DI.A 2015 Breakout Sessions | Kids Bikes; Supporting Future Talent

What’s the first thing you do when you check out a new bike or someone else’s? You grab it and lift it off the ground, true? Well I’m guessing that’s the case with a vast amount of riders out there. For the bike weight obsessed riders of today we all like to feel the weight of a bike, but how lucky we are as parents (like myself) that our kids don’t do the same when given a new bike! Have you ever felt a new kids bike and thought ‘wow that’s light’? I have to admit until we did the Design Innovation Award I had no idea there were kids full-suss bikes out there, it would seem that finally it is something that bike companies are catching onto. Not only are bikes getting more usable for kids and put together with a lot more trickery, grips, bars, cranks and levers are even being made smaller to suit kids little hands.

This is now all a far cry from when I was a lad, learning to ride on my farmer mate’s old solid tire’d junker bike, it was far too big for me, really old and as heavy as a car! I was a real latecomer to the world of proper MTBing for my age, 25 years old was when I got my first proper bike, way past the age of needing a decent kids bike. But now at the tender age of 43 with kids of 6 and 8 years old, this is a subject that is really close to my heart. I am slowly getting my kids into the riding without trying to be that ‘pushy dad’, so seeing what proper bikes and kit is out there now is all new to me, but I find the excitement of getting the kids kitted out with new biking stuff just as exciting as sorting my own tack out.

Back to the DI.A, amongst the bikes was one sent over from Propain Bikes called the Frechdax, this just blew me away, admittedly the brakes were adult size and the cranks were cut down, re-drilled and threaded to be shorter, but this thing just rocks. It’s a full-suss trick looking little mean machine, one worthy of any proud biking dad’s workshop, in mine it would be on full display with my steads. I really had no clue things in the kids bike market had starting to move on this fast, the only kids specific bikes I originally knew about were the hardtail Isla Bikes, local to me and making a big noise globally now! I hooked up with 12 year old top DH rider and one of our DIA jury, Vali Holl, to ask her some stuff about her past bikes as she grew up.

So run me through your bikes from starting out till now?
I had one of the little tiny cheap kids bikes, it wasn’t so cool though, then there was a Scott hardtail followed by a Kona Stinky, this was my first kind of cool bike. Then I got the YT kids edition bike, this was a 26” and it was real nice machine.

With big emphasis on tires for all the newer wheel sizes in MTB, do you think the lack of tire choice for smaller kids bikes should be addressed, were you held back as a young kid by lack of grip?
Yeh, I really think they should look into the quality and choice of tires used on smaller kids bikes. It’s a real pain when you ride DH, all the kids running on the 26” wheels have the proper spikes for example in the mud and you only have what comes on the bike. On the rocks too, it was terrible, as you only had this one pair of hard compound rubbish tires, making it very slippy and quite dangerous sometimes.

As adults with our obsession towards bike weights, did you notice as a kid just how heavy your bikes were before getting a larger competitive machine?
Only really when I used to push up my bike onto the lifts or up the hills, I had to get my dad to do it, as it was just too much, I’m pretty glad those days are over!

So in all it looks like we are finally seeing some much needed waves of change in the world of kids bikes. Hopefully parents won’t need to start customising cheaper bikes and parts to suit the demands of their little rippers. Maybe soon we shall see a time where all good bike shops will stock not only high-end adult bikes, but matching versions of the kids machines, bikes that are fully kitted out ready for those nippers to hit the trails with their proud parents. Lets face it, as the average age of the recreational MTB rider goes up into the realms of the ‘mid life crisis’ then the age of which trick bikes are suited to should also come down for their kids, I personally can’t wait!

Words: Jim Buchanan Photos: Trev Worsey

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