buldogge

Yep…that's why the KDRs came standard with them…but…sooner or later they have to be prepared to brake while shifting or riding the hoods!

Standalone 

A lot of the vontage jr road bikes have steel wheels, which does not help braking, either.... but the one we have was $75, and taught our eldest a lot about bike handling.

american psycho 

I was lucky enough to find a used Gary Fisher Cosmo ($100) for my son when he outgrew his China Toys-R-Us bike. Trek made the bike and there was a similar Trek model and also a girl's model available.

The adjustments on the cranks, seat, and bars make this a 3-5 year bike and it is compatible with 'standard' MTB parts from Shimano excepting the 1" quill steerer.

He was 4 and now he's 7, and I figure it will last a few more years, although I might be adding a bigger cluster in the back (10 speed?) like all the new MTBs have.

The steerer I can handle by using the 1" quill-clamp adapter then he can use standard stem & MTB bars.

GordoTrek

got my son's first 20" bike at a garage sale, a $20 Trek Mt Lion... he loved it.. then the coop had a 20" trek MT60 6speed that was much newer, they took the Mt Lion on trade, he loves the 6 speed, his first gear bike, we spent the summer kitting it out with a rack, lights and a water bottle,

might put some road tires on it this summer so he can go farther, also i got him a 24" Nishkiki Century


its a little big for him now, but it was at the coop and we don't normally come across 24" bikes so it was a nice christmas present,

we are currently rebuilding it, the bike was in terrible shape so i took that as an oppurtunity to work on the bike together... coming along nice now.. just needs a few adjustments and it should be ready to go

not_jason

I work at a big box retail chain that shall remain nameless. A few years ago my boss found out that I'm a bicycle mechanic, and consequently I occasionally get pulled down to the back to put the new bikes together. Of course I was already aware that these were low quality bikes, but I'm continuously shocked to realize how much worse they are than I originally suspected. Every wheel comes out of the box tremendously out of true (we have no tools to fix this and I'm the only employee with any inkling of a clue on how to true them). The headsets and bottom brackets come pre-installed from the factory, often torqued far beyond recommended specs. It's not uncommon for me to pull a bike out of a box with a headset so stiff I can hardly turn the handlebars. I always fix the headsets, but again, we have no bottom bracket tools. If I can't fix it with a pair of channel-locks, it probably doesn't get fixed. The practice of steel arms on square-taper 3 piece cranks continues to disturb me. Every summer we get about a half dozen returns on bikes that have problems with crank arms falling off. Most bikes come with the rear wheel already bolted on. I have worked on at least a few 12 and 16 inch kids' bikes where the chains were overtight and the axle nuts were so tight I could not move them.

On the upside, braking systems have improved dramatically on department store bikes since I was last riding them in the mid-90s. Its no longer common to see brake levers made entirely of soft plastic, and cheap ineffective caliper brakes have been replaced by cheap usable linear pull brakes (you'll still need to set them up properly and true the wheel).

That being said, when you need a disposable bike for a child, there may not be better options. Just be aware of what exactly you are buying.

gomango

So far my guys have had zero interest in road or cyclocross bikes.

Our oldest son outgrew his La Cruz and asked me to not replace it.

He rides a MB-1 everywhere when he isn't taking off in one of our family cars.

obrentharris 

A decent quality BMX bike is a great idea! Lots of good miles in one of those. But six is a little young, I think, to fit on a 20" wheeled bike. My daughter had a 16" wheeled, yard-sale bike which she handed down to my son when she turned 8 and we got her a middle-range BMX bike which she rode until she was 14 and could fit on a 26" wheel bike. At that point my son, who had just turned 8, inherited the BMX bike. He loved riding the dirt trails around here, which are pretty steep, so we put a smaller chainring and a bigger freewheel on it. He graduated to a 26" wheel bike when he was 13.
Brent

delcrossv

Two whole pages and no one posted this link? For shame!

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...roadbikes.html

DiabloScott

This was my daughter's third bike - she wanted a mountain bike style but I didn't want to get one with a suspension fork.

She started on a 16" wheel bike with training wheels, then a 20" bike, then this 24" bike, and now she's on 700c.

bres dad

After the failure of X-mart bikes and not wanting to pay top $$ for new knowing they'd outgrown them in a few years or not take care of them, we found some nice used kids MTB's in an LBS. While I think my 11 year old can still get a few years out of her bike (and she doesn't want to upgrade... we talked about getting wifey a new MTB and give her old one to the 11 year old then trickle down bikes throughout the rest of the rank & file, with the 9 year old getting the 11 year old's bike but the 11 year old wanted to keep what she had, so we bought the black bike for the 9 year old) I think this may be the last summer the 9 year old will get out of hers. Seat isn't all the way up but very close. She has mentioned an interest in road biking unlike her older sister and wants to hang out with her lame dad and try road biking. LBS has a beautiful Trek Elance but its on the edge of being too small.

this is a few years old but my 11 year old still has and rides this:


My 9 year old while we were out on a ride over the weekend (same model as DiableScot posted but black)

Sixty Fiver

My daughters have ridden vintage bicycles since they were 7-8 years old... my youngest rode a 1973 Raleigh Fireball that I restored until she moved up to a Raleigh Twenty several years ago and my oldest (16) has been riding a Raleigh Saffron for quite a number of years. The Saffron will be getting an upgrade to the drivetrain (7 speed Shimano) and some custom rack / frame work this spring.

