I bought a used Cnoc 14 a few months ago and my 3yr old has just managed to work out putting the balance and pedaling together.

Our friends have older children and their 16″ Islabike is lighter than our tiny one!? It’s a serious lump. I can’t tell when it was bought but it’s significantly heavier than others I’ve now spotted.

Wondering where the extra weight is and whether I should sell it and buy a newer version?

They switched from steel to alloy forks at some point.

Do not panic. Generations of cyclists learned to ride on bikes that were too small, big, heavy, overgeared and otherwise unfit for purpose by modern STW standards. A slightly heavier fork will not impair your child’s ability to ride or enjoy the bike. If it still troubles you, just pretend it’s a special extra stability feature or something.

+1 on the forgedaboudit front.  It’s a slightly heavier bike that they will grow out of alarmingly quickly and the only time it’s a real problem is when they have to pick it up on their own and I assume there’ll be an adult around to help with that most of the time.  It’s almost certainly lighter than almost everything of a similar size that either isn’t an Islabike or significantly more expensive.

We have one of the older (perhaps 1st gen) Cnoc 14’s. It has a steel seat post, steel quill stem, steel bar, steel crank and ring and steel fork with the drop out tabs on the front of the leg. It’s not light. I replaced the crank with a shortened S600 and a RF Taperlock BB, which saved a decent chunk.

Being honest, while I’m a big Islabike fan, we didn’t bother getting our first until the Beinn 20 small – the smallest bike they do with gears. We never really did any distance riding with them until they got gears (I think a few miles was the most we ever managed) so I never bothered to spend the money, just picking up pig iron, eBay specials for next to nothing for their first bikes. The heavier bikes didn’t seem to put them off and I suspect that your Cnoc will be way lighter than ours ever were.

Once we got the geared Beinns, suddenly we could cycle decent distances and the era of “family bike rides” started for us….and still goes on today, with the one difference that it’s now my wife who can’t keep up with the kids!