Hi All,
My daighter learnt to ride on a cheapy wooden balance bike and is now a complete whizz on her Rideback Melody (did 6 miles on Saturday, quite impressive for a 41/2 year old I think!) but the balance bike has died a death and by 21/2 year old son is now needing something to learn on.

He has had a go on a Specialized Hotwalk and was a complete whizz on it, but I am not overly keen to spend £100 on something that will probably only last him 6 months, so I like the idea of getting a Hotrock 12 and removing the chainset.

I am worried he might bash his ankles on the bottom bracket though, and also worried the seat may not go low enough for him to be confident on it even though he is quite big for his age.

Has anyone does this mod to a Hotrock 12 and had success?

Cheers

anyone?

Did it to a Scott radical 12" bike for my son and it worked a treat, as long as his feet touch the floor it should be fine. I bought a Puky like a bike off eBay for the daughter for about £40 so there cheaper ones about.

Our youngest is just turned 3, currently on a Rothan & very very confident. Took the pedals off his brothers Cnoc 14 but saddle wouldnt go low enough for him to be confident as a balance bike. Reach etc also too much, & its a lot heavier. Given the Spesh is a 12" you might get away with it, but I asked Islabikes why they dont do a 12" pedal bike & they said from experience kids dont really have the strength & co-ordination for pedalling till late 3yrs, by which time they are physically at the top end of a 12" bike anyway. Rothans seem to fetch good money on Ebay if you sell on.

He'll use the Hotwalk longer than 6 months, you have reckoned without the toddler mindset, regardless of whether he's capable of using a pedal bike he may very well not want too. They resell well too.
Wouldn't he outgrow the rock 12 at the same time anyway?

My eldest went from a hotwalk to a rock 16 by swapping the seatpost and saddle over – 2 months later refited the originals, there's no mapping how they grow at that age it seems.

Also balance bike resale is excellent.

have a look at the weeride balance bike – sell them in asdas for about £50…

other options are the scoot or the specialized. this time last year specialized ones were going for more than £100 on ebay as no one in the UK actually had any stock..

Halfords are doing 'scoot' style balance bikes for about 40 quid now.

Both my boys used a Tesco balance bike. Best £38 I ever spent.

Tesco Balance Bike

My youngest has a Hotrock 12 and a Ridgeback Scoot balance bike.

I did take the cranks and chainset off a skip bike (scooby doooooo) for our eldest, but I didn't fancy puliing the hotrock apart.

I'm not saying its not doable, but the chain guard and coaster brake add to the complications, and I'm not convinced the saddle would be low enough for a 2 and 1/2 year old anyway.

The youngest can now ride the Hotrock 12 without stabalizers, but she sometimes still prefers the Scoot on my challenging terrain (e.g. sloping campsite fields 🙂 )

Just bought him a 2011 Hotwalk so I'll be very popular when he gets back from his gran's tomorrow!

Think we might hit the BMX track at the weekend!

can't you just take the pedals off?