Author's product rating: 
| Advantages: |
Buying the right bike makes it a less frequent event |
| Disadvantages: |
It only starts with buying the bike - what about knowing how to ride it? |
| Recommend to potential buyers: |
yes |
Amazing isn’t it? Only last night, over a pint or two, there I was admiring the new bike that Kate (Mattygroves) and her husband Pete had just bought for their daughter, and here I am writing about the decision-making process! Mental note: Must drink London Pride more often.
Despite the fact that I tend to buy bikes ‘in bits’ or at least second hand, my job as a cycling instructor, with a responsibility for checking bikes out before they get used on the school playground, or worse still, on the road, does I suppose mean that I know a ‘thing or two’ about choosing a bike, and how to make sure that it fits your needs.
Years ago, there was only one basic shape of bike, with a diamond-shaped frame, the only real exception being the ‘ladies’ model with the step-through version to enable skirt wearers the dignity of not showing off next week’s washing. Sure, they still came with a wide range of agendas, from the ‘arse-in-the-air, knuckles-near-the-ground’ racing bikes to the kind of thing that Miss Marple rides, but the basic frame remained the same shape, even if the racing version weighed somewhat less.
I suppose that a lot of people’s experience will be limited to getting a bike for their children, except for those amongst us that still venture out on their own ‘velocipede’, and here there are many questions to be asked. It has to be said that all bikes are ‘fit for purpose’. However, it’s the purpose that worries me, and can lead many parents into making a bad decision.
I see so many unsuitable bikes (well, for road use anyway), where the decision process has been driven by fashion or the ‘all my mates have got one’ tug on the heart and purse strings.
BLOODY BMX BIKES!
High up on my list of horrors must come the BMX bike. The numbers of kids that ‘must’ have one of these are legion, but in my opinion, for road use, they are utterly unfit for purpose, if not to say useless. For one thing, it imprints the child with the view that ‘tricks’ are cool, which might be true in the park, but transfer these ‘skills’ out onto the road, and matters get decidedly dodgier.
For a start, to get any real purchase on the pedals, you have to stand up, which quite apart from safety implications, is bloody tiring. They only have one gear, and a low one at that, which can leave your legs in a positive blur whilst others glide past, making it look really easy. Having seen the saddles on these things, I can well see why you might not want to sit down for too long. Quite often they have much more complicated braking systems, particularly those bikes with a ‘gyro-head’, that is the say, the ability to swivel the steering full circle for ‘tricks’, mainly whilst in the air! For ‘more complicated’, read ‘maintenance liability’. Oh yes, and huge numbers of these bikes are chrome-plated. This may not sound like a disadvantage, but just consider, after the initial thrill of ownership wears off, who exactly is going to be cleaning it. The smart money’s on Mum or Dad (or not at all)!
In conclusion to this rail against BMX bikes, I’d say this. Yes, they are fit for purpose, and yes, anything that encourages the current younger generation to work up a sweat is to be lauded, but their chief purpose has very little to do with road use. You choose. If the bike is to be used in any way other than emulating skateboard tricks, steer them away from these if you can – I didn’t say it would be easy though..
ALL TERRAIN BIKES aka MOUNTAIN BIKES
These are VERY popular, and I wouldn’t mind betting that they are top sellers at Halfords – I suppose I should be grateful that they’re not BMXs at least.
From where I sit, it seems that ‘all the lads’ want a dual-suspension mountain bike for Christmas/next birthday, which on the face of it sounds like a great compromise, and at least they’re not all chrome plated.
These bikes are also pretty suitable for road use, after all, if you are going to cower near the kerb on main roads, you’ll be running over the vast majority of that road’s pot-holes, not to mention missing drain covers, so that suspension, particularly the front, will save your wrists from the worst of the pounding.
However, do bear in mind that nothing comes without cost. Despite the fact that some of these bikes with dual-suspension come at crazy low prices like £75, you only get what you pay for. A lot of their young riders are only interested in BMX-inspired ‘tricks’ like the so-called ‘bunny-hop’, or worse still, the ‘endo’ where you deliberately up-end the bike on its front forks, presumably by using the front brake far too hard. All of this puts premature wear and tear on the (probably) cheap components. Cheap sprung front forks have no adjustment to allow for wear. I’m called to adjust ‘clunky’ steering too often to find that it’s incurable except by buying new forks.
The rear suspension assembly frequently limits how far down you can put the saddle, and I see so many kids being forced to ride new bikes that ‘they’ll grow into’ because of this.
All of this makes it vital that the bike is fitted to the rider. Not perhaps in a Saville Row bespoke kind of way, but even so, it’s important.
