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Question about kids' bikes

Tsugaru American

Speeding Up
Jul 22, 2016
38
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Hi everyone. First thanks for letting me in I promise I won't annoy too many of you. Anyway, in all honesty, I live up in Aomori City, Aomori, so while the cycling scene around here is actually pretty active, it's nice to find a site where I can use my native language to talk about bike stuff.

Anyway, I'm just wondering, for those of you who have children, what are you doing for quality kids' bikes? My oldest daughter is quickly outgrowing her current bike and so I have begun looking for her next one. I know that Frog Bikes has stores in south of us, but, I can't find many good kids' bikes available here, granted that may be because I am way out in the country, but still. The bikes I do see at the LBS are all still really heavy, and none of the stores around here stock Frog. Any recommendations? Thanks, in advance.
 
Hi there, Aomori here as well. How old is your daughter? My kids are 13 and 10 and what I did while they were and still are growing is to buy sports bikes usually MTB or BMX used and then flick them on again as they grew out of them. I went for used Giants and such as the name meant pretty good resale, sometimes a gain on the resale.
 
I am in the same situation, looking for my 10 y.o daughter - she has had a Jamis Trail X1 for 3 years now but it is about 14 Kgs and she now wants something a bit faster. She is very big for her age (160 cms). We are looking at Giant, Defy 3 or 4 or similar. We are keeping an eye out on Yahoo Auction......
 
Just watch that you keep the gear ratios very light. At her height she can easily ride an adult geared bike but with still developing joints those tall gears could seriously fudge her knees up. Great selection at that size however.
 
@George5, yeah that is kind of what we did with the current bike. Got it used from a bike shop. It's an okay bike, the only thing is the weight. My oldest is 9, and while she hasn't shown a whole lot of interest in cycling before, this year she has started to show more. She says that she wants to join a "cycling event" (her words, no mine) but not a race, but she wants something lighter. She even asked why my road bike is so much lighter than her bike.

@PSB, yeah that is pretty tall for 10, my oldest is only 131 cm.

Also, @George5 where in Aomori are you? Here in Aomori-shi there is a small group of foreign cyclists, but it's always nice to find more for the group rides (although I have to admit to being by far the slowest).
 
I'm over by Hachinohe. Are you looking for a road or mountain bike for your daughter? At those sizes you would be better getting her into MTBing. Off road is safer, you will not be riding so fast and you can still ride on the road together albeit not at good speeds but again that is safer. She will be riding a 24" bike so any "event" you'll want it to be not very technical. Have you checked out here http://chiikikasseikakyoukai.com/ママチャリレース_2015/ They have an elementary school class race that is only two laps and I would think all riders in that class will be on "heavy" bikes. Click on the "fun to ride" link to see all the events on offer. Good luck.
 
Yeah, I know some of the people behind some of those races/rides. I have tried to get her to enter the Moya Hills MTB race, but she doesn't want to, yet. I'm thinking more of the hybrid style. While I think MTBing teaches better overall skills (my opinion) than road riding, there just aren't that many trails that are suitable for kids over here. So, yeah probably looking at a hybrid, or just a MTB with street tires instead of knobbies.

I also recently had a conversation with one of the local people for http://aomori-cycling.com/ where we talked about maybe trying to set up a Bike Rodeo. For me there are a couple of reasons, but the main two are 1 that recently whenever I take my daughter out for short rides her friends in the neighborhood all want to join. And, my god, my daughter is okay, but most of her friends' bike skills are terrible. Also, have you ever seen the "Bicycle Safety" courses put on at the schools here. The one they do at the high school where I work is basically a joke.
 
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