My 6 year old lad is outgrowing his Early Rider Belter much quicker than I would like!

What bikes are your kids using and what would you recommend, fully rigid and lightweight?

islabike

next…

Or frog. My kids have both (on 3rd isla and 1st frog) if im honest i prefer the frog

Islabike and Frog are both excellent. Islabike are lighter, but more expensive. Islabike run gripshift and Frog run normal trigger shifters.

Kids can dump all the gears in a oner with gripshift – often useful if they haven’t anticipated the hill round the corner. Triggers are good if kids find the gripshift too hard to turn.

we just bought our 5 year old one of these (he’s a tall 5 and we didn’t want gears as he’s not really ready for them). Bike is awesome and he’s grown in confidence in a few weeks and is ready for a few blue routes. it is a hair over 18lbs out of the box and I reckon could be made a lb or so lighter with a few hand me downs

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/commencal-ramones-20-kids-bike-2015/rp-prod123540

we may have been influenced by the pinkbike video here

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/commencal-for-kids-ramones-2014.html

[url=https://flic.kr/p/sbexba]20150504_155801[/url] by simon gardiner, on Flickr

My kids 6 and 7 did 23 miles last weekend on their 20 inch Isla bike’s and that was their first proper ride of the year So they arent hardcore bikers. They also have a couple of second hand Carrera Luna/Blasts for the bike park.

We’ve gone through:
16″ Merida Dino
20″ Specialized Hardrock
24″ Scott Scale

All can be made massively lighter by changing out bars, seatposts, saddles, and tyres.

Braking can be drastically improved by installing XT V-brakes.

Double post

My lad is riding an Orbea mx20 dirt. He had a Carrera blast 16 before that and my Daughter has a cnoc 16 and although the Islabike is lighter than the carrera i don’t think there’s that much difference in the quality in the big scheme of things between any of them. Better handle bar position on the cnoc 16 though and the carerra had pointless heavy suss forks. But you’ll get more money back for an Islabike when you sell it.

The Orbea though is a great bike, trigger shifters rather than grip shift which I like, and it’s pretty light, probably not as light as the Isla but light enough. Plenty of stand over on it as well. Winstanleys had some deals on them a while back.

Great photo!

Islabike is the obvious choice, liking the look of the Oreba and the Hotrock as well though.

I think it might be between Islabike and Frog though….

Ridgeback MX-20 is good, both my two have grown up on Ridgebacks. Lots of good 2nd hand examples around for reasonable money too.

Carreras Blasts/Luna’s can be had in as-new condition for next to nothing on ebay. They aren’t that heavy, but if you’re that fussed you can soon put them on a diet with half the stuff you’ve got knocking around in the garage

There’s so much choice now compared to when I was buying a 20″ 5 years ago (Isla bike as that was the only really good option then).

The Isla bikes have become even more refined with great attention to detail, but the Frogs are catching up. See a lot of Frogs at races now when it used ot be just Islabikes. You get a slightly lighter and slightly more refined bike with the Isla, with better resale value, but the differences are small now.

Those Orbeas look good too, but I really love that Commencal Ramone – if you don’t think you need gears (which is going to depend a lot on the child and where/how they’re riding) then that looks great. I’m a big fan of the tyres specced on that – 2.1 small block 8s – just put one of those on the front of our Beinn20 and it’s made a massive difference to riding over rougher stuff

times change Specialized Hotrock 20″ for youngest antigee did the business and looked like a grown up bike – front fork made the weight close to that of a rusty ford focus – oldest antigee had a ridgeback and its a great well behaved bike for trails rather than red and whatever can find in the woods – front fork weighs more than a ford focus with a woodburner in the back – i would def take a long hard look at isla and similar as well designed bikes for small people to ride all day on

If of any help I will have a Isla Beinn 20 in large for sale in the next week or so ( purple and in very good cond )

I’ll have a mint Beinn 20 small in red for sale soon too.

I’ve just ordered a couple of Frog 52’s for our twins’ 5th birthdays. Advantages over the the Islas were being able to try them in the shop (i’d have ordered the 48’s going on the size guide, but they can manage the 52 and it should be fairly future-proof), the price – I’ve got them for £230 each from Leisure lakes, the equivalent Isla is now £330, and the frog comes with mudguards, and lastly I think they just look better! I know this shouldn’t really matter, but my kids can’t wait to get their team Sky and Spotty new bikes – which should hoepfully mean they’ll want to ride them more. Only time will tell about the resale value compared to Isla, but that doesn’t matter too much in the grand scheme of things. I’d be more botherd if I spent that much cash and they never left the garage!

We just need some one to offer him a frog bike now ! 😆

Offer me a Frog, offer me a Frog….!!!

Just got a couple of Frogs for my kids – a 55 (20″ wheels) and a 62 (24″ wheels). Absolutely brilliant – as good as any proper bike i’ve ever had regarding quality, refinement etc. and £70 cheaper than the equivalent Islabike for the 20″ and a whopping £130 cheaper than the 24″ islabike. Proper quality feel to them in terms of the brakes, gears, hubs etc. Light enough – i’m not going to quibble over a handful of grams even if the real world weights work out as the on paper ones (I wouldn’t with a bike for me), and the kids definitely don’t notice. They’ve only had them for 2 weeks and already clocked up 24 miles of proper rides and probably another 24 miles worth of laps around the block – just can’t get them off the things. Best things i’ve ever bought them. I’ve also been stopped a few times when out and about with them by people asking about them, so they look pretty good too. A damn sight better than an bike I had as a kid. My Raleigh Striker was a lump of pig iron in comparison.