The other problem besetting the unwary parent, about to give into ‘aw, go on Dad, Billy’s got one’ pressure, is that these bikes tend to be pretty heavy, at least the cheap ones are. Nothing is going to put off a novice rider more than finding that cycling is bloody hard work. This is not helped by the ‘sexy’ knobbly tyres that these bikes have, which also slow you down on the road, although of course, on mud, they’re vital.
This brings me back to being fit for purpose. When it comes to peer pressure, I’d rather see a youngster on one of these, compared to a BMX. At least all-terrain bikes are better at road use, being bigger and more prominent, and for off-road use, of course, they shine.
One word of caution here though - any bike with front suspension can ‘nose-dive’ under heavy braking, making it more likely to throw you over the handle bars than with a conventional 'spring-less' bike. This is particularly true for those of us who ride with the saddle appreciably higher than the handlebars.
Oh yes, parents. Most of these come without any kind of mudguards, allowing mud and dirty water to spray all over the kid’s back side; my point being that you do the washing, Junior doesn’t. Mudguards of a type are available, but word is that they’re not ‘cool’.
HYBRID BIKES
As their name suggests, these tend to be fairly good at most things, although, as with cars, everything is still a compromise. Compared to ATBs, the differences tend to be in the detail. They have less knobbly tyres, which are also thinner in cross-section, making for less rolling resistance. They also tend to have a larger wheel diameter all of which smoothes out the ride, which is lucky because they don’t tend to have suspension, at least not very often. I guess these bikes are what used to be known as a ‘tourer’, being somewhat more sporty than a Miss Marple job, whilst being nowhere near as fast or light as a racing bike.
They are however a serious means of A-to-B transport, especially if most of it is on tarmac, with maybe just a dash of canal bank thrown in! It’s easier to fit luggage to a bike where the wheels don’t keep moving up and down, which, if used for a cycling holiday is a prime consideration. Oh yes, and you can put ‘proper’ mudguards on them!
ROAD BIKES
I tend to agree with the comment from the only ‘Helpful’ rater of this opinion (so far) – I had originally omitted road-bikes, as I felt that children are unlikely to be clamouring for one, which is the main theme of this opinion – choosing a bike for your children. This really cover all kinds of other bikes, but as their name suggests, the one thing that they have in common is that they are really built for use on tarmac/concrete, just like most cars. A road bike is less likely to have enough gears ‘to climb a wall with’ than an ATB, since the odd hump-back bridge is the steepest thing you’ll find out there on the mean streets. To be honest, unless it’s a racing road bike with dropped handlebars, you’re not likely to spot much of a difference between hybrids and road bikes. They’ll have ‘sensible’ amounts of tread to their tyres, without looking like the segments of a bar of chocolate, and the tyres will be relatively narrow and large diameter. If adults were choosing a bike to ride for themselves, they might well pick a road-going bike, especially if the idea was to ride to the station, to get a bit fit and maybe save some parking charges. However, I can’t see ‘being sensible’ being very high up on the average youngster’s list of priorities.
AH YES! THE OLD INSIDE-LEG MEASURMENT
There isn’t really too much science to the process. If the saddle can be positioned so that the balls of each foot can be placed firmly on the ground whilst astride the saddle, then this is about right. Any closer to the ground, like being able to get your heels down too, and this will mean that you never get to stretch your legs properly whilst pedalling. This will make cycling VERY tiring, and the budding rider will give it up pretty quickly. Any further away, forcing ‘tip-toes’ or worse, is just plain dangerous, since getting one’s feet on the ground in a hurry is of prime importance once you’ve stopped!
This is where those bikes where the saddle won’t go down far enough are a menace. Likewise, don’t buy one where you’ve had to put the saddle up most of the way. If you are buying for a growing child, you’ll be doing this all over again next year if you do. On a safety issue, the tube that the saddle is clamped to should not be raised past its safe limit marker, or if it hasn’t got one, leave one third of the tube still inside the frame for good measure.
Handlebars should be roughly level with the saddle or maybe higher. A sit-up-and-beg stance is good for beginners, but can lead to heavy weather if the wind is against you. Bars that are much lower than the saddle are the realm of experts and those with racing handlebars (or maybe those that want a free flying lesson every time they brake hard!). Be warned, there is usually a lot less upward/downward adjustment in handlebar height compared to that for saddles.
Janie (catsmother) makes a good point in the comments. Be aware that one of the attributes of mountain bikes, ATB's call them what you like, is that they have extra ground clearance for topping all those ridges and jumping tree trunks that you'll be doing. This leads to the pedals being further off the ground, making it more difficult to achieve the balance between the 'ball of foot on ground' needed for safety in traffic and being far enough from the pedals to get a good push on them. Therefore, a 21" frame on a mountain bike will require longer legs than a 21" frame on a hybrid or road-bike, which will be a couple of inches nearer the ground.
