I have a bit of a dilemma (maybe a common one) My 12 yr old sons bike needs new forks. He comes out with rides a couple of times a month, nothing challenging at all really but I don’t really want to wisk him off to a trail centee due to the fork situation (old suntour xcr worn bushes, stiff coils). He is a fair weather rider and sometimes needs a right good shove to get him out.
But I wonder if its a bit of a chicken and egg thing, If I get him some nice plush air forks It will obviously improve his riding experience.

So how much do you spend on your kids bikes in an effort to get them out more? Anyone spent a lot and the bike has just gathered dust or has it spurred them into riding?

New Isla bike in garage for next weekends 6th birthdy 🙂

I am hoping that by the time they are 12 they will
a – still be riding
b- the required components will come from my “too nice to throw away – too cheap to sell” box.
Sounds like a good but unappreciated fork would solve your problem – £50 marzocchi or something. If its unridden by the time to sell the bike comes, then put the orignal fork back on.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/marzocchi-forks/111485192979?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140122125356%26meid%3Db668e87504fd4cfe84aff2bbd60fdb86%26pid%3D100005%26prg%3D20140122125356%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D271637119983&rt=nc

I only started spending on my kids when they showed real interest in riding.
Mine are 8&7 and constantly badger me to take them out. Due to this it costs me 3 times as much to ride(really not complaining haha)
Whats to say that once you’ve bought some fancy forks that he won’t just be the same?

My kids are both on balance bikes still but first time I bought a halfords one and it has been more awful than even my low expectations. I have had to change the brake lever for one that actually works, grips from ones not made of slippery plastic and changed the seatpost and stem bolts to ones that actually clamp it properly.

Then recently for my youngest I bought a Frog balance bike and it has proper parts that work and weighs a lot less and he was able to learn to use it much faster and easier, it was 50% more expensive but 100% worth it.

We have three lads – two ride weekly at the club and again at weekend with me. Third lad probably gets pushed out at least 3 or 4 times a month, lots of local pootles and some bigger rides. Clearly more in summer and less in winter.
A bike will not get them into riding – but a light, well functioning one will help when they get out to enjoy it.
None of the kids bikes have cost more than £300…but we buy second hand, I do lots of home spannering, and we buy a good bike when it comes up, rather than rushing into needing one.
I also expect to get a good chunk of money back when we sell. Like the canoes and kayak ‘bank of plastic’, bikes can be a ‘less of an investment of metal’, but simple things like adding some new tyres, cables and a service can mean that they sell well.
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Latest bike this week, £300
[url=https://flic.kr/p/pGFdS6]Claud Butler Cape Wrath 04[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
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Trek was £250
[url=https://flic.kr/p/pHkdip]Trek 4300[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
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Specialized was £225
[url=https://flic.kr/p/p5b7gA]SBC Wallace Monument Hillclimb[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
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Mrs-oab is same size as our 12 year old…Cannondale was £250
[url=https://flic.kr/p/mWaBsL]Callander House Falkirk MTB trails[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr
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The smallest_oab now has the Islabike, which was £275
[url=https://flic.kr/p/dHuA8F]Carron Valley[/url] by matt_outandabout, on Flickr

Kids bikes all been second hand for £75-100, until the eldest needed his first 26″ wheeled bike when he got a bog standard Decathlon special for £160.

He is a fair weather everything kid, but will go and ride up to 10 miles no problem whenever we have time and suggest it. He knows nicer bikes when he sees them, but has never asked for better or shown enough interest to justify a higher spend.

His little sister may prove a more enthusiastic and expensive proposition though….

I’ve probably spent too much on both my kids, my 12 year old has an XT equipped Orange Crush with a 150mm Sektor and decent tubeless wheels, my view is that if I have to maintain the bikes then I want decent stuff to work with and why should the lightest, least powerful member of the family have to push the heaviest bike around?
As a result, we do loads of family rides, my eldest alternates between a carbon HT of mine and an old (2006) Marin Mount Vision.
The plan for the Orange is to get another frame soon when he outgrows this one and swap the bits over – the frame was £200 new in a sale and should get £150 second-hand – all good value stuff really that has helped the whole ‘family enjoyment’ stuff.
You only have a short window of time where your kids want to do things with you so make the most of it 🙂

about £75 for the recent 24 ” wheeled bikes and then about £100 upgrading each one – fork costs mainly
Hope to make 26 ers out of my bits/me upgrading.
Ridden at least every week even in bad weather – they know only proper riders go out when it is grim 😉

Both my lads (9 and 6) are youth club members and race a fair bit.

The younger one has an 18″ wheel bmx (inherited from the elder), a 24″ Isla mtb (inherited) and a 24″ Isla road/CX bike (inherited). Rides the bmx to school most days and down at the skatepark at least once a week, the other two get ridden as much as we can fit in.

