Been asked for advice by my sister, her 7 yr old is getting a new bike for his birthday, don't tell will you.
Anyway I'm sure I've seen on here a company that does proper scaled down machines, but I can't for the life of me remember the name. Any clues?
Cheers,
Alex
[url= http://www.islabikes.co.uk/ ]Islabikes?[/url]
Very pleased with the Beinn 20 large my 7 yo daughter has - but jeez prices have gone up!
if you know what you're looking for e.g. specialized / kona - try looking in the classifieds / ebay.
I got most of my kids bikes off the classifieds at about half retail and almost unused
From experience, that's the age where your really going to take a financial hit as they'll grow out of the right sized bike really quickly. Just buy second hand until they can fit a 24 wheeler, then you can get really good stuff from Spesh, Giant, Kona etc.
my just 7 girl is small for age and justs fits a 20" wheel bike (specialised hard rock) with seat post cut down so can get right down
her sister is 2 years older and again small for age but is just outgrowing a 20" bike
so as said above whatever may not last long unless is large for age and some round our way are small giants!
latest trip to shops was quite depressing I'm no bike geek/gear freak but a lot of the kids stuff is very badly bent metal with full suspension bikes in kiddy colours that i could hardly pick up but in the end that may not matter too much if its a bike they really want to ride!
to conclude if you know size scanning classifieds should be worthwhile if they want to go to bike shop and pick something the kid really likes then suggest go along and help by pointing out that the extra £50(+) is really worth it when you look at proper BB, headset, decent forks and brakes etc or that the bike they are looking at is a pile of overpriced scrap that will fall apart in 3 months
isla bikes, can't praise them enough. superbly made and hi re-sale value when you come to sell on.
Thanks all, Islabikes is the one I was thinking of. She has a seven, three and 6 months, so whatever bike will get three lots of use.
Just got to get 'em on mountain not road bikes now 😉
A
Islabikes come with a sensible range of gears. We had to change rear cassette to a Shimano mega range on both 20" kids bikes. Other than that spesh Hotrocks were great & saw lots of service. Made one mistake of the overweight/underpriced bike - don't do that!
I wouldn't be too critical of seemingly rubbish, overweight kids full sussers. If that's what they want and if it will inspire them to ride, then it's not a bad thing. There's no way that my kids would have anything else at the time as that's what all their friends had and it certainly hasn't hindered their cycling development at all.