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 after the course. 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.

We sell Woom bikes new and after sizing on the first day of the course, we'll be able to get the right Woom bike ready for your child by the end of the course, full assembled and ready to ride! We think Woom is the best brand of children's bike you can buy - more details below.

Here are some important things to consider before purchasing a bike for your child...

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 Woom Off Air 4, which is Woom's 20" wheel 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.

The best children’s bikes have levers with a shorter reach, designed around smaller hands. Then 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 too far backwards when riding. The bike is then a lot harder to handle and steer.

On to the pedals. With 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 even further. 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 price of a good quality children's bike - expensive, but worth the investment

Good quality children's bikes are expensive - unfortunately there is no getting around. The smallest pedal bikes in the good brands are £300 to £400 and the prices go up as the bikes get bigger.

Obviously this is a lot of money, however they are good investments because good quality children's bikes hold their value really well. When the time comes to sell it on, you should expect to sell a good children's bike second hand for half its price new, and sometimes significantly more than that. (Although of course we aren't able to guarantee what you will get for it second hand.)

Cheap children's bike can cost less than £200 new; some are sold for less than £100 new. However, when you come to sell it on, you are unlikely to get hardly anything for it, and it will have been a really bad bike to ride in the meantime!

If you can't justify the price of a good quality bike new, our advice is to look second hand to try and find a good price on one second hand one.

The best brand if buying new - Woom

At Pedal Project we think Woom bikes are the best children's bikes you can buy. Woom are a less well known in the UK than some other brands (they are an Austrian company) but they are gaining popularity fast.

Woom bikes are incredibly light. The smaller ones especially (14", 16" and 20" wheels) are significantly lighter than the equivalent sized bikes in other leading brands such as Frog or Squish.

There are loads of other clever design features to Woom that we could tell you about, but the main one is how it can be adjusted as your child grows. Obviously you raise the saddle as they grow, but usually you can't do much with the position of the handlebars. Woom bikes have handlebars that can pivot forwards, to lengthen the reach of the bike as the child grows, whereas with other brands all that can usually be done is raise the handlebars vertically by 2 to 3cm.

If you are interested in buying a Woom bike for your child, please wait till the start of their course, as we will be able to size them up accurately after the first session. You will be able to buy the bike from us as we are an approved dealer. After sizing on the first day of the course, if you decide to buy the bike, we will have it ready for you to take away on the third session of the course, fully assembled and checked over by us. We'll be able to add any extras you may want, such as a kickstand and mudguards.

If looking second hand - Islabikes

Islabikes started making bikes in 2006 and certainly blazed the trail for good quality lightweight children's bikes. However in 2023 Islabikes stopped making bikes, so you won't be able to find one new. There is a good second hand market in Islabikes as they were around for so long and very popular in that time.

If you would rather spend less than the price of a new Woom bike then we'd recommend a second hand Islabikes as the next best option.

Like Woom bikes, they were expensive when they were sold new, and they still go for a lot second hand. Obviously prices vary, but £250-£350 seems to be the sort of range they sell for second hand. You'll find them in the usual places such as ebay, Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace etc.

It is worth finding out the year of original purchase. Since the first bikes in 2006 there were many generations of Islabikes and they improved over the years and become lighter. Bikes from before 2012 are a bit heavier and their sizing may be different, so we would recommend buying a bike from 2012 onwards.

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

Frog bikes started in 2013 and are still going strong. Although we don't think they are quite as good as Woom, for a number of reasons, they are still great bikes. As with Islabikes, there is also a good second hand market in Frog bikes if you want to save a bit of money.

Other good brands include Squish and Boardman.

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

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 a good quality bike, as that way you should get a lot 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 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.