The elder one shares my bmx at the moment (for school, skatepark, general street mucking about), has a 26″ Isla road/cx bike (inherited from a clubmate) he races on and a 26″ hardtail we built together over the course of the summer.

Most non-bike parents we know think I’m mental, but we really haven’t spent that much money on their bikes when you consider the amount of riding they both do. Being in a club is very useful for picking up S/H bikes and kit, as they grow out of stuff at a fair rate.

Non-race weekends generally see us all head for a trail centre, or have a local road or CX ride together, both do at least one club session a week as well.

The thing I’ve always found with kids’ bikes is decent ones usually have a high resale value, so I wouldn’t worry too much about buying something decent and it gathering dust – if it does, you should be able to get the bulk of your money back. IME kids can easily be put off by being made to ride a heavy piece of junk.

Enjoy it while it lasts. My 2 (10 & 12) have been refusing to come for a ride for the past few weeks. My missus says I should force them, but I believe they should /want/ to do it not ride under duress.

They both have £160ea hard tails from Decathlon that they have only had for a year.

Thanks everyone..a bit fortunate that hes a tall big lad so last xmas he got a shiny Ragley marley frame, and hes been getting my hand me downs put on it ever since, the other stuff on it are from ebay. Going to have to bite the bullet as a few of you have said..enjoy the time while it lasts.
Now I have to decide if I should get a 650b fork and replace the wheels as well 🙄

My eldest rides her bike to school every day. It’s far too much bike for most of the riding it gets, but we get away for a morning in the woods together on it a few times a year, which she enjoys. The forks are old Rebas, which I paid about £70 for. Youngest will be moving to a used Isla from a 20″ hotrock shortly. I guess I’ll spend circa £250.

I spend quite a bit on my son’s cycling. He rides lots and enjoys it.

To the OP get some air Rebas or similar. I’ve yet to find a coil fork that works well for kids.

To the OP get some air Rebas or similar. I’ve yet to find a coil fork that works well for kids.

Yep I agree

My lad (15yo) had/has an Anthem X4 which I bought a couple of years ago, and he rode quite a bit when new, recently he’s been messing around on a BMX so hasn’t used it much.

Last month or so he’s been out with me most Sundays, problem is the Anthem is a small which he has subsequently grown out of (so it’s now on ebay), and he’s started riding my XL framed Anthem, can’t believe the jump in height in the last 12 months!

Now contemplating either building a new bike for me and he can use my Anthem in the UK and my Trek in the alps, or building up a new bike for him. Either way it’s going to be approx £850 build (as have forks, brakes etc already).

To the OP get some air Rebas or similar. I’ve yet to find a coil fork that works well for kids.

Thirded.
Retrobike can be a good sources of cheap, well looked after kit.

My kid went from a £25 Halfords Action Man bike, to a Raleigh given by a friend, to a brand new Haro £125 in the sales, to a Spesh 24″ 2nd hand off the classifieds…. yes, they grow out of them so quick, really couldn’t see the point spending £100s out. The Action Man bike was ridden the most, just because of his age (he even did a gorrick XC race on it 😆 )
Now he’s up to 26″ wheels, I was all ready to pay out for something decent, but found his mum’s Gary Fisher fitted him (also 2nd hand off the classifieds).
So he uses that now (FREE!), although has started to use his scooter more for some reason. I think he got fed up with the 40+lb BMX owners at school mocking his retro MTB. Fools!

What you want is some nice dual air reba teams, second hand. I might know someone if you’re looking 😉 (email in profile)

Currently little Miss Scaled is rocking a £200ish cnoc 14 that was last years christmas present and she’s nearly outgrown it already.

It’s used every day as by the time she’s gone to school, back to the childminders then home again it’s ~3 miles a day + trips to the park etc.

Her longest ride so far was to the stable yard at ~3.5 miles in one go, she was knackered after that + a horse ride. We got a lift home 🙂

Turned 4 at the end of July btw

Same as Matt,we tried to keep them as light as possible and bought secondhand.
When they had to have small kids bikes,we didn’t bother with suspension forks.
Adult small frames seem to work out lighter than the same in kids bike sizes.
They tended to break things rather than wear them out,it hasn’t cost us a lot of money .

be careful, before you know it you’ll be buying them a DH bike and taxi-ing them round Scotland and wales for the BDS rounds

Would be impolite to say. Suffice to say that I have always sourced high quality used or new bikes suited to the task, and both Teens have road and mtbs.

They ride to school on them every day, off road a few times per month and road rides with me or the club.

Teen2 has graduated to a Small Giant Defy 5 with Ritchey WCS carbon forks and Ksyrium Elite wheels – his teacher commented on it! Teen1 rides a CAAD8 with Kysirium Elite wheels, and being almost the same size as me, this doubles as a winter ride. He commutes on a fixed poo-brown langster I bought for £100

Both have better mtbs than me.

