Kid’s new bike day

We’ve gone from 14″ to 20″ via 16″. The 16″ was probably the shortest lived bike, only kept and used for well under a year, 8 months total maybe. It was a bike that was needed, a step up in ability to roll over stuff and maintain speed on grass and rougher surfaces. Jumped on the 20″ with more confidence than she had at the end of the 14″ as she was getting too big for it.
The 20″ is also a fat tyre one, Scott Scale 20 Plus with probably less than 10psi not squishy and draggy, but she can get the tyres to squish over things.

I’ve tended to go with the line of they need bikes like they need shoes so tend to get something of the right size and up to the job whenever required rather than time it to calendar events.

Edit: made our own towhee from a stretchy bit of dog lead off ebay, some paracord and a bit of stitching for under £5. Hooks over my saddle and behind stem of towed bike. Mastered the moving unhitch and putting towline over my shoulder until next needed.

One Tetupga towing rope ordered from Amazon so I’ve got it ready if needed – cheers for the suggestion!

Found a spare Burgtec top cap so added a bit of unnecessary bling

Don’t get a generic tow rope, a tire velo is way way better, it’s still elasticated but also retracts like a dog lead, you can hook and unhook it without stopping (the tow ropes, which I had before, are way more faff).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TIRE-VELO-childrens-retractable-towing-system/dp/B09HPKVBGH

Best bit of riding kit I bought for kids

@5lab – that does look neat but that doesn’t look wildly compatible with a dropper post and £50 🫣

@Timber – That’s why we went with 16” Hope Academy bikes for our twins. Finding 2 decent 16” bikes (of equal quality so son and daughter don’t get upset) was a nightmare and we figured for £15 a month it was less hassle than buying nice things only to have to flog them again. The plan is to buy 20” bikes next year (if they actually start growing!) when they grow a bit more as I think they’ll last longer.

Joe knows this already but on his suggestion I bought a 20+ for my 7 year old. He was all over his Frog 40 but it was just too small. In comes the 20+ and straight away he’s ripping round the place. Last week we went to Ashton Court and he managed the whole route, including the red Super Nova extension without any dramas. He wants to go every weekend now. 🤘🏻

This is Henry just before demolishing @joebristol’s PB on the quarry trail…. 😉

I’ve got the grey 24+ version for the grand daughter last year when she was 7 , she loves riding Dalby with me when she’s up here … great bikes for the money

that does look neat but that doesn’t look wildly compatible with a dropper post and £50 🫣

Works fine with a dropper, you just can’t drop the last 30mm with it on (but tbh I’m not riding anything that rad with my kid anyway). Velcros off in 5 seconds for solo riding.

It is an extra £35, it’s 100% worth it.

8PSi for my 6 year old at the moment. Cant remember what he weighs, but he’s pretty skinny. Round the local blue trails at the weekend had no trouble bottoming out at that pressure

Is this tubed or tubeless? (no joke)

I picked up a Trax tow system other day, I like that I can mount it to my seat and its extends like a tape measure to hook onto the stem of bike behind, extending and retracting accordingly, then when done, unhook and retracts all the way into itself, 100kg weight limit which tempts me to use it myself when other have ebikes!

Is this tubed or tubeless? (no joke)

Tubes and 2.35 Smart Sams

Just ordered 2 for the twins. At £279 each we can treat them to the NP Urchin pedals and grips if they’re choice. Thanks for letting me know these were so cheap. Son will be coming from a 16” Hope Academy Belter 16 and his twin sister will be moving straight from her Frog 40 (and his Belter 16 when not in use). If I need to swap seat posts and tyres initially to make it fit I will. both are already on 600mm bars as the stock 450mm they had were sketchy as hell

@zerocool

The seatpost will slam all the way down so not sure there’s much benefit to changing unless you can get one with a lower stack.

The bike comes with 2 pairs of pedals as standard – some cheap crap ones and some more flat style plastic ones. Stuck the latter on personally and will see how it goes.

I haven’t measured the bar width – hadn’t really crossed my mind if they might be too wide. Going to try her on the bike on Sunday for size and see if she can handle it now or whether she needs to grow a bit more first 

Cracking bikes those. My son got one from Santa. Red too, but didn’t come with skin wall tyres. It was however a ridiculous £230 from CRC last year. Not done enough off-road but in use everyday for the school run. Regretting not fitting some frame protection as the forks/stays are pretty scuffed.

