New bike or no? (kids bike content)

I feel a bit deflated. After months of mental preparation and agonizing research I finally, and very excitedly, rang Islabike this afternoon to order a Cnoc 14 for my eldest.

The minimum inside leg for this is 38cm, he’s a smidge under 36cm. No bother thought I, whack some stabilisers on for a while so he can get used to pedaling, then once he’s tall enough take them off and he’ll fly.

Imagine my disappointment when the nice lady at Islabike told me it was a bad idea and that the stabilisers would undo all the good work the balance bike has done. Bugger.

I don’t particularly want to rush him into anything, the idea being that we’d just leave the new bike around so he can build up some interest (worked with the Rothan), however his little brother is just a year behind him so I want to also get him going on the/a balance bike this year. My ideal scenario would be to move the eldest up to a pedal bike and the youngest onto a balance bike, thus avoiding having to have two of the same kind of bike at any time.

The way I see it I have the following choices:

1) Ignore the advice from Islabike and get a Cnoc 14 anyway, with stabilisers, and continue as planned.
2) Get another Rothan for the youngest and wait to get the Cnoc
3) Get a 12″ pedal bike for now (Spesh Hotrock for example).

We can’t really afford to buy a new bike every 6 months so I’m tempted to go with 1 anyway, despite what is no doubt very good advice from Islabike.

What say STW?

4 Wait until he grows and little brother is actually riding the balance bike

i think it’s worth listening to the advice about the stabilisers – i.e. don’t bother with them. my son moved from a balance bike to a cnoc 14 and i popped the stabilisers on once for an afternoon. he didn’t like them as the bike didn’t behave like his balance bike.

given how fast kids grow, it won’t be long before his legs are long enough. you could even buy the cnoc and take the pedals off for now and make it into a bigger balance bike until he’s the right height.

Little brother is already wanting to sit on the balance bike, but he can’t while the eldest is using it as the saddle is too high.

Kicking myself as I recently got a cheap 2nd hand Rothan from the classifieds for a friend. With my sensible head on the best option is probably another balance bike, but I’d like to avoid buying another bike for what might be a 3 month overlap.

you could even buy the cnoc and take the pedals off for now and make it into a bigger balance bike until he’s the right height.

Oh, that’s a good idea that might be worth investigating….

Personally I think she’s talking crap. My lad learnt to pedal on a bike with stabilisers and used a balance bike. Did him no harm whatsoever. once get over the pedalling backwards thing take the stabilisers off and he’ll be flying. he won’t just forget how to balance. it’ll be hard if the bike is too big for him though.

ads678 – I was a little surprised to be honest when she said that as I explained that my intention was for the Cnoc to stay in the garden so he could get interested and jump on/off. Meantime he’d continue to use the balance bike when we’re out and about so he’d not forget how to balance anyway. I wasn’t intending to take the stabilisers off until he was tall enough as the last thing I want to do is put him off!

Would have though at that age 2cm is neither here nor there, my lad upgraded from a cnoc 16 to Benin 20 that was supposed to be a couple of cm too big, but he was away with it, his little sister jumped straight on to the cnoc when she should have been too small for it from the advice of islabikes, I’m sure they’d love it if you bought every single bike in the range as your kids grow!!!

Just buy the thing with stabilisers.
Presumably the leg measurement constraint is for touching the ground purposes, not pedalling, else there’s no point In trying to use it as a balance bike. Which it isn’t great at anyway- we tried it, and the bb area is quite wide compared to a Rothan, leading to a few scrapes.

And If his legs are long enough to touch the ground then theyll be long enough to pedal properly -you’ll probably only use the stabilisers for a couple of days anyway.

It will be too tall to use as a balance bike.

You can drop the seat further if you modify an old school cheapy seatposts – one with a pressed steel seat clamp that slides off the top of the post. You can rebuild some of them with the clamp upside down (so the full post diameter comes right up between the seat rails), This will gain you the missing 2cm for the next few months.

You need a post with a clamp like this:- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Steel-Single-Rail-Saddle-Clamp-compatible-with-Brooks-silver-or-black-/221152725857

Spin the bits that clamp the rails 180 degrees for an ultra low saddle.

I would just get it, he’ll grow into it in no time, if it doesn’t in fact fit him already. My son went on to the Beinn 20 when he was ‘technically’ too small and got on fine. I dont think we even measured him for the Cnoc14, he just got it or his 3rd birthday. Don’t get stabilisers, both of mine took approx 10 mins to get the hang of the Cnoc after the Rothan.

Vinney and Mick – good points about it not being a good balance bike, I’ll avoid that then.

