Evening All,

My soon to be 11 year old boy is getting a new bike for his birthday in June and I am doing some research. The parameters are: £400 max and hydraulic disks. I am also debating whether 26″ or 650b is the better option but he does not live with me all the time so I will cannot size him up. He is about 5′.

I would really appreciate your advice and/or experience.

Cheers

Dogsby

A really nice used 26er for that money or a pretty heavy and lowly specked 650b new. I’ve built my girls lovely bikes for £400 by scouring the classifieds and eBay. The hardest bit is finding a nice 14″ frame.

Have you looked at the Decathlon Rockrider bikes? Some good options around your budget.

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/rockrider-520-mountain-bike-id_8293188.html

I bought one a few months ago for an 11yo (12 in may) for Xmas. He’s fairly tall tho, just under 5ft I think. I decided that front and rear gears might still be too much for him to deal with, but wanted disc brakes and a proper mtb rather than a kids bike. I decided a 14 inch frame would be ok, probably no bigger. Was always looking at 2nd hand on here and ebay, for what I wanted, brand new would be too expensive. Looked at On Ones, Rock Lobster and a few shorter top tube jump bikes (ie Identiti Dr Jekyll). Eventually settled on a nice jump bike for £400 someone had built up and then realised they weren’t really up for jumps. Stripped it and thoroughly cleaned all parts and touched it up, altho it was in excellent condition. Added a few parts from my spares, robbed a few parts that I thought were too good for him, plus I didn’t want to spend £400 on him tbh. was also a bit concerned that an 11 yo was likely to leave it lying around and a reasonable chance it might get nicked, so virtually new stuff came off (new SLX brakes). Bought some new cheap odds and sods to make it look really new ie pedals, grips and gear cable (also making shifting really easy for small hands). Fortunately the tyres were like new, which can also make the difference between a 2nd hand bike looking new or not. I estimated (less parts I robbed, I didn’t put any value on my replacement spares) the total cost at around £300, his parents paid a contribution and everyone was very happy with it.

It’s very hard to get good hardtail for an 11 year old as decent entry level bikes are usually a bit heavy and often don’t come small enough… though it is worth looking at women’s bikes. At 5′ you are looking at XS frames though an S may work and you may have the option to get a better fit with e.g. a short stem, different bars and maybe an inline seat post.

Like many others I went 2nd hand and made mods… my son has a 13.5″ XS Rockhopper with added Rebas (air forks are lighter and more adjustable so definitely the way to go). A 55mm stem and some £10 600mm flat bars from On-One sorted the front end, and with some better pedals we had a really nice bike for £400. Weighs about 28lbs.

Two years later he now has 685mm flat bars, and next year I will be looking for a new frame I guess.

Some good deals available on Genesis kids MTBs at the moment, for example you might well find someone doing one of these within your budget:
http://www.genesisbikes.co.uk/bikes/youth-/mountain-/core-26

My 11 year old is on a 14″ cotic bfe frame (sold cheap by cotic due to being old stock and having a bent mech hanger)

Wheels forks etc are hand me downs from my old 26″ bikes. New deore double groupset.

My older daughters are on a 14″ inbred and 16″ charge respectively – again built up with hand me down bits