Kids bike - suggestions please

Hey

Hope you can help with some advice please.

My nephew has a birthday coming up and we're looking for a new bike for him.

Budget is an issue, as has been mentioned on previous threads kids grow out of their bikes pretty quick so its not worth spending a fortune on one!

We're looking at a 24" wheel and have a budget of £150.00 max.

I checked islabikes but they are out of our price range.

Went to Halfords today and thought that their Exile Jump Bike looked quite good value at £139.99 - http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_780405_langId_-1_categoryId_254703

I know that their are some that don't like Halfords bikes but where else to look?

The local Raleigh store had bikes but they were all £200+

In my opinion gears and suspension are a waste on a kids bike, more likely to confuse and add weight when all they'll be doing is playing locally. Happy to listen to others opinions on this.

I also checked out a couple of second hand shops with little success.

So, any suggestions on where to look for a decent, well made, robust and relatively light weight kids bike at less then £150.00.

My sister is based in Beckenham and I'm in Brighton if anyone has anything second hand locally.

Thanks in advance!!

There are lots of islabikes on ebay within your budget. Then you can sell it on when it's out-grown.

Also check out race bmx bikes. They're £300+ new but there are loads of both 20" and 24" alloy framed bikes around secondhand, again there are plenty on ebay. They'll weigh and break less than the jump-bike-shaped-object from halfords.

Agreed: try and get an isla if possible. Suspension is pointless, but I think gears on a 24" bike will be preferable, good time to introduce them to the concept. Avoid Halfords, none of those bikes are worth spending money on. A 24" bike should still last 3 years if they are right at the smallest to begin with, and you can always sell them on easily.

Bikes like that halfords exile will be quite heavy. For a kid bikes are more fun if they are light enough to chuck around. Ive had experiences with some of these kids trick bikes and they often weight as much as an adults bike due to very heavy scaffold like tubing.

I think both customers and manufacturers forget just how 'flimsy' you can make a kids bike and it will still be plenty durable. If you look at some pro-level bmx race bikes from the 80's you will notice skinny butted tubes, wafer thin dropouts n such. Bikes like this are a blast to ride. These modern overbuilt bikes are clumsy and annoying.

Like Miro_0 said, at least check out some modern BMX race bikes. Aluminium ones. They will be light and nippy, durable and fun to tear around the neighbourhood on. You can get ones in more compact dimensions (shorter TT's etc) to suit smaller kids and XL sizes to suit adults.

If the bike is more for longer rides with the family, a 24" MTB might have better geometry though. BMX's are designed to sprint around on standing up, not long rides in the saddle. There are plenty of 24" fully rigid MTB bikes from the 90's you could pick up for nowt. Upgrade the parts and you can have something great.

I'd definitely go with the second-hand Isla biek if possible, or Decathlon do some great 24" bikes- I've bought 2 recently, a silver and blue rockrider with a triple and front suspension, and a brown rigid btwin with a single chainring. neither is as light as an Isla will be, but they are really good bikes and an absolute bargain- off the top of my head I think they were £130 and £110 respectively, and they're really well set-up and easy to maintain, good V brakes and components.
Only problem is the Decathlon website is shit.