So cheesed off. Bought a Norco Charger from Evans for the weeble for £806 on the basis of it looking about right and being slightly lighter than the Scott 720 whotsit that they have.
First thing that pisses me off about it is that you need to chop the seatpost to get it small enough for the kids to sit on. Which is fine, until he grows at which point we need to buy another bloody seatpost.

Anyway, stuck the damn thing on the scales and it weighs pretty much 13kg. For a size extra small. It’s about 2kg or more more than his current Ivabike.

Why, how can a bike that retails for nearly one thousand pounds, that only needs to carry 45kg of skinny kid weigh nearly 13kg. It’s just nuts.

I’ve had another look on Evans and can’t see shit worth buying. In actual fact part of the reason that I bought the Charger is that it seems to be the only thing in the country that you can get in a small size. WHY?

You choose the kids sections of various online bike shops and they have various 24″ bikes of dubious quality around the £500 mark. But they’re all too small for a 10 year old.

So you click on the adults section and it’s full of bloody waggon wheels and this bullshit 650.5 b inch bollox new wheels size which adds another 750g to everything. Not that it bloody matters because none on the frames are small enough for an 11 year old to ride.

No wonder bloody Islabikes are doing so well. Unfortunately they’re sold out of Creig 26″ otherwise I’d probably buy my 6th bike from them.

Does Evans really not sell any decent bikes for kids between 10 and 13 years old?

And no, I don’t want to build one myself . I want to buy one.

2nd hand Beinn 26 and rebas?

Pinnacle from Evans. Almost as light as Islabike but with proper sized tires and about 20% cheaper.

Pinnacle Ash 20″ was £250, and light.

The reason btw that they are not as light as you’d think is that they’d have to use different spec tubes and tooling and all sorts, which would push the prices up.

LBS in Cheltenham has sold a fair few Trek kids bikes this year they look the business Cheltenham cycles.

Plus the various components (wheels, forks, gears, brakes etc) are the same size and weight as the adult bikes. The only part you’re going to save weight is on the frame.

£806

What the shit!? For a KId’s Bike??
I bought a small Boardman off the classifieds. Brilliant bike. Light and nicely specced. £300 I think it was.

Youngest on a Frog, eldest riding a 30lb Inbred built with spares.

Though I think he’s hoping that I’ll get a new bike soon and he can have my 25lb Soul as it fits him rather nicely – though I anticipate that as he is 12 years old I might get the Soul back in a year or so when he grows back out of it 8)

Pinnacle Kauri 26″

Whyte 405?

its £806 you can’t expect it to be 24lb.

jameso – that Kauri looks almost like what I’m looking for for MrsMC – any chance it would take short suspension fork?

Rigid-specific sorry MCTD .. fork’s 420mm or so.

Looked that way, sadly. But I’ve just stumbled on the Jamis X26 on clearance – and found one down the road on eBay if I can persuade her to go and have a look!

isla bike = for the transporter driving money spending crew.

Pinnacle = ok I suppose?

Myself = frog 69 for my 10 yr old girl. absolutely amazing bit of kit 🙂

Frog bikes are bloody awesome.

I’ve an Isla to move on but never got around to it.

Ooh 26″ wheels in 420mm. Are they available separately? Would fit my 97 kona nicely!

Most rubbishist* rant ever

You did next to jzero research
You spent over £800
You went to Evans
And now your complaining

Does your kid like the bike or not?
that really is all that matters (you did give them a say in what bike they got didn’t you, rather than just getting the one ‘on the basis of it looking about right’ to you)
Weight, seatposts and wheel sizes, kids don’t care for that, only you do
But 10/10 for managing to get a rant in about wheel sizes on something that started as a complaint against a kids bike 😉

* I’m feeling polite

Unfortunately adult bikes are designed to pass fatigue tests for a clumsy 120kg rider – hence the stupid weights for everyone else 🙁

Nearly, very nearly bought an Isla. Thankfully I did a lot of research and got the Frog 🙂

On One Piccolino or Fun Fatty?

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/wheelsize-rant-children

Been there, done that, got the t shirt. Gotta build/put together I’m afraid.

