Giving Your Bikes to Your Kids

So even tho I ride most days and always on my days off I never actually mtb any more, I stopped due to a problem foot years ago which needed an op and was just too painful due to the added pressures of hills, drops etc but I found I could ride on the flat, so that’s what I did, I started going off for pootles and days along the river, that sort of thing, a pub here and there, I realised I was happy as long as I was on a bike and so after years of riding off road religiously several days a week I stopped and I never really picked it up again.

I kept my full suss, it’s a bit long in the tooth, a Cannondale Prophet, every part slowly upgraded from new as they broke or wore out, Pikes, Hope, DT Swiss etc etc, I even converted it to 1×11 but only rode it a few times, my son, now sixteen rode it a fairly regularly, always asking if he could borrow it, this week after having the forks serviced I had a moment of clarity and just gave it to him, he’s absolutely chuffed and I’m just happy it’ll actually be used and enjoyed, I may ask him if I can borrow it some time. That’s all really, I feel better about the world, I now no longer have a mountain bike I never use.

That’s great. My son still has the MTB we bought him at 13/14 – he occasionally still uses it (aged 24) as it’s been serviced by me – had it been him, it would not still be rideable as he is a car nut !  It’s a basic Carrera Vengeance, but it’s been trouble free for me to keep going for him. He’s not using any of my bikes nor MrsF’s lightly used BMC FS03 XC bike (XT and SLX and stupid light for an alloy bike)- he would not look after it as it’s not his area of interest. He’s into car mods.

My two have raided both mine and their grandparents’ bikes and general outdoor gear repeatedly. I think between me, Mrs GD and their one set of grandparents they’ve appropriated 7 bikes (one of which now deceased after an altercation with a wall), a boat, a tent, several bits of bike luggage/rucksacks and a bunch of other camping gear etc.

The older one also has an irritating tendency to want to borrow my FS and gravel bike. I need to hold onto something damit!

It’s (mostly) great though 🙂

My eldest has my old 26” Cube for the last number of years and my youngest uses my 27.5 hard tail on the trails as his own bike is too small of him now, leaving me with the full suss. TBH we kind of share the bikes these days and take whatever. I am getting a new commuter’s in the new year that will no doubt be used by all too.

I still have a Prophet hanging up in the shed along with a 26″ wheeled Ragley Mmmbop, I kept them so my kids could MTB but they were more interested in riding horses 🙁

To go and ride along the river and stop at pubs seems to be a great solution to me. Wow it’s good that you let your son have the Cannondale, at least it would not lay useless somewhere and it will be put into good use and probably maximum usage.

I recently bought a new XC/Gravel bike fully intending to sell my Ti hardtail frame to recover some of the layout and swap all the old parts off that onto an old welded up SolarisMax to give to my eldest as a hardtail.

But nobody has bought the Ti frame … so I seem to have given him the Ti hardtail for the moment. You can’t ride it without people stopping you and going “Hey, is that titanium? Is it really light?”

We are waiting for our grandson to stretch out a bit more so he can have our Cove Hand job , thankfully the name was removed when Mrs had it resprayed at Argos a few years ago. He tried it yesterday , by the NY should be all good.

2 of those bikes were mine.  Including the Giant Trance which I wasn’t using much after getting the eBike.

But they’re (most of) my grandkids.

Re-cycling is class. It’s nice seeing folk donate or at least sell cheaply their older highend kit to the budding racers at my cycle club.

I gave away my old Soul to a pal at work as he wanted a bike but was struggling a bit financially due to two kids and new house. It’s nice knowing that something that you have enjoyed is still being enjoyed and not just sitting in the garage slowing rusting away or in a landfill.

I gave my son my Yeti when I went 29er. He rode the thing like I never could! 🙂 We did a fair few rides together, which was an awesome time.

When he outgrew it, I sold it and we bought him a Remedy with the money.

Now he rides a monster Commencal thing, regularly goes to all the bike parks with his mates. Massively into it. #proud dad.

Got myself a new bike and had sort of planned on moving my previous bike on…daughter arrived and spotted the new bike and marched right past it and grabbed my old one, adjusted the saddle height and said she’d like to try it out.
Had a summer of some biking with her and it has been great, certainly lighter than her Bossnut and seems to encourage her to ride a bit more.
I reckon it is fractionally too big for her, but low, long and slack doesn’t seem to be stopping her rising it.
I’m kind of glad she pinched it as I wasn’t feeling that keen on selling it and it means she is likely to want to bike a bit more (a real issue for a 16 year old girl who would rather spend time with her boyfriend, friends or play rugby – but I’ll be happy with whatever biking we manage!).

So my 13 yr old son got a 29er adult size MTB 2 years ago.

I was still riding my 26er 2×9 gear Cotic BFe. This summer was finally an NBD for me and I got with the 29er 1×12 crowd.

He’s stolen my old Cotic. He’ll ride that until the forks die I expect. Best I get his old 29er up for sale!

I’m still hanging onto my 26er BFe until my (currently 6 years old) grandson is big enough for it.

Might be waiting for a while but I think it’ll be worth it.

My eldest son had three of my bikes when living in London. He used to ride them to work and inevitably got them nicked. He eventually bought his own when I ran out of old bikes. The younger son spun me a sob story about having no money until I donated my carbon road bike which he promptly spent loads of money upgrading. Luckily the grandkids aren’t big enough to demand any more of my bikes but I did buy the ones they’ve got!

My son is currently riding my Reactor. It’s a stop gap while he fully grows into a size large. Made possible because my mate gave me a Norco Optic, so I’m riding that and when my lad grows out of the reactor I’m going to sell the frame and buy a 160mm travel frame so I’ll have trail and enduro FS’s!

Not technically ‘my’ bike, but the balance bike my kids started on is now with owner #5. It’d had 2 previous owners before us. I resprayed it purple for my eldest, resprayed again pink for my youngest, resprayed for a third time for it’s current custodian, nephew #1. It’ll soon be passed down again to nephew #2 who’ll be the 6th custodian. I think it was originally a Norco.

At 187cm it’s unlikely any of my current XL-sized bikes will ever fit my not-so-mini a11ys. Possibly my youngest: she’s 153cm with size UK6 feet and still only 9, so it might happen…

I rebuilt an old DMR Trailstar into an MTB for my 10yr old.

Frame was an XS from eBay, but every other bit was a part I’d run in the past and then put into the spares pile (mountain).

She loves it, but kept saying she wanted to come with me on my ‘dad’ rides which are still a bit far for her – normally 45km on MTB, or 80-100km on the road bike.

So we got this…?

I loaned my hardtail (a heavily upgraded 2015 Orange Crush) to my nephew earlier this year when he fancied trying some proper trails and I didn’t really expect to get it back to be honest, he’s 14 and had only ever been into football. He’s now bought himself a used but really good condition Santa Cruz 5010 and while he still plays for the same Sat morning team he spends way more time hitting jumps in the local woods with his mates these days. I get the feeling he’s now got his eye on my Hightower, which isn’t happening any time soon