Isla Bikes

[Smudger]

Anyone heard of them?

We took the boy to the bike shop to get a bike seat for him (see Giant Child thread for details) and while we were there, he started pedalling round on a sky-branded mini BMX thing. The wife and I were shocked, as he's never even tried to pedal before, and refuses if we put him on anything with pedals. With this epiphany reached, we thought maybe we'd get him a proper bike for his upcoming birthday. So according to the height chart, he needs a 16" wheel, and apparently the best ones are Islabikes, which are nice and light but come in at £280 for his size. Are they worth it? I'm seeing a lot of cheap rubbish out there, and anything decent seems expensive. Mind you, there's a few Specialized and the like ones going for about £135-£150 which doesn't seem to be too bad.

One thing on the side of the Islabike is that second hand they go for £180 ish, so at least it would have a decent resale value.

Edit: Just had a look at the Islabike CNOC Pro series. £800! For a kid's bike!

http://www.islabikes.co.uk/products/...-16-pro-series

[satrow]

Islabikes have a very good reputation for designing real bikes that are suitably scaled for children, providing those proportional features whilst keeping weight low (by using high tech quality components) costs money.

To get a basic scale of the weight issue, many kids bikes in the £100-150 range are in the 9-12kilo weight range, getting something close to the 6.8kilo bike weight used in the Tour de France and other Pro races, would require shifting up around £200 range. The lighter the bike, the quicker the child will become confident and they'll soon be comfortable on 'longer' rides.

That CNOC Pro really is the kids equivalent of a high quality touring/racing machine, coming in at ~5.5kilos and has a carrying capacity of 30kilos, it's something that could cope with bicycle camping/touring holidays at 5/6/7 years old, most other kids bikes are boat anchors in comparison.

Taking a look at the Frog range, the 48 (6.8Kilo) might be a good comparison starting point: http://www.thelittlebikecompany.co.u...d/frog-48.html (I think that shop is relatively close to you).

[Smudger]

That CNOC Pro really is the kids equivalent of a high quality touring/racing machine, coming in at ~5.5kilos and has a carrying capacity of 30kilos, it's something that could cope with bicycle camping/touring holidays at 5/6/7 years old, most other kids bikes are boat anchors in comparison.

Taking a look at the Frog range, the 48 (6.8Kilo) might be a good comparison starting point: http://www.thelittlebikecompany.co.u...d/frog-48.html (I think that shop is relatively close to you).

My boy is coming up to 3 and is 23 kilos and 3ft 10in. Don't think he'll still be on this bike when he's 7! I've heard of Frog bikes, I'll take a look, thanks.

Edit: Turns out the Sky branded thing was a Frog! It's a sign! He seemed pretty comfortable on it...

[Smudger]

Well, we've had a Frog 48 Team Sky put aside, we'll see how he gets on with it.

Looks pretty cool to me...