Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Weights of Kids Bikes
  • Brooker99
    Free Member

    I’ve been following the kiddies bikes threads with interest over the last few months.
    We need to get a new bike for our 6yo girl. Would love to get an islabike beinn (small) but the £200 price tag is off-putting same goes for Spesh hotrock girl and the ridgeback harmony (I think).
    So the current favourite is a dawes angel at £140ish and 11.5kg.
    Does anyone know how heavy the islabike and other more expensive models are? (and yes I could give Islabike a call – but thought I’d ask on here first).
    Be great if anyone could help ta

    Bimbler
    Free Member

    My daughter (7) has the Beinn large for her 6th birthday and it’s around 9kg from memory in fact

    Beinn 20 LARGE[/URL]

    £200 is a lot though, we got it pre increase for £139 or so – you will get more money back when you sell it on though

    igm
    Full Member

    Don’t know about the weights of bikes for older kids, but I weighted a Islabikes Cnoc 14 and a Giant Animator last night. Both about the same size, aimed at roughly the same market and both reputable makes.

    Giant 19.1 pounds
    Islabikes 16.2 pounds

    That’s a big different when you only weigh in at 30-40 pounds – like taking a stone and a half off my bike (relative to my weight not my bike’s) and that will make the Islabike a lot easier to ride and handle.

    So take some scales and keep thinking about whether, given the resale / buy back, the Islabikes one is really out of the question.

    Brooker99
    Free Member

    Bimbler – pants – hadn’t checked the “full spec” page – school boy error.
    I know resale will be better on the Islabike, but we’ve got a 3yo girl too, so planning to keep hold of it for a while.
    Plus (and perhaps more significantly) my wife is going to be a real challange to persuade. Especially as I don’t necessarily fit the typical stw rider – ’02 Kona Cindercone is my only bike and I only upgraded to discs last year – we’re not a householde used to spending big bucks on bikey stuff.
    8.8kg for the islabike small vs 11.5kg for a dawes is significant though – like you say IGM. And I like the scales suggestion.
    We’ll see, shopping in real life at the weekend 🙂

    StuF
    Full Member

    We piked up a s/h spesh girls hotrock off here for about 100. If you’re lucky it’ll not have had loads of use

    cycleworlduk
    Free Member

    have a look at the ridgeback harmony as its pretty light and got great kit on it….

    PLUGGER
    Free Member

    Lightweight kids bikes cost more money. Lighter materials, more engineering, better design etc all costs money.

    If you want light, pay the extra, it’s worth it.

    Unless you give your kids steroids, they don’t grow out of bikes within a year.

    You usually get 2-3 years growth out of a decent kids bike.

    Look at it this way, £300 kids bike for 3 years.

    Thats 156 weeks = £1.92 per week. Thats value for money if you ask me.

    Put £2 a week aside for the next 3 years, when your nipper grows out their existing bike, you’ve got £312 towards a new one, plus any proceeds from selling the old one.

    Keep ’em in good nick, and if you’re little darlings can’t look after a bike, then shame on you for not bringing them up to look after things!

    Good lightweight kids bikes…Islabikes/Marin/Specialized and Giant.

    mountaincarrot
    Free Member

    My daughter (6) rides a 25 year old Raleigh donated by a neighbour. It’s got a skinny steel frame, and is completely free of stupid heavy chunks of useless suspension forks and fat tubing. It’s nice and light, much better than most modern kids bikes.

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    Did anyone actually notice the weight of their bikes when they were kids?

    We just rode any old shite – and did skids and wheelies!!

    antigee
    Full Member

    well if you’re near wakefield
    http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-kids-ridgeback-mx16-16-wheel-light-alloy-frame-silver
    in the classifieds today – our oldest has one of these and has got good use out of it – forks are a little heavy but compared to the appollo/raleigh/townsend etc they are a well spec’d bike – youngest has a specialized but around £200 new and that is a very nice bike for the money
    but as others have said they are both happy on mates old bmx’s and whatevers – just means pushing a bit more when on longer rides

    antigee
    Full Member

    ps i don’t know the poster in classifieds!

    Brooker99
    Free Member

    thanks for the tip anti – around winchester so a bit far for wakefield!
    plugger – good reasoning – will try that with the mrs

    cycleworlduk – Member
    have a look at the ridgeback harmony as its pretty light and got great kit on it….

    do you stock them?
    does it come in pink? 😉
    do you have one in romsey or soton stores?
    how heavy?

    I know we were happy on big heavy lumps – I loved my tommahawk – but I’ve seen too many comments on here about kids lending to mates and comparing with apollo etc and commenting on the difference.

    carrot – I can’t see the point of bouncy forks at this stage of biking either

    thanks for the comments all…

    Aidan
    Free Member

    Weight is important, but I’m not sure it’s worth sweating the extra cost of an Islabike.

    I teach cycling safety in schools and kids do struggle when they have some awful £50 full-sus that weighs a ton, but I’ve only ever seen one kid on an Islabike. We take 10 year olds on rides that can be 10 miles long and they’re usually ok on whatever bike they have. The biggest difference is whether their parents ever take them out riding (which does tend to correlate with them having nicer bikes).

    Smaller children will obviously be more sensitive to extra weight than the 10 year olds, but I don’t think you’d do wrong by them if you didn’t spend top-money. One thing to check on cheaper bikes is whether or not they can change the gears. Lots of low-end bikes come with terrible grip-shift that I can barely move myself so the children have no chance. Slightly better ones still have grip-shift but it actually works.

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