The bikes that preceded these were lower end, modern bikes that got passed down to friends and cousins... their vintage bicycles should now serve them well into their adult lives.

The little monster (she is 14) also has a Centurion road bike on 650c wheels and a mid level Raleigh mountain bike to cover her riding needs as she likes to do it all.

Saffron:



Fireball... (my daughter is saving this bike for her children).



Her new ride "Basil" with my P20.

delcrossv

Some of ours:

Front to back 500A Gitane ( to be 7 y.o. daughter's), 550A Gitane (9 y.o. daughter's), Peugeot G50 tenspeed -540's (11 y.o. daughter's), Motobecane Junior Sprint-540's (12 y.o. son's)





The 7 y.o.'s present bike (450A Gitane)

american psycho 

the same bike as the Gary Fisher Cosmo, different paint job. the best bike i've found for kids yet.

squirtdad

I would suggest BMX for the six year old..... get a good brand (haro etc) and they will still be using it a 20. It will be a little heavy, but totally durable. Hand brakes, not coaster be prepared for the jumps and the falls that come with it

Also you just have to accept and deal with the idea that you kid's choice of bike may not align with your vision.....

My 16 year old's bike history if it helps

2- 5 or so Target 16 bike with coaster brake and training wheels. at 3 1/2 he brings me the bike and a wrench and demands that the training wheels go. they do and he goes faster

5- 10 Trek mountain lion given to us by a neighor whose son out grew it. nice little bike this is what he started jumping on.

10- now Santa brings a Haro x3 bmx for Chrismas.....this bike is till going and used once in a while and this is to date the best and most magical Christmas present ever

12 Grandma give him a bike boom (1978 or so) Univega...he likes it as it is faster and easier than the bmx bike.....dad thinks he has a road bike convert...wrong

12 1/2 Father/son project convert the univega to fixie/single speed.... front brake, full repaint etc.

15 out grows the univega (still get used by friends) Build him a 58cm Soma rush for Christmas....(but still not the same has 10 year old getting their first new bike under the tree)

he could ride any of my geared bike...but show no interest....hope fully that will change but he rides, wrenches a bit a bike charity and likes bikes....all in all not too bad

gregaz

So, I am set to check out this Trek tomorrow. Is this about the era that everyone is recommending?

GrayJay

I have two girls and have found that once they are riding 2-wheels and progress beyond basic needs of a 16" department store coaster brake junker, kids MTB are the way to go. Having gears gives them much more ability so get up hills and ride on soft grass & trails, much safer learnign environment than having them out in the road or contending with crowded bikepath traffic (which can be even less predictable and more dangerous) on a road bike. MTB handbrakes also give much more confidence and control than coaster brake. I confess I also bought a small 650c road bike for them to eventually grow into, but at 8 yrs old it is still probably at least another year before my first daughter will fit on it and be ready and responsible enough for any road riding.
Great forum for all sort of kids bike project is https://forums.mtbr.com/families-riding-kids/ . Modifying and upgrading kids bikes can become very addictive and it is fun to put vintage bike parts, skills and weigh weenie obsession to use to inexpensively build-up bikes that are much nicer and lighter than any you can buy at a store.

I started them out with this 20" novara. It started out at around 27 pounds and I dropped about 5 pounds of weight from it. I have now replaced every part on the bike except for the frame, rims and brakes. This bike started with a heavy american one-peice crank that was a real hassle to replace. I also shortened an old manitou fork into a 20" suspension fork that is much lighter than any current available 20" suspension fork. Full project write-up and more pictures at Novara Pixie 20" project






