Kids Safety equipment

What are STF’s go to for kids helmets and safety pads?

Took the 9 and 6 year old to sherwood pines, managed some of the red trail with the 6 year old. Which ironically is possible safer due to the slower speed he’s going. Both seemed to enjoy it.

currently they have these helemts
rockrider helmet

not sure if a full face would be better or not? possibly will pick up some knee and elbow pads, as they normally get bashed when a crash happens.

any recommendations?

Comrie Croft was the only place I ever found with a decent selection of kids pads

What about kid’s riding glasses for 8-10 year olds? Any reccs?

Abus standard open face helmet & some massively over priced kids riding gloves for my 8yo.

From my experience kids don’t travel fast enough & don’t carry enough momentum, especially round Sherwood pines, to need a full face, plus kids ones are usually hot & heavy so far less appealing.

It might sound daft but have you tried any adult helmets on your kids yet? Littleginge has been in a medium adult helment since he was about five and a half; discovered this would work after I measured him up while looking for a new lid (he does seem to have a massive head mind).

For glasses I’ve found that bolle do some of their safety glasses in a smaller size which seem to fit him well and are nice and cheep to boot.

https://www.bolle-safety.com/gb/industrial/glasses/safety-glasses/rush–small-RUSH%2BSMALL_INDUSTRIAL.html?dwvar_RUSH%2BSMALL_INDUSTRIAL_color=5166

edit: forgot to add that he also has some Fox launch pro youth knee/elbow pads that just about fit him as a lanky six year old. He’s growing into them better now and I suspect that they would fit most kids reasonably well until they start to get towards the smaller adult sizes. Not cheep now though.

Decent helmets, not full faced IMHO and a decent set of gloves. Fox do some nice kids ones as do polaris, the rest is just overkill and hampers them on normal XC riding situations, they bounce pretty well and scratches and grazes heal fast – speaking as a father of 3 boys (10, 8 & 5) who have all been riding since the age of 3 and the worst thing that’s happened to any of them is a bot of road rash from a crit and some OTB moments.

Mine are the same on the helmet front, the eldest has a massive head, like 99th centile kind of melon when he was born and has been in an adults Lazer Blade+ since he was 8.5, the middle one is in a youths specialized thingy and the smallest one (still 98th centile on the bonce count) is in youths Giro MTB / trail style helmet.

Thanks @bigginge got 2 pairs of them specs.

We used open face helmets. IMO, it was easier to get a good fit and they don’t lend a feeling of invulnerability…plus, I’ve seen so many full face on children with a huge chin bar what looks like creating massive leverage in a fall – maybe save your face but break a neck time? I’ve no strong evidence for this, just they look odd/vulnerable with them on.

We had a few Giro helmets – the youth ones are just different coloured Xs adult ones.

661 make kids pads, but we also found that Poc make some small ones too.

The extra weight of a full face as you bounce through rocky stuff won’t help a youngster’s neck either.

Knee pads – check out adult elbow & forearm pads. Often cheaper / better and they might fit you when they grow out of them next week.

Sherwood Pines will be fine open face and padless. We had ours riding Les Gets open face and knees pads only from 8 – and the knee pads were more for stones being thrown up than anything else.

Good call on the mini-Bolle. I hadn’t seen those and eye protection is good.

For what it’s worth, my 11 year old came off his bike and broke a tooth last year. Yes he was in an open face, but he was in his road bike, in the car park, heading to a closed road circuit session at York Sport. Clipped a kerb at an acute angle and lost the front wheel.
The elder one has had concussion a couple of times from wheel touches in the peloton.
Off road the worst either of them have had is scratches.
Perception of risk is an odd thing.

Adult elbows are great on skinny knee’d kids if you don’t have kids pads available locally..
G-form, scott and troy lee do good flexible kids stuff. Most other brands are catching up with the demand too.

Perception of risk is an odd thing.

Never a truer word spoken, my lads hit far greater speeds in age group crit racing than they do off road, well almost in the case of the 10yr old – according to his Wahoo he’s hit 35kph in the sprint for the line at the Crank-it Cannock “not a race honest guv” kids MTB event. On the tarmac it’s lycra bib shorts, jersey and a lid plus glasses if it’s a bit windy / sunny and with average speeds of over 30kph in U10, when they crash it’s a big impact, off-road they average less than half of that and it’s generally much softer landing, not including trees. Even taking that into consideration they both race in “roadie” gear off-road.

I’ve seen so many full face on children with a huge chin bar what looks like creating massive leverage in a fall – maybe save your face but break a neck time? I’ve no strong evidence for this, just they look odd/vulnerable with them on.

totally (and unscientifically) agreeing with you here. Plus all that extra weight bouncing around up there on someone with a fraction of adult strength.

remember, and this applies to everyone, not just kids, the half shell helmet does quite a good job of protecting the whole head. put one on, and in a soft carpeted or grassy area, see how much of your face, ears etc you can actually get onto the ground. the torso/shoulders combined with the “halo” area of the helmet do quite a good job of protecting the uncovered bits.

Obviously going full pelt into a downhill black rock garden might have some more pointy things to hit though…

@csb – this is a decent site for kids kit – https://kidsracing.co.uk/collections/kids-youth-and-small-adult-cycling-sunglasses – more aligned to racing cx/road stuff but it is slowly getting more mtb stuff…haven’t seen any pads yet but not really looked for those.

Giro tremor helmet and tigo gloves for my eldest now 6yo. She’s cautious but will tackle some interesting features. The few times she’s crashed and ended on her knees it’s not been bad enough to wish she had kneepads. The little twin had a big otb when she was 3 on a pump track but walked away due to the helmet taking the brunt of it. Also had one very lightly grazed chin at some point.

There’s an (almost) kid specific mtb company in Oz called Sendy. The knee pads are fantastic, don’t annoy the kids legs and have saved them plenty over the past few years.

Our (just turned) 9yo wears an Endura Humvee helmet which seems really good. 11yo wears a small-sized adult Specialized XC style helmet. We haven’t seriously considered full face.

I think a well-fixed peak gives quite a lot of protection for the face, at least if landing on a flattish surface.

They both wear full fingered gloves, but pretty normal ones.

Don’t want them to go into mountain biking thinking it’s a seriously dangerous business, and at their speeds off-road, i really don’t think it is. They’ve had plenty of scrapes, bruises etc and know it’s part of the sport.

We recently discussed exposed vs covered knees and elbows, do they want to wear shorts and short sleeves in summer or their trousers and long sleeves etc? Both said they’re not bothered about bashing or cutting their knees, more bothered about overheating on climbs.