My little one is nearly five and whizzes about on her Islabikes Cnoc 16. At the grandparents’ she has inherited a Decathlon monstrosity which weighs nearly 10kg. Nonetheless she loves that too.

Decathlon in its wisdom has chosen to spec this bike with a front cantilever and rear drum brake. The front brake seems fairly ineffective, while the rear will lock the wheel up with the tiniest squeeze of the lever.

The first time riding it, Sofia crashed quite badly going downhill on a paved cycle track scattered with loose gravel. My suspicion is the brakes had something to do with this.

My question is, what’s the best way to help her ride this bike safely? I ended up rotating the rear brake lever up out of her reach, on the assumption that she had probably locked the rear wheel and skidded, but on reflection perhaps this wasn’t the right thing to do.

Any advice from the wise heads out there?

You can get a modulator for V- brakes – it fits inline with a spring and effectively means that once you reach a certain point, you can’t pull any harder. £4 on eBay

I doubt a rear wheel skid would cause much of an issue. That said, I’d adjust the reach of the rear lever so it is closer to the bars and add a load of slack into the cable – enough so that when fully on it just locks up.

Next, I’d go after the front brake. Kids are pretty good at modulating a good brake. A canti, acting on tiny wheels should be pretty effective. Check the pads and clean the rim with brake cleaner. Possibly drop the stirrup wire down a little and run the pads really close to the rim. Is it possible they’ve used a v-brake lever with cantis?

Sounds like a larger version of the one my son had. Couldn’t get the front brake to work well no matter what I tried. He went to a Beinn 20 after that and within minutes was infinitely better, and one of the things that helped was front brakes that worked. So, either new bike (!) Or see if you can fit Vees?

My kids have Avid Speed Dial 7s. You can adjust reach and modulation – I think they’ll make a huge difference (with Vs).

+1 for old Avid speed dial levers. Easy adjust in for small hands and reduce power.

Also, get out and teach the kids to brake on all sorts of surfaces. This is better long term than the kit/tech solution.

Another +1 on the Avid speed dial levers – my youngest has those on his bike as my eldest was using an old set of early LX V-brake levers at the time, which were also excellent.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fbmxmuseum.com%2Freference-images%2Fshimano_bl-m600_patri2k_01_lg.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fbmxmuseum.com%2Freference%2F3798&docid=a983Km0W0l3ivM&tbnid=238xW9fqYm9eoM%3A&vet=1&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim

These ones. Excellent.

Aren’t speed dial levers meant for linear pull brakes? I think they’ll feel pretty wooden with cantis (based on the inverse where a regular lever running on Vs feels spongy before rapidly ramping up and throwing you over the bars).

They are for Vees, but I’d want to change cantis for Vs anyway for the sake of a another tenner or so – just much less hassle on a kids bike…

Chill your boots. She’ll work it out after a bit of practice.

Try some new pads and do aproper setup on the front brake. What model is the rear brake.

Try dropping the pads in the canter levers, angle the pads up so they hit the rims. It increases the leverage & rim squeezing power.