Bikes at the Course

Please do not worry about getting a bike for your child prior to the course as we provide all the bikes for the children at the course.

We use the best children's bikes - lightweight with great components. The brakes in particular are excellently designed, effective and easy to use. We have also made a few adaptations to our bikes to aid the learning process.

We have bikes of all different sizes, from the very smallest pedal bikes up to small adult sized bikes.

Bike Buying Advice

If you have booked your child on to the Pedal Project course we guarantee to get them pedalling safely without stabilisers.

Once they have learnt, it is essential that they are able to practise in the days and weeks immediately following their course. Forget the phrase “it’s like riding a bike” as the skill can easily be lost without practice straight away.

In order to practise, your child will need a suitable bike to ride. If you don’t yet have a bike, the best thing to do is wait till the course starts as we’ll be able to give you expert advice on bikes at the end of the first session and we’ll be able to size your child to a bike in person.

However if you’d like more information at this point, or you’d like to buy them a bike before the course here are some important things to consider before making the purchase.

What makes a good - or bad - children's bike?

There is a huge amount of choice when it comes to buying children’s bikes and a very wide range of quality. Here we will set out the different things to consider when looking for a children's bike.

Weight

This is perhaps the most important factor. The best children’s bikes are lightweight, with aluminium frames rather than heavier steel. Lightweight bikes are much easier for the child to get started and for them to maintain enough speed in order to be able to balance well enough to cycle.

If a child’s bike feels heavy for you to lift, imagine what it would be like for your child to ride. Children’s bikes can be incredibly heavy – half as heavy as the rider in some cases. Most adult bikes are 9-12kg, with the very heaviest being around 15kg, or just over 2 stone. Now imagine riding a bike that weighs half as much as you do.

Avoid any extras on the bike that add unnecessary weight. The worst example of this for children’s bikes is suspension on so-called mountain bikes. These suspension forks, and sometimes rear suspension as well, do nothing but add considerable weight. They are never of good enough quality to actually provide proper suspension, and in any case suspension is only needed on a bike for serious off-road cycling and downhill racing. Without exception, avoid suspension on children’s bikes.

(Well ok, there are exceptions where suspension is appropriate, but these are expensive children’s mountain bikes with high quality suspension that works, to be used for serious off-road and downhill trails, such as the Frog 62 Mountain Bike. A very nice bike, for sure, but not what we’d normally recommend as a first bike.)

Brakes

Good quality brakes are obviously important. With cheaper bikes the brakes are usually difficult to use and can also be ineffective. The most common problem is that the brake levers (that the child pulls to engage the brake) are too big, so the child can’t reach them easily enough to use them. If the child’s fingers have to be straight in order to just about reach the levers with their fingertips, they aren’t going to have enough strength to pull the lever effectively.

Most of the best children’s bikes use a lever made by Tektro that is designed around smaller hands. It has a shorter reach, so the child can reach it easily and pull the lever with enough strength to engage the brake well.

There are other elements to the brake such as the cabling and the brake mechanism itself, which also have a bearing on how well the brake will work, but the levers are the main thing to watch out for.

Gears

The smallest children’s pedal bikes (wheel sizes 14”, 16” and 18”) will only have one gear, so this isn’t a factor.

Children’s bikes with 20” wheels and bigger usually have gears. The better children’s bikes just have one gear (chainring) at the front and 7 or 8 gears at the back. Therefore there is only one gear shifter, usually operated by the right hand, for the gears on the back wheel.

If there are 2 or 3 chainrings at the front, this complicates things for the rider, adds weight and also means extra maintenance.

Geometry and Design

The geometry of the bike can most easily be thought of as where the three main points of contact are in relation to each other - the handlebars, the saddle and the pedals.

Let’s take the saddle as the starting point, as that has to be at a set point above the ground, depending on the inside leg measurement of the child.

If the bike is badly designed, the handlebars will be too high up and close horizontally to the saddle. This has the effect that the child is sitting bolt upright on the bike. The bike is then a lot harder to handle and steer, because the child’s weight is not distributed well between the saddle and the handlebars (not enough weight on the handlebars).

On to the pedals. On a badly designed bike the cranks (which the pedals attach to) will be relatively long, making the circles the pedals describe bigger, and therefore at the top of the pedal stroke, the child’s knees are up really high. Also on a badly designed bike, the bottom bracket (where the cranks meet the frame) will be higher off the ground, exaggerating the problem of the knees being high. The problem is at its worst on children’s BMX style bikes.

A well designed children’s bike will have a similar geometry to a standard adult hybrid bike (just smaller) which means the child has a comfortable riding position on the bike and they will find it a lot easier to handle.

