My little guy has ditched the balance bike, and is tearing around on a bike that the neighbours have kindly given him – it’s a 14″ wheel bike which is a shade on the big side for him, but probably won’t be for too long. What he struggles to manage with is the brake levers – his hands just aren’t big enough, and given the speeds he’s managing, he needs to be able to slow down/stop.

Thinking of buying him something more suitable, have seen quite a ferw with coaster brakes, or the Isla bikes claim to have small, kid friendly brakes. What do people recommend? Think he’s still struggle even with the smaller brake levers, but not being able to freewheel on the coaster would also be hard for him.

I’ve not found any on the aftermarket that are specifically for kids, although Ridgebacks come with decent little levers. Maybe buy his next bike and lend its brakes to this one? If that isn’t too dumb and expensive idea.

Can you not adjust the reach of the brake levers? Did that for my daughter, made a big difference, there was a small grub screw on the lever body. If not just buy new levers that can be adjusted for now.

Have a look around for some new levers. A good shop should at least be able to get some in. Or some BMX levers as they are normally smaller and closer to the bar. Or regular levers with the reach screws wound right in.

<Usual STW problem>
“My 4yr old prefers Hope – but the 5yr old likes XT”

or something like these on ebay 😉

If there are no reach adjusters , make some spacers out of some decent thickness small bore pipe

Fit to the brake cable between the lever and the lever body , so the lever presses against that first.

Make sure the cables are free of corrosion and dont require hands of thor to pull em.

Underlying issue i suspect may be that it has caliper brakes fitted which frankly are just pish so getting a more modern bike with smaller levers would help tremendously.

Coaster brakes are for bikes with stabilisers imo. Best avoided

Ridgeback and merida ime both have good child friendly brake set ups. Isla bikes look to have a good set up but never seen one close up

Have adjusted the levers as close as I can get them (twice ended up with the grub screw inside the lever and had to dismantle it to retrieve it), it’s not too bad, but still a bit much for his tiny hands.

Not sure if the levers below would be better or not.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/tektro-ts325a-junior-mtb-v-brake-levers/

Thoroughly amused at the face that I’m shopping for bits to trick out his bike, as opposed to mine, though.

speaking from LBS point of view, finding stuff like decent kids brake levers is not easy.

TR has a point – often the brakes are just shite, but new decent cables and proper set up can help.

I’ve also switched to thinner V-brake blocks to allow the brake arms to be closer to the rims – took a bit of trial and error to get the right size to fit the rim circumference – but the after market compound made a big difference too.

Islabikes have well thought out kit. The brake levers are specially shaped, & I’m sure the v-brakes have lower tension springs also. As said, make sure the cables are smooth, perhaps stretch the caliper springs to make them a bit softer.

mess with the reach screws [got a ridgeback and a kona]but if they have small hands [ mine do] then you are going to have problems

i do like trail rats solution though

Hello there.

I know exactly what you mean as my 4 year old had the same problem. It starts to become a bit of an issue as they head towards the end of the path and there’s a road there doesn’t it!

I have been hugely impressed with the Like A Bike 16 for my son. He got it when he was 4 and everything was perfectly proportioned for him. He could reach the brakes with ease whilst still keeping the bike under control. He’s now 5 and going strong. He’ll defintely be getting the 20″ when it is time to change.

They are expensive for a childs bike but you really do get what you pay for. The hubs and bottom bracket are ultra low friction so he can enjoy riding for longer. Oh yes, and it’s incredibly light which is so important when they are so small.

I initially got him another brand (that purported to be a child friendly brand that retailed at £189) and was hugely underwhelmed by it. It was very heavy and there was simply too much friction on all the moving parts to let him enjoy it properly. Fortunately, the brake levers were less of an issue.

Anyway, now he has the £299 bike, it struck me that parents are faced with a problem if they want their kids to enjoy cycling and have a good bike. The problem is the cost of the good bikes and the fact that every couple of years they have to fork out a small fortune to update the size to suit the child as they grow. It makes it difficult to justify spending a few hundred pounds on a bike when you know that they will grow out of it in 2 years time.

So we are developing a leasing programme specifically for children’s bikes so that there is a low intial payment (about £50-90), small monthly payments (about £7-10), and then the child can have a brand new bike (worth about £300) every 2 years and simply hand back the old one. The bike would be able to grow with the child so to speak. If we started with a Balance Bike, then they’d skip the need of stabilizers and go from Balance, to 16″, to 20″, to 24″ and ultimately onto “26”.

