I will be looking to buy a balance bike for my son. What age do you reccomend starting them on? He is 14 months, can walk, he is a sturdy big lad for his age but im not so sure what the deal is with balance bikes.

He has a toy fire truck and horse which he climbs on and rides about but they have 4 wheels and i make him wear his helmet lol

whats your oppinions please?

cheers
scott

One of mine was scooting along feet up on a balance bike at around 18mth ( needed a 10″ wheel bb) but she was walking at 10 mth and never off various ride-on toys/scooters/scuttlebug etc. First rode a proper bike unaided at 2&1/2, but she’s mental for riding bikes/scooters.. they’re all different. Just buy him one and see how it goes

Buy your son a normal bike, remove the pedals and you have a balance bike.

Stick em back on when he’s ready.

GW cheers for that

patriotpro – that was my original plan 😉

I’d recommend a Spesh’ Hotwalk… awesome lil balance bike, super light and just the right size for a lil un.

My oldest was on it on his second birthday, and his lil bro inherited it when he was 20 months old… and took to it in about 40 mins to ride it.

The lil un couldnt half tank around the local park on it. Made me proud to see him being soo small on a “bike” passing all the other kids leaning on their stabalisers!! people always used to ask how old he was and couldnt believe he could ride a bike so well.

Took literally 15 mins To convert him from a balance bike to a bike with pedals.

He’s 4 now and has a Ridgeback MX16 and rides blue routes win me 🙂

I’d give him a go on one but bare in mind they only have wee little legs at that age – he won’t be able to reach the ground on a lot of balance bikes, although I think there are some that have really low seats.
Be surprised if there was a pedal bike you could take the cranks off that would fit a 14 mth old bairn as a balance bike.

Islabike Rothan.

Brand new £100. Sell on eBay after 3 years? £85.

For £35 you can’t go wrong. Tiny little bike and ours is still working well a year later – passed down to his sister.

Link

Balance bikes are awesome for kids. After seeing my lad learn on his and being the 1st kid to ride without stabilizers (in fact he is still the only kid riding without stabilizers amongst friends and family), I swear by them.

I bought a Islabike Cnoc 14 for my eldest when he was 2 1/2 but it was clearly too big for him. I swapped it for a Rothan balance bike which he has been using happily for the last year and a half. Last month he made the transition to the Cnoc 14. Within 5 minutes he was riding around pedalling on his own. I was speechless! Balance bikes are definitely worth the investment.

While you can take the cranks of to make a balance bike, but bear in mind the frame and wheel size too otherwise you may have more than the usual number of spills.

With a bit of hindsight I think I would have gone for a balance bike that had at least one brake. Jumping to a bike with both pedals and brakes is quite a big transition and even a year later he’s still putting his feet down quite a lot to slow down.

It was a very cool bike though.

+1 Spesh Hotwalk. We bought it for monkey when he was 17-18 months (in a sale) knowing he would need to grow a bit. 3-4 months on and he’s almost there (even with an inch or so of the post sawn off). Cracking little bike though – could certainly take far more abuse than just rolling around a park.

Zooom/scooot very good too. How many people who say “buy a normal vike then just take the pedals off”have actually done it? I think you’ll find that you can lower the saddle more on a balance bike. My 2 at 2 1/2 would still not fit a normal bike without pedals…

Balance bike, love them. My son is on his second now, this just being to the first one saddle was held together with 2 long bolts. He bent them by riding down curbs and anything else bumpy he could find (he likes watching mtb vids)
He has a proper bike waiting, but even at the seats lowest height, he still can’t put his feet on the floor.
Compared to the balance bike, it also weighs a tonne

Our eldest was on a Y-Bike (like a plastic balance bike but with two wide back wheels next to each other) from about 1 1/2 and got a Rothan at 2 year old. That was fine, but then when we moved to the Cnoc 14 at 3, that was too big despite Islabike’s sizing chart saying it was about right….

Balance bikes tend to have much lower saddle heights than even the smallest bikes with pedals, so unless you want to wait until they’re taller, I wouldn’t entertain removing the pedals from a pedal bike.

He has a proper bike waiting, but even at the seats lowest height, he still can’t put his feet on the floor.
Compared to the balance bike, it also weighs a tonne

Our lad won’t look at his pedal bike – loves the balance bike too much. As you say, it’s heavy, slow and hard to pedal for him. So it’s a tough sell to him to get it out the garage each morning, when he can whizz around on the b bike.

Been looking at these. I noticed that some run a back brake. If you want your child to learn good habits, why not a front brake instead?

I bought my lad (who is also quite chunky and tall for his age) one of these just after he was a year old..

Toddlebike

After about 3 or 4 months of getting the hang of the toddlebike, I bought him an Islabike Rothan. He made the transition with no problem at all. In fact, he still rides the toddlebike in the house and garden too, so both bikes are getting used.

I would highly recommend these little plastic bikes. They take loads of abuse and are cheap.

Hth.

Pie