I absolutely hate skin wall tyres. Have done ever since companies started releasing black sidewalls decades ago. But for that price I’ll put up with them

They make minion dhf / dhr2 in 20” if the tan walls offend you too much. 

That’ll probably be an option but I’ll be strong

So this answers the size question – although I think it’s a little bit more of a stretch than ideal so have ordered a shorter stem (35mm to replace 50mm) to see whether that’s a good thing or not. I must not buy Clarks M2s for it……

CRC have really cheap Shimano brakes at the moment.

Looks like she’s enjoying it. How tall is she, my wife is now panicking that our kids aren’t going to be tall enough. Lol

Yeah this ^loving that vid though. Wider bars look so much better than the frog 44 my daughters on now  

im hovering on the buy button. Might not fit yet but I want this bike for my daughter so much… 

@zerocool – you couldn’t pay me to buy Shimano mtb brakes. The bike hangs upright off it’s front wheel so no doubt they’d either microleak or get a variable bite point!

Clarks are only about £50 for a pair including rotors and apparently the reach adjusts ok for kids…..but my daughter found the brakes fine to pull so I don’t think I really need to change them.

In her trainers I measured her today at 118cm. She can stand over the bike just about ok and with the saddle at its lowest she can get both feet on the bars. For optimum pedalling I reckon the saddle could be higher but I don’t think she’d feel comfortable getting on and off.

joe – that’s a great looking bike and the frame colour really sets it off well.
Top dad points there!

Great photos from richardkennnerley and limbojimbo too so big thumbs up to you Dads!

My 4yr old grandson has loved scooters and balance bikes at nursery but, for some unknown reason, won’t use his own ones at home.
Like his Dad, I think – no, no, don’t want to then jumps on and pedals away down the lane.
Kids…

@goldfish24 – it genuinely is a really nice bike. It’s a chunk heavier than her Cnoc 14 but then it has gears / bike tyres / disc brakes / wider bars and it’s a lot bigger. I still think it’s pretty light given all of the above.

Feels like a proper mini mtb – even my wife commented it’s nice (and the red colour is lovely).

“Daddy run faster”. LOL.

these 20″ kids mtb are great. I ditched the cable brakes on mine and swapped out the bars for my old xc race bars that i don’t use

The commencal and vitus look so similar!

@zerocool

That’s why we went with 16” Hope Academy bikes for our twins. Finding 2 decent 16” bikes (of equal quality so son and daughter don’t get upset) was a nightmare and we figured for £15 a month it was less hassle than buying nice things only to have to flog them again

I’ve never heard abou the Hope scheme before, just done some reading as I will have a child I’ll wanna get onto a 16inch off road style bike and sounds really good and £14 a month seems real reasonable! How have you found the scheme? Has anyone else used the Hope Academy?

@oikeith – last time I looked I think there was a waiting list or something – so  ended up buying the Cnoc 14 instead. It seems a good idea in a lot of ways – always having the right size of bike without commuting a lump sum each time to buy one.

I tend to put little chunks of money into a Revolut vault named ‘Eva’s bike’ so next time she needs a new bike the money is there for it. So I guess I achieve the same thing in a lot of ways.

Once she’s happy with the Vitus and doesn’t want the Cnoc anymore I’ll sell that and add the proceeds to the bike vault. Maybe next time will be a 24” Nukeproof Cub Scout with air suspension fork – if she likes riding off road with daddy. If not I might just get the 24” wheel version of this Vitus as it seems decent.

One thing about the Hope academy bikes is they often seem to e covered with coloured Hope anodised kit – looks a bit garish and would probably be a target to be stolen on that basis. Although perhaps you can spec black or silver parts to tone it down a bit?

We basically got an Early Rider Belter 16 decked out in shiny Hope parts which has seen a lot of abuse from my 4 (now 5) year old son. He crashed and pulled a brake hose out of the lever and they just sent a replacement FOC. Same when he wore out the ER pedals, new ones in the post in a few days.

They’re moving away from the Early Rider bikes now and switching to Prevelo Zulu bikes (about £850 new) which look even better with a bit more modern geometry and styling. I worry my son will notice when he switches back from hydraulic to cable brakes.