Youngest_oab rides a Specialised Rockhopper WSD with Fox Talas, XT brakes on Mavic wheelset and full X9 gears.
Cost £275 second hand, plus new cassette and chain.
Weighs in around 26lbs.
Poor rant – put some effort in.

far too potty mouthed to cut it as a quality rant.

How would an XS Soul size up with some air rebar…imagine you’d build it up for £800 with 26″ prices?

Might be well off the mark size wise, apologies if so.

Orbed MX 26 TEAM? £480.
Not certain why it has a coil fork but you could eBay the fork while new and swop it for an air fork for not much.

Pinnacle = ok I suppose?

More than that I reckon. Very impressed with ours fora 20″ bike. Excellent paint job, mudguard mounts, bottle cage mounts and even crud catcher mounts. And white wall tyres 🙂

Not certain why it has a coil fork

Coil could end up being better for a very light rider.. provided the spring was light enough. An air fork with hardly any air in it might not be very plush?

Orbea looks lovely…

Islabike still has the lowest cost of ownership. Bought for £350 five years ago, sold for £250 three days ago, and that was to a mate, could’ve got more. Mind you frog bikes weren’t around then.

You want a 14″ adult bike. How much weight do you think you will save for 8″ of aluminium tube?

I bought a Women specific Giant Talon 1W. Fantastic bike, but a bit more money. Didn’t stretch to rebas either, sadly.

We sell quite a few Dawes Academies to the “I want an Islabike, but for less money” crew, nothing mind blowing about them, but neither are Islabikes.

My lad (av height 10yr old), prefers his Mums 15″ Spesh Hardrock to his own 12″ frame version, that I’m slowly amassing bits to bling up. (SIDS, Thomson bits, lighter wheels etc.
His Mums has just has Exotic carbon rigids, dead basic classifieds OEM kit. Weighs in at 24b.
He bloody flies on it.

That Orbea looks the mutt’s!
But why (oh why oh why) do they fit strange bits to it? The coil forks for one, but a 12-36 cassette? Long mech? 355 brakes when Deore type are much better fit for little hands?
Bizarre

But why (oh why oh why) do they fit strange bits to it?

Accountants

355 brakes when Deore type are much better fit for little hands?

IIRC, my Wazoo came with 355s, which can and were reach altered a little by me using a tiny allen key.

Are the Deore brake levers a different ergonomic shape?

pimpmyride – Member
isla bike = for the transporter driving money spending crew.

Pinnacle = ok I suppose?

Myself = frog 69 for my 10 yr old girl. absolutely amazing bit of kit

POSTED 10 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

There’s not a lot of money between Isla bikes and Frog?…

Edit…….ok yes yes there is! 😆

Are the Deore brake levers a different ergonomic shape?

Yup. 355 are very long, newer ones very short. All adjustable with allen key anyway, but on tiny bars and with small hands you want compact control methinks.

deore levers aren’t the best for small hands.

My kids have found the Deore levers to be fine. My youngest is 7, and she has been using them for over a year without any issue.

When I looking for small 26″ wheel kids bikes I found the best option was to build something up. I had good, but not worth much 26″ wheels and forks in the loft, and managed to get a decent light weight 14″ frame, and then just bought a basic 1×10 drive train and brakes. Probably about £500 all in (not including the forks and wheels).

I think my oldest will out grow it at the start of next year, so have my eye out for the next suitable bike for him, most likely it will be a 16″ 650b, but nothing off the shelf looks to be the right spec for the money, so will probably build him something up around a frame again.

Other than Isla being out of stock no real sympathy

I’m not finding it hard to find bikes in small sizes. Trek seem to do 13″ bikes

£806

What the shit!? For a KId’s Bike??

Which is why there are very few decent kids bikes ‘cost the majority of folk won’t pay for something good.

Why people believe that (teenage) kids bikes should cost less than adult bikes is beyond me, they’re built from the same components as adult bikes and they sell less of them…

Picked up a nice felt for my 10/11 year old 24″ suntour forks tektro disc brakes from hardgreeves cycles last year for less than 500£.
Great bike .very tough can handle decent red routes on it.