Probably too much over the years but worth every penny.

At least they have stopped growing now

I don’t really set a limit when it comes to bikes, but I haven’t really had to spend much. They all ride to school (including the 4 year old, keepin’ it real on his ss 16″ Speccy) daily, and we do rides every few weekends – I too believe pushing them too hard is the quickest way to scare them off.

Last two bikes:

20″ Kona – ticked all the boxes for the 6 year old – £27 off EBay

24″ Specialized Hot Rock for eldest (8) – £40 from boot sale. Immaculate, never ridden I’d say and appears to be a very small 26″ with the bosses in a funny place. Proper, replaceable, grown ups kit.

So it absolutely doesn’t have to cost a fortune, you just need to be persistent and buy a bargain when you see it. I got lucky with timing as well as bikes really.

Retro 80mm air forks like RockShox SID, Fox Float, Manitou Skareb make great forks for kids bike – plush, short axle to crown, light (as little as 1.4kg for the SIDs), v-brake if you need it – they come from time to time in the £50-£100 range.

Getting kids to ride that’s another thing, my main advice is don’t make it all about the cycling. Café stops, ride to somewhere they like to visit, ride with friends etc.

I also go for the retro xc air fork trick (just reaching the end of our stockpile). 10 and 12 year old kids currently running old Maguras, but eldest ones have terminal oil leak and a few other problems. So now just swapping him to my old Marzocchi MX comps (2008). With lower main air pressure the steel(?) negative springs mean they drop from 100mm to something like 70mm forks (which is perfect). Dumping oil from 7.5wt to 2.5wt sorts the damping.

Both kids can now ride pretty techy xc stuff (12yr old easily keeps up with adult pace rides) – if they enjoy it then you get back what you put in. Never really had a problem getting them out, but then both parents ride and mucking around in forests and mountains has been normal for them since year dot.

Joining a kids bike club has been the biggest progression this year – getting out with similar age kids has certainly made them more enthusiastic.

Just remembered I promised MattOAB a photo of the totally home made kiddy 26er after paint. Here it is 2000m up in the Pyrenees – the main expense in that bike was many hours of my time with a hacksaw and file:-

Both mine from frames built up – one Kona from on here, the other a Spesh Hardrock disc XS brand new from a store. Neither over £100, £50’ish Reba Air’s, parts form spares and new Shimano M275’s from Rosebikes – all in both for under £250 each.

£60 on a second hand Rothan, £140 on a second hand Cnoc 14, and £300 on the current Beinn 20 that we bought new in Jan for our daughters 4th birthday. We go riding together a lot so I do feel we get our money’s worth out of them, and the fact that the Rothan and Cnoc sold for £50 and £120 respectively means the overall costs so far haven’t been all that bad.

My 12 year old son decided to sell his PS4+games

With the proceeds he bought a mint condition Turner Flux Frame

I bought him a bargain set Mavic 719-Pro2 wheelset–£50,I “donated” old 1 x 10 kit + other stuff. I also bought him a SS Narrow Wide for £25,my mate gave him some Nice Pace Fighters.

In all about £550-£600 for an awsome bike

He is out every day so in my opinion it’s money very well spent!

He bought an SJ4000 Camera and loves making his own self filmed movies…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQd8Kzo-vuk&feature=player_detailpage[/video]

Son was 11 when I bought him an XS Rockhopper for about £230 – with a bit more for short stem, flat bars and pedals. He loved it immediately but was just not heavy enough to make the forks work… so one year and £150 later we have dual air Rebas and now it is spot on. He also got some XT shifters as a present, so it’s mounting up!

We do proper rides a couple of times a month – it’s not just how often, but what sort of riding you can do and… I no longer have to plan an ‘easy’ ride, and he’s up for 20 miles now, so for me it’s an investment. The plan is that his next bike is no more than a new frame.

Kbrembo – massive thumbs up for what your son is doing. I did something similar, ditching all my bmx stuff etc to get my first mtb. But that was ’86 for a side pull braked Raleigh Maverick!

Now my son, 15, has recently had my Spesh Carve Expert from me. A big upgrade from his hardrock he had before. He moved over the contact points that he’d got used to, etc. He had styled the HR very much like his previous bike (Dawes Bullet) in a 4x style. Now he has left that behind and going longer rides but some of that appeal has been a combo of new bike plus massive fitness boost from GCSE PE.