Upon turning 8, elder daughter outgrew the 20" and her five year old sister was ready for a 20" MTB so I embarked on a full buildup of a 24" wheel Trek220 frame. Writeup and more pictures at Trek MT220 24" mod build
My philosophy is to keep kids bikes as light as possible without splurging on any really expensive parts. I found the Trek MT220 frame at a bike co-op for free, it was an donated frame in great shape, undamaged but had been stripped of all parts and the co-op didnt want to bother with sourcing all the components to put it back together as a complete bike. The Trek frame is made with hydro-formed aluminum (quasi-rectanglular downtube) and weighted 1420gr, almost 1 lbd lighter than another Novara 24" frame I had previously sourced for this project. Most expensive cash outlay I made on the project was for a set of new Schwalbe Rocket Ron 24" folding bead tires, 440gr each and very supple. I re-used the Alex singlewall 36 hole rims from the Novara, 404gr and 420gr each and re-laced them to some much better quality (& quick release) non-disk hubs as I am staying with V-brakes to keep weight down. The rear hub was an older shimano with a 7-speed cassette body. THe hub itself was not particularly light (cheap steel cassette body) but the shorter 7-speed cassette helps to keep the spoke dish more even, makes for a good wheel build geometry. I laced the rear with 12 crossed spokes on the drive side and 6 radial non-drive spokes, producing a 880gr rear wheel. Front was built as a 12-spoke radial wheel using just every 3rd spoke hole. 12-spoke front makes for a completely symmetric wheel with the spokes correctly oriented in the angled rim holes to each side. I have ridden the wheels around under my own 200lbd weight and they hold up fine so I feel confident they will be reliable for my much lighter daughter as the 400gr rims are complete overkill for her weight. I used a lightweight (253gr) XT 9-speed 32-11 cassette with aluminum carrier that I shortened to 8 cogs (32-12) in order to fit on the 7-speed body. Also used a XT rear derailleur and a deore push shifter that I had all sourced cheap from a swap meet.
I found a late 90's manitou spyder 26" fork at the co-op that was fairly easy to shorten into a 24" fork by carving up the fork tip ends, see 24" air fork . The fork has aluminum steer tube & stachions and it uses combine coil springs and elastomers and had a simple oil-bath dampener that is easy to service and tune. I re-worked the internals to provide 70mm of travel and eliminated the spring & elastomers from one side to soften the compression for my daughter. Once shortened and reworked, the spyder fork weighted 1300gr, a very nice weight savings compared to the currently available 24" forks (RST first air, Spinner, suntour) which are all at least 1600gr. With the fork sliders shortened, the rim brakes work perfect on the original bosses and the A-C height is nice and low so the front end geometry and bottom bracket height are not jacked up excessively.
The crank is a 5-bolt Bulletproof brand 145mm length that I setup 1x with an outer bashguard and a 34t inner ring (581gr crank weight) on a reasonably light (270gr) shimano UN71 bottom bracket.
Despite the good standover clearance, the frame has a somewhat long 51cm effective top-tube length so I bought a new shorty 5cm stem and found some swept-back riser bars that help keep the seat-to-bar extension reasonably comfortable for my daughter.
The V-brakes are generic caliper arms with small tektro levers, they work great and provide a light touch with plenty of braking force and control.

I have spent perhaps $250 altogether on the build. Most of the parts were sourced lightly used but I did need to get a new chain, derailleur hanger, tires, cables, stem, and a cheap kids saddle ( Bell saddle from wal-mart!). As it stands now, the bike weighs 20.5 lbs ready to ride, just above my goal of a 20lbd bike. The frame, fork, tires, wheels and crank are all fairly lightweight parts that I want to keep. The inner-tubes are fairly heavy at 150gr each so I am thinking I can drop some more rotational weight by going to a tubeless setup. I didn't use any carbon fiber parts for the stem, bars or seatpost. I could likely drop another 150gr by using a lighter rear hub with alloy cassette but that would also involve re-building the wheel (again) and I like the 8 of 9 on 7 cassette & shifting.

GrayJay

duplicate post...

squirtdad

that look a little small to me for a six year old. it is a little hard to tell, but it looks like 16" wheels. It is bmx style, but I would go for 20" wheels

jyl

My son started with a teeny red toy store bike. Around first grade, he graduated to a junior Redline BMX, a tough and quality little bike. A few years later, he got a Schwinn Stingray, one of the re-issued models, the "Grape something". The banana seat was perfect for he and his sister to tandem around. A couple years after that, he got a Trek kids hybrid, which was a very good bike and will serve another kid well now. At 10 y/o his first "road bike", a restored 1971 Peugeot junior 10-speed that had been my childhood bike long ago. At 13 y/o, his first adult road bike, a 1974 Raleigh Gran Sport rebuilt with Campagnolo Veloce 10-speed. He also has a Novara hybrid that he rides to school. He is 14 y/o now, outgrowing the Novara, so we'll need a new ride-to-school bike. I'm thinking about finding and fixing up an old Raleigh 3 speed.

noglider 

@jyl, I have two 21" 3-speeds I've decided to sell, if you're interested. Shipping will probably be prohibitive, though.

bres dad

So my 9 year old and friend were riding and the friend was on the 9 year old's bike. Something happened (they can't keep their stories straight and the conflict... kids) and the rear derailuer age got caught in the spokes, wrapped around til it seized the wheel & bent the frame (not sure if the exact sequence but they destroyed the RD & bent the frame. We've been on the fence about getting her another bike anyway since she's about ready to out grow it so while pricing parts, a near mint early 90's Trek 800 caught my eye on the used rack. We brought my daughter in to check it out and it was a bit big but figure by the end of summer she'd grow into it. After some haggling we brought it home (now to fix & rehome the other one.)

Sixty Fiver

When your favourite uncle has a bike shop you come home to some map coordinates (my 10 year nephew likes geocaching) and at the end of the search you find your new rig as well as a new camel back to better handle our summer adventures on the trail.

Was a needed jump from a 20 inch 5 speed to an 18 speed with 24's.



My youngest daughter just outgrew her 24 inch ride and I am hunting for a full sized mtb to buy and build up for her... this is a bike she will probably be riding for a while so it is gonna be a nice one.