even a slight incline

I’d say go for it, we bought the CNOC 14 new, but the rest 2nd hand and while they were only a little less than RRP, knowing that the kids will get a lot of use from them, and then they can be sold on for near what we paid is a massive bonus

My eldest is on some crappy apollo ……….awful gear ratio means it’s tough for him to get going on even a slight incline

Likewise, bought a cheap Apollo for my son to see him through to xmas and cant believe the gear ratio, something like a 40T front chainring and 26T rear. Not sure even I could get up hill on that ratio! 😉

And it weighs 26lb!

Can someone save this thread for posterity – there seems to be a general consensus!

Ok, my 2pence worth.

I finish building a Isla bike for someone the other day and they a very nice bike, light and well built.

I also do a lot of Bikeability with kids so I do see a lot of crap out there, but also some nice bikes.

BUT the THING that really Boils my Pi** is bikes coming from BIKE SHOPS with BRAKE REACH not SET UP!!!!!!!! 👿
99% of brakes (cable) come with some sort of reach adjustment, wind the bloody things IN and re adjust the brakes, it’s not hard!
It is great to see kids able to reach their brakes, after seeing them strugle it gives them so much more control.
Yes the brake might not be “kids size” levers but with some proper set up/adjustment they will fit most kids reach.

Also,
Don’t get a full sus kids bike, they very heavy, don’t work normall have plastic bushings and wear out in no time at all.

We have 2, a Beinn 26 small and a Beinn 20 large, for 9 and 6 yr olds respectively. Great bikes, confidence inspiring and as said above, when they grow out of them you can sell at good prices 🙂

It’s a shame you can’t but them in shops so you can try for size.

My son is on a 12″ wheeled Raliegh that we inherited brand new.

He loves riding it but now it looks like a clowns bike as it is far too small.

On the Isla bike size chart he is right on the minimum sizing for the Beinn 24. Obviously he is growing fast (he’s 6.5yrs) but I don’t want to put him off riding as it’s a big jump in wheel size. Unsure whether to go 20″ or 24″ wheels

MM

They need a 12″ pedal bike in the range I think.

I am going to resist other 12″ pedal bikes & keep my lad on balance bikes until he fits an Isla.

Balance – straight to – 16″ worked great for us.
The amount they can do on a balance bike is extraordinary.

We got our 4yo a Cnoc 16 in the summer. Its one of the new batch, very light (under 6 kg) and pink, which suits her.
She could barely lift the front end of her previous; a hand-me-down decathlon pig-iron thing. Must have weighed in at around 14 or 15 kg which is great for doing curls with whilst carrying it up staircases, but not so practical as a kid’s bike.
I checked the Ridgebacks at a lbs and they are good too, but the mx16 was still noticeably heavier than the Isla.

should I spend the cash £200 or am I an idiot

A whole, great quality, kids bike for £30 more than an XTR mech? Sounds like a steal. We’ll be getting one for micromtbfixlette come Spring.

The Ridgebacks are excellent for half the price. I get the resale argument, but when you can pick up a nearly new RB for under £80 (which you’ll get back when you sell it) the up-front cost of the Islas doesn’t stack up.

Daughter on 2nd Islabike Luath and they are great.

Sold 1st one for £300, cost £360 new.

The only thing I don’t get are the gear ratio’s. With restricted ratio’s in youth racing her Luath 24 is aimed at riders up to 10 but has a ratio for the U12 category so we had to adjust so the smallest cog couldn’t be used.

No, do it.

My eldest is on a Rothan currently, youngest is approaching the point where he’ll want one too so I’m looking around for a Cnoc 14. If I had the money to spare I’d buy brand new, if I can’t find one second hand in reasonable condition at a decent price (unlikely looking at ebay) then I’ll probably just bite the bullet and get new anyway.

As already stated, lots of other bikes to choose from but for me the most important thing is that the nippers enjoy riding them as much as possible and I think Isla wins there hands down. In formative years I think that the easier a bike is to ride the more they’ll enjoy it and want to do more. Got to be worth an extra £50 or so (or more!).

A whole, great quality, kids bike for £30 more than an XTR mech? Sounds like a steal. We’ll be getting one for micromtbfixlette come Spring.

An XTR mech for less than a bike for my son? I take back my last post and am off to the LBS!