I have a good rapport with a Spesh dealer. So my daughter (13) has a myka disc I picked up as a bargain. Swapped the heavy steel bars for some alloy ones and that was it. That said she isn’t really into riding much and only uses an mtb as she hates riding on the road and likes seeing nature. Plus, the colour scheme and it was similar to the (older version) myka her mum has meant it was an obvious choice when she outgrew her Raleigh.

mine, aged 8 and nearly 12 have been on Islabikes since early age, which has worked out ok cost wise as each bike gets passed down, then sold for not a lot less than it cost. However eldest is just about out of his Beinn 26 small, so teh 24 was sold at the weekend and the youngest is going up to the 26. I have just bought a Cube Acid 2015 for the older one, with a retail of £800…. They do use them a lot, and they also have cheap Gumtree BMX’s which they kick around on with their mates /ride to school etc

kids aged 6, 12 and 14.

recently a spec for the little one for £40, otheres have been in the 1-200 region. For the bigger ones, 400-500 (times 4) – for MTB and cross bikes. All second hand bargains. Oldest is now needing something more and bigger, so probably somewhere like 1500 in the spring.

Older ones ride 3-4 times a week and race most weekends, younger one rides/races 2-3 times a week

Forks- have a hunt around mates etc for some 120-140mm travel fox’s with worn stantions.
Drop the travel to 100mm which is plenty for most small HT frames, and the bushings will be wearing on unworn stantions.
I’ve done at least 4 times for various kids bikes, paid £40 tops for forks. plush light air adjustable forks. Job done

I have one kid who isn’t in to riding and I think whatever I spent on bikes for them it wouldn’t make a difference.

The others I do spend money on their bikes, not to encourage them, but so the bike can keep up with their riding iyswim

Really interesting to see how others spend or don’t spend. We’ve got 9 and 4 year old boys – both well into riding and racing. Youngest will do 10-15km off road, eldest 35km+ off road and 50km+ on road.

The eldest currently has (amongst other) a somewhat custom 24″ mtb – frame repaired and fixed by mates, mate donated Pace fork shortened and customised by mate. It was going to be all built from the spares pile, but once there’s that sort of time and effort invested I ended up spending loads more on it than planned. Maybe 500 spent if I’m honest.

He’s also got a 24″ Kona cross/road bike (2nd hand bargain), and a 16″ BMX (2nd hand bargain). The youngest has just moved on to the Beinn 20 (after reversing all the component changes that made it fir the big one!) and still also rides a Cnoc 14.

The youngest wants a BMX (I’ve tried convincing him that that’s what the Cnoc is but he’s not having it), the oldest want a trials bike, and I can see a dedicaed road bike in his near future I think. Youngest would also love a road bike but is still too small.

But eh bikes aren’t the half of it. If you want to ride all year then there’s gloves, helmets, bibs, shorts, jerseys, jackets… and don’t forget shoes. Eldest started on clipless at 6 or so. That was fine as I found some cheap shoes on ebay. Of course once he out grew them I didn’t have the luxury of stlaking ebay for some more – so that was 75 quid gone 😐

I’ve got piles of 26″ frames and bits to work with once they get bigger, but the chances are I’ll end up buying newer bits for them I suspect 😉

Jonathan don’t tell your youngest but just picked up this for mine’s 4th birthday United Recruit 12

jonothan – exactly, it’s not the cost of the bikes for me, it’s the cost of everything else, and 3X race entry fees most weekends, and fuel to get there, and the necessary van to transport everything, and…

just wait until you get the pressure to buy them a carbon XC 29er flying machine just because everyone else has one and they are soo much qucker than the 26er version your kid has

Worked out very expensive for me!

2 boys, both riding/racing mtb and cross plus road bike for the eldest. Then it moved on to BMX and full sus bikes.

One of the best things I ever did for them is really get them into riding….both still ride now, one 20 and the other 26…..lots of broken bones in the past tho 🙁

They now pay for the own bikes/kit

Plus it got me riding more 🙂

If you are going clipless – don’t buy road shoes! We finally settled on spds for road and off-road after Teen1 grew out of a pair of (bargain) Specialized road shoes in about three months. Now his feet have stopped growing he’s back on KEOs. I have Shimano shoes at odd sizes from about 5 upwards.

And of course they just borrow steal my kit now, anyway.

Totted it up tonight.
Eldest has gone through 4 bikes this year!

Bit of a transitional year as she could ride and pedal but wouldn’t as Balance bike was still faster.
Finally got her riding the 14″ other than just being towed on it.
The next week the 16″ turned up.
Ridden and raced that all year and just bought the 20″ as we’re going on holiday and the bigger wheels will help smooth the trails out… and we’ll only buy one anyway or any other myriad of reasons.

All Isla Bikes and her brother will use them all, the 16″ was needed so he could use the 14″. I’ll start looking at other brands and self builds from 24″ then repurpose my decent 26″ kit after that.
No doubt BMX bikes will be next so need to start looking for 2nd hand bargains.

Can’t bring myself to sell the pair of Rothans but the rest will get turned around to local friends hopefully for little real loss in value.

Hmm yes riding kit. Gloves/hemlets and knee/elbow pads so far. They both want Kids Camelbaks now too.