Iam after a mtb for my two boys.One is 5. & the other is 8.
Any help would be great.

Islabikes is always a good start. More expensive than most, but my lad got,his when he was 5 and the “trails came alive” for him. Okay maybe not, but he really loved it and it helped his confidence, was doing blues at Llandegla on it when he was 6. Passed down to his sister and she is doing the same. He went onto a Genesis Core 24 after (7/8) that and is still on it now, aged 9. Islabikes didn’t do anything with 24′ wheels with a fork,and disc brakes at the time, but they do now, but would probably still buy the genesis as it’s a bit cheap and has a triple front.

Do a forum search for Kids bikes or islabikes – gets done to death regularly.

Some people think anything other than an Islabike is grounds to call social services, others feel that that particular threshold should be lowered to the Apollo level 😉

My 7 yr old has a Ridgeback MX20. Seems pretty decent, and see quite a few of them around here, probably due to the LBS stocking them. They do 16 and 14 inch bikes too for the wee one.

The Ridgeback MX16 is a great little bike – we had two of these at one point. After that my lad who is a keen cyclist has been through an Islabikes Beinn 24, then a Beinn 26 and now at 12 he is on an XXS Rockhopper.

Islabikes are pricy, but for an 8 year old the light weight and easy set-up are hard to beat.

Islabike for youre 5 yr old, I have had a few for my kids but recently got my tall 7yr old an orbea mx team 24, rigid fork one. It’s a proper mountain bike whereas the islabike equivalent is definitely a hybrid. Really impressed with wide range 1×10, good weight. My boy was jumping it the first day he had it, a great bike and now has much better brakes which were apparently crap on the older ones.

It’s a proper mountain bike whereas the islabike equivalent is definitely a hybrid.

Interesting statement. Is that not a contradiction?
It’s either the equivalent, in which case it’s a mountain bike, or it’s not.

Did you mean to say that the equivalent sized Islabike with rigid forks, isn’t a mountain bike?

I assume people mean a bein 24 or 26 when they say Isla bike as these are £350 and although great bikes the 26 small has massive wheels for the size of frame/ rider and is like a flat bar road bike. Isla bike do a 24 inch wheel mountain bike for the same size rider but it is £700. The orbea is more equivalent to islabikes Mtb but without suspension forks. As I said it is a proper small Mtb but will not have the same resale value. My kids have had 3 islabikes and ride at a club with over 60 kids, many of whom race so I have seen plenty of options of bikes for kids.

settle on a budget and then go from there.
I bought my boy a carrera blast because I wasn’t going to shell out a was of cash only for him to show no interest or not take care of it. bear in mind that kids will just dump their bikes down anywhere and forget about them. if they show interest you can upgrade their bike. Lewis’s bike runs 1×10, a proper air fork, decent wheels, tyres bar etc now. weights in at 22.78lb. on the flip side the isle bike has kids specific cranks to start with and are light but are not cheap

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/any-decent-kids-mountain-bikes-out-there