We’ve talked to a number of councils and bike ability programmes about it and they have shown an interest in perhaps funding such a scheme in schools to make it even more affordable for parents.

The overall vision is to get more kids out cycling, hopefully get them cycling to school and in so doing encourage their parents to get out and enjoy cycling; consequently be healthier and fitter, and ultimately create a situation where so many people are cycling that the powers that be are obliged to improve the infrastructure to be more cycling orientated.

Anyway, that’s the vision. The practicalities create challenges. Challenges are just opportunities for success though 😀

Good luck with your bike search. I hope you find the right bike for you and your child. I hope that you’ll consider the Like A Bike.

Isla bikes are just right, our 3year old twins have no problem with braking in fact our girl finds it funny to pull both brakes as hard as possible. Still insists on stabilises though and she steers randomly!

If there isn’t enough travel on the existing grub screws, you could try something with a longer thread. Can’t imagine they’ll be anything other than standard metric size and could be had for a couple of quid from eBay. Might work or the levers you have, might not. Has to be worth a try though.

Something like this?

Click

So we are developing a leasing programme specifically for children’s bikes so that there is a low intial payment (about £50-90), small monthly payments (about £7-10), and then the child can have a brand new bike (worth about £300) every 2 years and simply hand back the old one.

So for a minimum of £220 (I have calculated that right?) they get to “hire” a £300 bike for 2 years, and don’t own anything at the end? That’s as opposed to buying an equivalent Islabike for £169 (which is just as light, and doesn’t appear to have any problem with high friction moving parts), which you can then get £100+ for on ebay when your kid grows out of it (or £249 for the 20″ version which resells for £180+ on ebay). Can you explain the financial advantage of such a leasing scheme to me again?

So for a minimum of £220 (I have calculated that right?) they get to “hire” a £300 bike for 2 years, and don’t own anything at the end? That’s as opposed to buying an equivalent Islabike for £169 (which is just as light, and doesn’t appear to have any problem with high friction moving parts), which you can then get £100+ for on ebay when your kid grows out of it (or £249 for the 20″ version which resells for £180+ on ebay). Can you explain the financial advantage of such a leasing scheme to me again?

Hi,
Yes, no problem. You might be looking at it in isolation rather than over multiple 2 year terms. The initial payment is only made once, at the beginning. Then it is only £7-£10 a month (£2.50 per week – pocket money in other words!) for each subsequent bike that the child gets as they grow.

It’s based on a bike that retails for £300 plus. The 20″ version of the Kokua 20″ is £325 by the way. When the equivalent Isla bike is speccd up to the same level e.g. with upgraded tyres, propstand, chain guard etc, the price is comparable.

Naturally, if a child started on the scheme earlier on a less expensive balance bike, then that deposit payment and the monthly payments would be lower.

The same is true if a less expensive bike was chosen. I was just giving examples for a bike around the £325 mark.

Councils are interested because it helps them to get more children into cycling with their limited budgets.

There may be scope to get either the initial deposit, or the monthly payments, or both, subsidised in some way by the Bike Ability Schemes to help more children to get on bikes that they’ll find easier to enjoy.

I hope that goes some way to explain it in more detail.

Surely the best brakes for a four year old are their brand new trainers???

Rachel

avid single digit with a twist 😉
You’ll find that prior to setting up the brakes, you can change the adjust screw and fit a very long one instead thus getting your brakes closer to the grips…
HTH

You might be looking at it in isolation rather than over multiple 2 year terms. The initial payment is only made once, at the beginning. Then it is only £7-£10 a month (£2.50 per week – pocket money in other words!) for each subsequent bike that the child gets as they grow.

Ah – so only £170 to hire the £300 bike for 2 years – as opposed to depreciation of ~£70 over the same period for a £250 Islabike. I like the good old “weekly cost” calculation – that makes a Beinn 20 only 67p a week.

It’s based on a bike that retails for £300 plus. The 20″ version of the Kokua 20″ is £325 by the way. When the equivalent Isla bike is speccd up to the same level e.g. with upgraded tyres, propstand, chain guard etc, the price is comparable.

Now you’re going to have to explain to me why I want a propstand and what’s wrong with the tyres on the Islabike (it seems to already have just the same sort of chainguard as the Kokua), and how that adds up to £75 (or £130 extra on the 16″!)

Councils are interested because it helps them to get more children into cycling with their limited budgets.

There may be scope to get either the initial deposit, or the monthly payments, or both, subsidised in some way by the Bike Ability Schemes to help more children to get on bikes that they’ll find easier to enjoy.

Ah – I understand how your business plan makes sense then.