Can anyone recommend a balance bike for an 18 month old?

Also, would it be better to buy one with a brake (so i dont need to buy another balance bike as he gets older)?

Cheers

I only had one balance bike for my daughter. Without brakes and the transition from balance to the normal bike was pretty much seem less. so I wouldn’t worry too much about brakes.

Islabike rothan if you want a brake (expensive though)..
I wouldnt bother at that age and get something cheaper

Zooom/scooot – rear brake, well built and good resale value (not quite as plush as the isla)

I’d say go for an Islabike Rothan, but only because that’s what we did and it worked wonderfully!

That said, the brake never saw much use, so…

The Decathlon one is really surprisingly good. Also has a brake with the handle designed for small hands. £40 My 20mo loves it. It comes in pink, white or blue

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/new-run-ride-white-id_8237693.html

Go cheap I would say. Its more about getting the one they can ride as young as possible.

silly statement maybe as i am without child and have no reason to buy a balance bike

but couldnt you buy a “normal” childs bike and remove cranks brakes etc….then re fit when they are old enough?
so you dont have to buy two bikes??

For thirty quid ( have they gone up now?) the decathlon one is spot on, I had to cut down the seattube slightly to accommodate my little girls short legs but apart from that it’s been brilliant

Go cheap and then get a scooter with the left over money.

Your’ll be glad you didnt spend much money on the balance bike as it gathers dust in the corner…. While enjoying watching your little lad/girl zoom all over the place on thier scooter

We bought a Spesh Hotwalk for my lad when he was under 2 but he didn’t get on with it. It was too big and heavy so we got rid and then got him a Haro 10inch version for his second birthday which he got on with like a house on fire. He’s now getting a 12 inch wheel Hotrock for this Christmas aged nearly 3.

I think we were a bit early with the Spesh in terms of his inclinations for riding it, strength and height. Fortunately we didn’t push it and it didn’t effect him once he got on the smaller one. Worth thinking about.

I think brakes are not necessary, no strength in their hands at that age and their feet are down anyway.

My son will probably sell you his Rothan (no brake), well used, fully functional, for £45.

He got it at 18 months & has had two other bikes since, he still loves to roll around on it!

http://www.frogbikes.com/lightweight-kids-bikes/balance-bikes/tadpole.aspx

I bought my first daugther an earlyride wood bike for her first birthday.
She only really started using it when she was three (this summer)!

Linky

I bought a second one for my second daugther, she’s 18 month. Her feet touch the ground but not enough for her to use it on her own… too bad for my back.

Back to the bike. It’s made of wood, which looks nice. You can tune the seat height. The tires are real ones. It’s a bit expensive.
There’s no brakes; on one occasion I think it would have been useful, but most of the times, using their feet is ok.

Decathlon make cheap balance bikes with a brake on the back. They don’t look as cool though
Linky

Hope that helps

Grandson loved his Early Rider, especially the skate park and local singletrack – he turned 4 a few weeks ago and got his first pedal bike. [Second hand black framed bike that Grandad turned into a Batman bike ]
First attempt he fell off when he stopped – second attempt, after telling him to remember to put his feet down when he stopped, he was off.

As no one has mentioned it yet… I got Blobby Jr a Strider bike. Nice bit of kit and if you feel the need you can add a brake and pneumatic wheels later as your kid gets bigger (but by then they’d probably be ready for a pedal bilke.) There’s a lot of height adjustment on the saddle and the handlebars so will last a while, and I think it’s got the lowest standover of any of the bikes. It’s also nice and light. And it’s a pretty decent price too.

we got one of these pukys

http://www.pukybikes.co.uk/learner-bikes/balance_bikes_lrm.htm

at 18months probably another 6 months before he got into it tho

loves it now, only problem is hes taken to racing it the length of the house before breakfast

A friends kid has the Specialized Hot Walk, it looks tougher than a Rothan & has little foot holds.

We got the zooom for 20 quid off eBay it seems well built has a functional brake and crankbrat at 25 months and 3 foot tall loves sitting on it while I wreck my back bending over to hold his hands on the bars and push him round the street. In his gang of street mates is a three year old who loves it and can use it propperly everyone else in the gang loves it too but the next up is 4 or 5 and just stopped using stableisers on her own bike.

The most popular toys are the scooters and a yellow dumped truck trike which has a front wheel pedal so introduces the idea of pedaling.

At 18 months I’d get a toddlebike my lad is just over 2 and still uses his more than his proper balance bike which he’s not very confident on yet…

Specialized Hotwalk. Only because it comes in the same paintjob as grownup Specializeds, so looks cool. And you can get matching helmets 🙂

It’s actually very well made though, frame made the same way as big bikes so is really very solid. Compared to the Pukys we looked at which had stuff like fork dropouts made by squashing the ends of the tubes flat. You can also do bar spins on it, no cables 🙂 Rolls very well which may be a positive or negative, especially if you have hills.

18mo is a bit young though – kid 1 never got the hang of it, kid 2 only just has at 2.

There was a thread about this a few weeks ago, and after reading went for a Strider for our 2 yr old birthday. He is pretty small for his age, but enough adjustment for him. Seems a nice bit of kit and light – comes in Cotic green too to match my Bfe 😀

On ebay the latest ones they seem to go for around £45 second hand plus postage.

Looking to get our little one a balance bike for crimbo (will be 18 months then). Looks like the Decathlon is winning. Never heard of strider but this pic is brilliant:

😀

Cheers,
Jamie

Puky, Strider, Isla- they are all good.

IF your lad is like mine though it’ll get bashed, scratched, seat damaged etc so I’d go into it forgetting about resale- just what you like etc

Can’t go wrong with Stider though 🙂

Alles klar

I have just bought the decathlon balance bike for my daughter who was 2 in July.

The bike looks great and appears to be well made. More importantly she loves it!

You coud always make one

I got a Scooot for my grandson it came with two seatposts (long and short), the boy loves it.

!!!HIJACK!!!

Anyone know of one with a super low seat height and standover? My boy suffers from the same long back short leg curse as his father.

Strider

http://www.pukybikes.co.uk/toddler/wutsch.htm

This is good and stable if you want to start them really early.

Scoot with brake. Despite what others say about brake not necessary we found it very necessary and when moving on to a ‘proper bike’ they know how to brake which is pretty important (and pulling skids is cool).

Strider eh? – can i get one like the orange one in the picture above, i.e. with what look like High Rollers? Ace.

Puky LRM is small & light. Buy a second hand one and then get your money back when you sell it.

Spesh hotwalk (no brake) did my two boys proud from about 2yrs.

Certainly works, they both went straight onto pedal islabikes in 10 mins.

Would sell hotwalk for £40 if interested (red, pretty good nick)

Anyone know of one with a super low seat height and standover? My boy suffers from the same long back short leg curse as his father.

Strider claim to have the lowest saddle hight, don’t know if this is true but it seems pretty low when slammed.

£19 on amazon