Augustus and PPP – I always thought the sizing was conservative, it seemed that way with his Rothan, however others seem to think it’s about right.

Mick – great option on the seatpost, thanks.

I think I’m going to just buy it, it’s not like it won’t get used anyway even if we have to wait a couple of months. Along with the great seatpost suggestion from Mick the stabilisers will provide another option to at least get him riding round the garden and used to pedaling, and they’re £10 so I might as well just get them.

Thanks for all the responses by the way, very helpful.

If your near Staffs your welcome to try my lads Cnoc14 out…
The seatpost idea is a good one, I’d looked at it but my lad was away on his brother’s Cnoc in minutes. I’d say he was borderline 38cm, probably 35/36 when he moved up.

In terms of progression, providing they don’t grow at some phenomenal rate, the Cnoc14 feeds nicely into the Beinn20 small, whereas the Cnoc16 overlaps quite a bit with the Beinn small, & probably feeds to the Beinn large. My lads are 20 months apart, & so far the hand-me-down has worked well.

Nowhere near Staffs but thanks for the offer. If the seatpost thing doesn’t bring it down enough I’ll just put stabilisers on it for a while so he can practice pedaling.

Hopefully once we get past this hurdle the hand me down bikes will work out well – everything else seems to.

I did the mod so my short legged youngest could fit a Ridgeback MX 16.

I also carefully cut down the frame, removing some excess length from the top of the seat tube to drop the clamp, gaining about 35mm in total (20mm from the seatpost mod and 15mm from trimming the frame). You probably won’t want to trim a new Islabike…….. 🙂

Hopefully these photos work!

A trick I found with another bike/seat post/leg length issue. Some cheap bikes don’t have rails on the seat, but the post bonds directly into the seat. This can mean the top of seat can be much lower than one with rails. I got the last post from the council recycling depot, but had to be shimmed a bit with a coke can…

My youngest lad was riding a Cnoc 14 with a sub 38cm inside leg. Just buy it and get your lad riding. Forget the stabilisers!

Mick – thanks for the photos, looks easy enough and like you did a good job cutting the frame. I’ll definitely not be taking a hacksaw to a new Isla though 🙂

Yetidave – another good option, thanks.

Another win for the collective wisdom of STW I’d say!

Personally I think she’s talking crap.

Because of course Isla Rowntree knows nothing about kids riding bikes 🙄

The issue with getting one with stabilisers is that if they’re under the minimum height spec they’ll struggle to pedal it with stabilisers – the spec is based on the distance from the saddle to the pedals, not the ground. I’ve checked our Cnoc 14 which I’ve modded to get the saddle a bit lower and it’s 36cm saddle to pedals, 46cm saddle to ground, so as mentioned above would be no good as a balance bike (my youngest is still a bit too small to happily use it in balance bike mode but whizzing around pedalling).

My mod is similar to yetidave’s suggestion – you’ll note that the saddle on a Rothan mounts straight to the seatpost as he suggests, so I just bought another seatpost the right size cheap from ebay cut it down to fit and put the Rothan saddle on. Worked well for mine with over 2yrs gap, but not so handy for yours where you want the saddle right down on the Rothan (you can fit the unused saddle and seatpost from the Cnoc in a Rothan as the post is the same size – is what I did for the transition when starting on the Cnoc – but it won’t be as low as stock). Can’t be too hard to get a saddle like that though.

Go to your local recyling centre and get them a bike that fits for less than £10 and spend a hour getting it in good condition. When they grow out of it in 6-8 months time you haven’t wasted a shed load of cash

Don’t go back to stabilisers if he/she is used to the balance bike.

My daughter learnt to balance on a balance bike and is now whizzing around on a cnoc 14, never used stabilisers. I would thoroughly recommend islabikes and their customer service is excellent. I would go with the advice, based on my experience, of going from a balance bike to a pedal bike with no stabilisers. Perserverence is the key and the joy of seeing your child riding a bike makes it all worth while.

Get your son stretched.. 10 minutes tied by his arms and legs between two horses should see a reasonable gain. You could always prepare him for a future in professional cycling by starting him on somatropin which should see some great results and also aid his recovery on the mountain stages.

2cm is barely worth worrying over ,worst case just make sure he’s wearing thick socks and footwear with a thick sole when using it, both add a bit of artificial length to his legs until he has grown a bit more.

Ever noticed the difference when driving in trainers/boots compared to driving when wearing sandals you do have to stretch/flex you foot a bit more to compensate.

Somatropin eh? Is that the stuff that they used to put in Sunny Delight?

Was considering a £10 clunker as a short term fix but it might not be necessary. As above, I think we’ll be able to get the 2cm back by using a different seat post.