Wtf. £400 for a homemade balance bike

Now you too can piss money up the wall[/url]

Hey, Ulysses won’t ride any old shit!

The only WTF here is WTF is your problem with it?

Looks pretty cool to me 🙂

crikey, brilliant. Sublime even.

Cross-Contamination.

next up:
*some traveller just stole my balance bike*

Seems pretty cheap for a framebuilding course to me.

jesus, more money than sense

get a second hand one from that auction site for all the time the kids will spend on it

You’ll presumably learn a lot of the skills you’d need to make a proper frame, but won’t be shelling out 2K+. Seems decent to me.

The only WTF here is WTF is your problem with it

Seriously?

£500 for a bike without pedals that will see about 8 months use?

Good for bragging rights in the playground, but only to other parents who are blessed with more money than sense.

I think viewing this as £500 to get a balance bike is like viewing running the London Marathon as a rather faffy way to get a big bit of tin foil.

Hey, Ulysses won’t ride any old shit!

Best
Post
EVAHHHHH!

Don’t think of it as £400 for a bike, think of it as £400 for a solid introduction to frame building?

I live/work in a hipstery part of town.

I have a shed.

Bizness innit.

But I don’t have £400.

Tomhoward or a way to make good money out of folk.

It’s £400 for a course and you happen to produce a bike at the end of it…. spending 400 quid on just a balance bike would be daft

I have to say, it’s targeted at STW with accuracy that Bernie the Bolt could only dream of.

I’m obviously missing the point but I wont be missing £420 and my son wont be missing that extra 1lb+ in bike weight. 😆

Hey, Ulysses won’t ride any old shit!

Where’s the placenta rack?

I made my grandson a 10″ wheel balance bike from a horrid Argos Thomas the Tank monstrosity and he started mooching about on it just before his 2nd birthday. He’s grown out of it now he’s just turned 3 (it gets a bit unstable at speed) so he’s got a bigger one, which he quite enjoys whizzing about in Stafford’s skate bowl.

Seriously?

£500 for a bike without pedals that will see about 8 months use?
To have hand build your childs first bike would have been ace i would have done this had I know with mine tbh and keep the bike for them, for me and for the grand kids

Top post as well crikey

“Hey, Ulysses won’t ride any old shit! “

Is this the Ulysses of the placenta fame…?

DrP

EDIT – saw the placenta thing on another website, then this post, THEN the placenta post on here…so, to answer my own question. Yes DrP, it is.
Thanks…

I’d have built both of my boys one of these if they’d have been doing these before, sadly they’re both far to big for these now. It’d be nice to see my grandchildren riding bikes I’d made many moons before.

Saleem in 20yrs+?

Has anyone handed down a Budgie, Strika, Griffter etc or are they usually rustin in a shed/binned in numerous moves etc?

Its a nice thought but close on 500 is a tad silly.

If that’s too much for a balance bike, you could opt to pay them £700 to build a ‘proper’ frame. You won’t get to keep it (it’ll be Africa bound), but the skills you acquired to make it will be yours forever…

I’m obviously missing the point

Well that’s a surprise

I’m obviously missing the point…

That’ll be a first…

Chomp. I wont take anyone seriously who selective misquotes another.

get a second hand one from that auction site for all the time the kids will spend on it

Well done for spectacularly missing the point. Now run along to Argos…

Try and book pretty much any 2-day course for £400 and see what change you get.
I work in a College so that sounds about normal.

Its not missing the point though.

We ‘bikers’ focus on weight of bikes alot. For me 1lb extra to a small child is a lot. The exercise seems focused marketing on the dad handcrafting something lovingly for his young child whereas a balance bike for a small child should be light, its about enjoyment- the heavier the bike the harder for a 2yr old to heft around. As I said our balance bike is 1lb 5oz lighter. Its an exercise in selfishness to a degree. its not about pleasing the child but the father first. A sort of ulterior motive.

A BETTER act would be to build a small play house from scratch in your back garden.

I’m not missing the point (as misquoted by the two monkeys above) I just don’t think its a good idea. Lightness, ride then go bloody niche later.

Hora’s right.
Rather do the 5 day course for £700, at least you will gain the skills and have the experience of building a complete diamond frame. The 5 day courses say they’ve a 2:1 instructor ratio, no mention of what it is on this course. Do you get to bend the tubes? Build the wheels? No mention. And I’m buggered if you could build one for £30 in materials.

Crikey’s Ulysses and target market comments are spot
I’d rather spend the money doing things with my kid at that age than building them something they’ll never appreciate. Just a oneupmanship thing for dads down at the monthly NCT pub meet.

TBA- bandwagon jumping

Its money for old rope perhaps and you probably would learn as much on a college welding course. It does make me wonder if these new “I want to be a bike frame builder” will do more harm than good

I certainly wouldn’t be parting with my money especially as some of the newcomers have built 5 or 6 frames after doing a course somewhere.

As for using build your child its first bike as a marketing tool to get custom ,what a cock

A self-built mountain bike frame would last you years and years of use (well maybe you/others as it’d be over —–> if it was me) 8)

How many welds/complexity really is there on a balance bike?

I guess if you have the money then £500 would be fine but if its used they get bashed/scratched etc and will spend a day outside in the rain at somepoint 😀

Hora, as with most things you post about, your wrong.

I don’t see the problem with it.

£400 to learn how to mitre, braze use tools etc and a little bike at the end of it. Gives you the basics to go home and have a go yourself. You also a little bike out of it.

b r most of your posts are like chewing gum for the eyes.

If you break down their costs, I am sure you will see a fair but not excessive profit.
When you glance at a price tag it’s easy to assume WTF, but when considered the true costs….
Vat?
Rent
Tooling
Tutors
Insurance
Advertising
Accounts
Electricity etc
…. It’s all probably quite reasonable.

£400 to learn new skills, set you off in a new hobby, keep yourself out of trouble for two days, and then have a kids bike that might get passed down for generations. Seems ok to me. Alternatively you could almost get a king hub, or two inbred frames, or 4 bikes from halfords.

I also just simply like businesses like this, nice guys, with a passion they want to share.

This is a rubbish idea. It’s not even a carbon frame.

At least you get to keep the frame. I saw TBA at Bespoked and just assumed they offered frame building courses, however it appears you pay your money and you don’t actually get to hang it on your wall “someone who needs it will benefit from it”

700 quid gets you a course from a pro builder like Dave Yates or even a good 2/3rds of a frame actually made by a pro builder, Ben Cooper could build me a frame for my kid for £400 ,a balance bike

Cracking little idea I think, I would do it for sure. Get some serious knowledge and a cool little bike for Tarquin…

On the subject of balance bikes, Hora – I seem to recall that you regarded £40 as completely OTT for one. And Islabikes as the pinnacle of almost insanely wanton decadence, and ludicrous indulgence of an over-pampered offspring.

Then the £30 POS you bought instead promptly fell apart 😆

Yup, then we bought this (now battle-scarred). If your kid uses them for more than just gentle towpath/park riding they get ‘used’ 8)