It filled a gap for us as we had 2 14” inch bikes and couldn’t really afford 2 decent 16” bikes for the 12-14 months they’d probably get out of them. It was a ballache to try to source 2 16” bikes of equal quality (so one child wasn’t getting a better bike)  on the secondhand market

it’s worth giving them an email and asking about wait times as sometimes there’s a delay on certain colours.

Our kids have absolutely loved and garages theirs on cycle paths, pump tracks, local woods, etc and we probably would have stayed with them for 20” bikes but those Vitus 20+ bikes weee such a good price is was silly not to go for them.

if you want to pay ££ they also offer very pimped out Cub Scouts, but they’re like £28 a month.

My brother started his kid on the balance bike and has just upsized to their 14” one. He said it was easy and trouble free.

The theory is that the parent doesn’t have to keep chopping and changing bikes as their kids grows you just send it back and get the next size up. The only change I’ve made is fit wider and taller bars to it now they’re right on the cusp of max size.

Speaking of which CRC have the vitus 20+ for £279!

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/p/vitus-20-kids-bike-microshift

 At that price it’s very decent – especially when you look at the cost of similar stuff from the big brands. I did see them cheaper again a while back (as someone mentioned above) but I didn’t really need one then – did consider buying one and sticking it in the loft but couldn’t quite bring myself to do that.

Now I know she’s going to be able to ride it now I’m goi g to start on 3M taping a few bits – I figure both fork legs / chainstays / seat stays are the main areas that’ll get bashed. There are also a few places I think cables are going to rub so will tape those bits too – side of head tube and near the top / seat tube junction.

@Joebristol – yeah I get you on the nickable thing, but living in Bristol I was paranoid about every bike, from their balance bikes upwards. Now we live in Devon I’m less stressed about theft. (Still loved our time in Bristol and miss the easy access to FOD, BPW and the like).

2 Vitus bikes arriving today.  Need to build and sort them out to make sure they’re not damaged and then hide them again.

@zerocool – I definitely worry about stolen bikes – someone had a pop at getting in the garage a few years ago but luckily I had too much crap behind the uk and over door (which I don’t use) for them to get it open more then about a foot so they gave up. I think it was teenagers going round jumping against up and over doors to snap the top bolt and Nick anything easy to take. I doubt they were tooled up to defeat decent locks.

Although I noticed that Lidl were selling battery powered angle grinders for about £30 (may have been bare tool) the other day so it wouldn’t cost them much to be able to cut d locks / big chains.

Oversll the Vitus has been built pretty well – the gears all work perfectly and the brakes stop / everything seems tight. It had way too much pressure in the tyres for little kids so dropped that down to about 9-10 psi. 

I’d say the headset could feel smoother so when I change the stem I’ll check the bearings / headset tension etc.

The rear wheel could be slightly straighter so I might tru that a little. But overall pretty good.

Good to hear the Vitus looks ok.
My wife had her bike stolen from Fishponds years ago. They just forced the front door and walked out with the Meta 55 and the PS3 (the landlord’s) so ever since I’ve  been paranoid.

If  I’m honest the only bikes I’ve had stolen were actually in Exeter before Bristol LOL. Our garages are the same. Can’t get in the main door due to shelves and crap.

Now I was eyeing up an early rider on Facebook with gripshift and 3 speed. Now I’m tempted by that Vitus now it’s back in stock

Grip shift is horrible! My mate had a kids bike with it for his lad (maybe 5 or 6 at the time) and he really struggled with it. I swapped the shifter out for a rapid fire type thing (sram branded) and it was much better. Tbf the bike had cost about £10 off fb and was in a poor state – I spent a good few hours cleaning it up / fitting new brake pads and setting the brakes up / changing the shifter and cleaning / setting up the drivetrain etc. the lad loved it once done 

Agree on the gripshift, my nipper had a Kona Makena last year with gripshift and it was crap – his hands weren’t nearly big enough to use it properly whilst staying in control, and he’s a big kid.

Rapid fire all the way.

The plan was to pop off the sturmney archer, new hub and rear wheel build, new drivetrain and brakes, maybe some riser bars too. That whole set up would be probably £100 past the current Vitus 20+ price.

I do like the silver of the early rider and the fettling so a bit torn.

I’d just get the shiny new Vitus in that case – if you want to fettle then you could add some hydraulic disc brakes for £50 (Clarks M2)

That’s what I did. I do like the early riders but it’s a no brainer really.

Edit: In fact. It’s getting Lego head valve caps.