Apparently the riders are supposed to “enjoy” the 6 mile cool down (uphill) on the way back….

Did you all have fun?

I took the kids and they enjoyed it hot choc/treasure hunt with chocolate medals/pump track/stalls giving out free sweets. What’s not to like?! :lol:

SamB, have mailed you :)

The Zoom one looks perfect but will take too long to arrive unfortunately

Thanks all :lol:

How to decide…hmmm I think Easton Havoc sounds a bit better than a Truvativ shitty ;) As long as the price is right :)

Thanks, but I htink 70mm would be too long :)

perfect, thanks.

I have just bought him a nice new (second-hand) bar :oops: Should have looked at stems before I did that I suppose!

The ones on his bike at the moment are steel. I also have a new fork for him. I’m thinking I should just replace the headset too while I’m at it?

Great photo :) And I love back gardens that look like mine – ad hoc ramps and jumps :D

Had my 7 year old out for the first really proper ride we’ve done together.

Long climb up: me – pedalling away steadily in the climbing “zone” him – chatting away, pointing things out, turning round to ask questions…. I felt like saying “can’t you see I’m trying climb a hill here?!”

Twisty, tricky, rooty singletrack descent: Him – confident, fast and flowing, me – not so confident, fast and flowing :oops:

Kip – She must be really tiny as my son is the smallest among all the kids at nursery! Sounds like she is very confident though and I bet she will be off as soon as you try her with a pedal bike.

My son has been using the 16″ bike with v-brakes since just before he turned 3 and he can manage the levers fine. I presume that the levers and brakes on an Islabike will be similar.

Let us know how you get on if she has a try on an Islabike.

Kip – 12″ Hotrock – my youngest son got it for his second birthday when he was 83cm tall.

We did cut the seatpost down, but he still couldn’t reach the ground enough to get a foot down when he stopped. However he could still ride it perfectly – only he needed me to run with him for a maybe 6 weeks so I could catch him when he stopped!

He has moved onto a 16″ wheel bike now he is 3, but he is still only about 93cm tall and the Hotrock looks tiny now. He managed fine with the coaster brake, but it does make it harder to get started as you can’t move the pedals back into the right position.

Do you know anyone with a Cnoc 14 you could try her on?

Loving the stories and photos :)

Took my 7 year old out tonight on some technical singletrack descents. He had great fun and was actually awesome :lol:

Whinlatter is a fantastic blue IMO

thanks, just realised how far away it is for us unfortunately :(

Planning to do the whole of Glenlivet blue soon, all 5.5 miles. But we will be stopping loads (jellybaby anyone?)

We weren’t the only ones that found the new Nevis Range blue descent a bit trickier than expected. Apparently even the green is a bit red in places :roll:

Sounds fun. :)

What sort of blue are GT and Whinlatter? I’ve taken my 3 year old to Glenlivet and he has done some of the blue trail (the end bit from the track, about 1.5 miles after a wee push up) and he really loved it – we did it twice it was such fun. But then we did the new blue descent trail at Nevis range and it was so much trickier – narrower with sharper turns and a looser rockier surface. I thought he would be fine as he rides the lower orange at Laggan, but it was a bit challenging.

Wondering which other trails would be suitable.

http://clearybikes.com/products/copy-of-starfish-cream-12-balance-bike

Lovely!

That mini mango is lovely.

You can buy a front brake for the Kokua Jumper. However I am an advocate of sturdy shoes instead of brakes for balance bikes.

My three year old has a vbrake on the front of his pedal bike and can modulate really well, down steeps and loose dirt.

tag a longs are good too you get an extra 40Kg of towage.

Not to mention the 20kg of extra crap in the rucksack that you have to carry when cycling with kids “just in case”

I’ve been getting a reputation for being good up hills and I’ve been blaming it on the 650b wheels.

Then I was out with the kids at the weekend and realised that when you’re used to having to cycle pushing a three year old up every hill, then a hill when you don’t have to push a three year old up it is so much easier.

And that’s a training tip you can have for free.

I got my rocket rons on ebay. They were used but as good as new and got them very cheap. (This is when someone comes along and says some mug bought their worn out rocket rons for a fortune on ebay…)

I couldn’t find those when I was looking – where did you get them from?

Do you mean the Spawn cranks? Directly from Spawn in Canada but they are out of stock now.

But back to tyres, I just got Rocket Rons for my 7 year old’s 24″ and was impressed how light they are, and he is impressed with the grip.

I used cranks from Spawn cycles[/url] with a 64mm BCD they worked out cheaper from Canada than I could get Sinz in the UK. Anyway Sinz would have been too long as I went for 89mm, seeing as my build was for a three year old (actually he was still 2 then!) :D

My wee one’s first pedal bike had a back pedal brake and those do the best skids! :lol:

Since he got a front vbrake at 3 and a couple of months I trust his control coming down anything.

Sounds like she is very ready for a pedal bike. The thing that annoys me about balance bikes with brakes is that they are usually rear brakes and imo it is more useful for a small child to learn from the beginning that front brake is “better”. Unless they like skids that is :lol:

My youngest was on a pedal bike 3 months after he started riding a balance bike. And as he started riding a balance bike at 19 months that was some feat! :lol:

A year and a half after he learnt to ride he still occasionally takes his balance bike out for a blast and do jumps and tricks.

I would have the saddle low enough to get both feet comfortably flat on the ground.

Peabrain fail. My son was not 87cm at 19 months when he was big enough for the puky lrm. That was his height a year later… So he was about 81cm I think.

11 month old on a Strider

Also the Strider seat goes very low (even lower than Puky I think) but IMO Puky is better as the whole bike is scaled down – 10″ wheels, small bars with easy reach, whereas Strider goes up to the age of 5 so not so easy for a small toddler to manage.

We got ours the smallest Puky (LRM) at 13 months, we knew it would be too big but it was Christmas. He is small for his age but was big enough by 19 months when he was about 87cm tall.

He was coasting around with feet up within weeks and riding a pedal bike with no stabilisers at 22 months.

So my advice is get one!

How far and busy roads or not?

you have mail.

Hopefully still valid

I second (third?) a second hand Ridgeback

I’ve been on the other side of this, but luckily my son wasn’t hit.

We were at one of those bikefest things, and there was an airbag set up. Riders were cycling very fast down a path towards the airbag, and we were walking up beside the path.

Quick as a flash my 2 year old ran out in front of a bike. The (lovely lovely) young man stopped his bike just in time. I said something along the lines of “Thank goodness for brakes!” All the BMXers looked at me and said “He doesn’t have brakes…”

http://www.muddypuddles.com/

The metal ones tend to be smaller than the wooden ones. Puky LRM and Strider are the smallest. Strider lasts longer as it has bigger wheels and longer reach, but Puky LRM is great because it is so tiny (my son was on it at 19months and he is very small for his age)

For slightly bigger kids (IIRC my son was 2.5) the LikeaBike Jumper is the bees knees.

hora – may I ask why your son doesn’t like his Cnoc 16?

At 9 months it was a BBB ones from the Dutch Trading Company when I bought a BoBike Mini.

That lasted until through many adventures on bike seat/balance bike/pedal bike until he was 3 then we upgraded to a Uvex Hero.

I’ve got some skis for my youngest’s bike…

I am also encouraging the habit in the young ones. The littlest had 4 bikes when he was still 2…

Hilarious. I have 4 bikes. I am the wife :D

My poor husband has 0 at the moment, though he is looking for a new road bike. Luckily he seems to understand my habit and surprises me occasionally with a new bike…

http://www.likeabike.co.uk/likeabike_spares/likeabike_jumper_saddle.php

Good saddle here