If it has a cartoon design it isn’t likely to be very fun to ride. Think Hello Kitty, Bat or Spiderman, princess (various), cupcake, firechief… Very little investment is given to the design of the bike so much as the decals stuck on to it. 

The best brands - Islabikes and Frog Bikes

Islabikes is the brand of bikes we use at the course. They started in 2006 and took all the factors above - and more - into consideration and were the first to make really good children’s bikes..

Unfortunately Islabikes ceased trading towards the end of 2023 so it is no longer possible to buy Islabikes new.  However, there has always been a good second hand market in Islabikes, so you should definitely consider that.

Frog Bikes started in 2013 and are still going strong! They make excellent bikes (all built in their manufacturing facility in Pontypool, Wales), ticking all the boxes discussed above. If you are buying new (or indeed second hand), we would definitely recommend Frog Bikes.

The bad news about good quality bikes is that they are expensive. The smallest pedal bikes from Frog are £380 and they go up to nearly £500 for the largest children’s bikes. When they were still trading, Islabikes were a bit more expensive still.

However, Frog Bikes and Islabikes hold their value incredibly well, so they are very good investments.

You are unlikely to ever find a second hand bike in either brand for less than £200, and they usually go for more.

Whereas if you buy a cheaper bike new for £100-£150, it will be a bad bike and you will get next to nothing for it second hand.

The best of the rest

Where Islabikes and Frog Bikes led the way, others have followed. Good brands include Squish, Boardman and Woom. The Cosmos 14” or 16” is a good bike for the smaller riders.

There are some good brands that no longer make bikes, but you could look for second hand - Forme, Hoy and Wiggins amongst them.

Just be aware that it’s only really Islabikes and Frog Bikes that have the reputation that means you can be pretty sure of a good resale value.

Cheaper brands or buying second hand

As with many purchases for your child, they will grow out of their bike sooner or later so we quite understand that it may be difficult to justify spending a lot of money.

But unfortunately any children’s bike that sells new for £150 or less will almost certainly not be very good. It will be heavy and mostly likely be badly designed, with poor quality brakes.

We would always suggest spending your money on a better bike second hand than a less good bike new.

It will be a far more enjoyable and safe bike for your child and the chances are you will get most of your money back when you sell it on. If you spent the same amount of money on a new bike, the bike would be of poorer quality and it will most likely devalue far more than the better bike bought second hand.

Hiring

Another alternative that is cheaper in the short term is hiring a bike, via The Bike Club. They have a wide selection of bikes, all of which are good quality. Just bear in mind that over time, it may end up more expensive than buying an Islabike or Frog Bike second hand, as with that option you will get most if not all of your money back on resale. But The Bike Club is a great option if you don't want to spend lots of money up front. 

Sizing

Children’s bikes are sized according to their wheel size. 14″, 16″, 18″ (rare), 20″, 22" (rare), 24″ or 26″ in diameter.

However, this isn’t a universal measurement. So if they fit a particular wheel size in one brand, that doesn’t mean they will fit the same wheel size in another brand. If you are checking sizing online, make sure you check for each brand separately.

If you are looking to get a second hand Islabikes, it would be best to wait for us to size your child at the end of the first session of the course as we can do that in person.

Islabikes have their sizing guide here. However, in our opinion their size guide is too optimistic. So if your child's inside leg measurement is at the minimum or just above it for a particular size, it is likely that this bike size will be too big for them and they will be on their tiptoes. The Islabikes size guide assumes the rider is very confident.

The Frog Bike size guide is here and is good in our view. You should follow the sizing according to the measurements for a tentative rider.

If you are buying from a shop, our rule is that when your child is sitting on the saddle, both their heels should be able to touch the ground. Shop assistants always try to sell bikes that are bigger than this, saying that the child should be on tiptoes. This is completely the wrong advice for a new cyclist that is still gaining confidence - their heels should be touching the ground, or at the very most 1cm off the ground. If you buy a bike where they are on tiptoes, they will really struggle to start and stop it safely and it will make the bike near impossible to ride.

The shop assistant no doubt has your best interests in mind as they want to sell you a bike that will last for longer, but please ignore this advice suggesting being on tiptoes – it is wrong.

If a child has been riding for years and is very confident, then they will be able to manage a bike that is bigger, where they cannot fully touch the ground. But if they are a new cyclist they will find it very hard – if not impossible – to start and stop a bike on which they cannot touch the ground with their heels.

Please stick to our advice on this and insist that the shop assistant finds you a bike where their heels can touch the ground.

The End

A lot of information! There is quite a lot to consider when buying a bike for your child. There are an increasing number of good options out there but there are still far more bad ones. If you are unsure about bikes or have any further questions, do email info@pedalproject.co.uk or wait till the course starts and our instructors will be able to advise at the end of the first session.