Do bear in mind that bikes with the pedals nearer the ground can't lean over as far when cornering and pedalling at the same time, but their lower centre of gravity makes them more stable.
BIKES AND THE LAW
For some obscure reason, even a bike that is only ever used in daytime requires a rear red reflector. For night time use, those flashing LED lights that are SO noticeable are not actually legal – something about cyclists being mixed up with an emergency service, yeah right, I REALLY look like an Ambulance don't I?. Ironically, you can place one about your person, after all, what you wear is your business, but it mustn’t be on the bike as the rear light. LEDs in themselves are fine and their batteries outlast those of conventional bulb systems many times over, but once fitted to a bike, they must be switched to 'constant 'mode. Even headlights get the '110-hour battery life 'treatment these days, and there are some very piercing white LED arrays for sale. I just bought one and it pays not to look directly at it, otherwise you’ll get one of those blue spots on your retina for minutes after. For off-road use, you are even getting high-power mini searchlight systems run from rechargeable batteries and using those 12v halogen spot bulbs so popular in household track lighting systems. Dynamos seem to have fallen from favour as your lights go out when you’re not moving, although one of two more sophisticated systems do provide for a few minutes extra rear lighting when you stop.
Tyres are a grey area. As far as I’m aware, there are no specific tread depth laws relating to push bikes, which is just as well as mine are treadless slicks at the moment, but at least they aren’t worn out, which WOULD get you in trouble.
The carrying of passengers on the road (usually toddlers) can only be done with a proper seat attachment, or a trailer. Giving someone a ‘cross-bar’ or letting a pal ride the stunt pegs of a BMX bike is strictly taboo, not to mention dangerous. You can now get a kind of powered trailer, which looks like the back half of a bike. You could actually start to regard Junior as your ‘auxiliary power unit’ with one of these, as they can help out with the pedalling.
As of 01/05/04, all new bicycles supplied in the UK must have an audible warning device (aka bell) fitted. Gone are they days when ‘Oi, get the **** out of the way’! constituted an audible warning. My own preference would be a single genteel ‘dinger’, as most of the occasions I use one are on the approach from the rear to pedestrians on shared paths. They already think cyclists are a bunch of inconsiderate louts without making the poor buggers jump out of their skins with an air-horn! It seems unlikely that the Police will be persecuting, let alone prosecuting anyone who has a bell-less older bike, and it seems that the law even provides for you to remove the bell after purchase of a new bike, just so long as the retailer is doing it right!
WHERE TO BUY
Whilst it’s very tempting to buy from catalogues, especially as Christmas approaches (and it always is from 26th December onwards, isn’t it?) do make sure that you go over every single screw and nut and bolt before letting anyone ride the thing. This is almost as true for large shops like Halfords. These bikes have come straight from similar packing to be put together by someone who is probably sick and tired of screwing kit bikes together. However much care they say they put into it, it doesn’t alter the fact that after the twentieth in as many hours, it’s as boring as hell.
I’ve lost count of the number of children who have said to me ‘It should be OK, we only got it on Saturday’. This rings immediate alarm bells.
The ‘little man’ in The High Street is, sadly a fading sight, but if you have a local one, for goodness sake patronise them – they need the money more than Halfords do, and instinct tells you that they’re more likely to be interested in after-sales problems. I’m reliably informed by Kate (Mattygroves), that they also buy the old one back from you without the hassle of the world and his wife all coming round to your place, making a mental note to nick your CD collection at a later date.
PITFALLS
As a rule, the cheaper it is, the more you should be prepared to check it over yourself.
If buying second hand there are a few things in favour of bikes compared to cars.
For one, the number of parents selling near-new bikes that have been grown out of is enormous.
Secondly, the gauge of metal used in bike frames means that structural rust should not be a problem.
Look for signs of hard use (or misuse). Front forks that don’t follow the same parallel as the seat tube have been in a collision – drop the idea straight away. Cracked tyre walls means that they only pumped up the tyres for your benefit, and you’ll have a £30 bill coming your way soon. Cracked paint around the frame welds could be more evidence of a collision. Check the front brake, and if any clunking sensation is felt, get the owner to tighten the steering – if this doesn’t cure it and the bike has front suspension, this probably means that it’ll need new forks soon. Likewise, if they haven’t the foggiest about how to do this, then the bike hasn’t been maintained, possibly ever! Check the back brake by applying pressure to the saddle and then apply the brake – it should still have power enough to lock the wheel even with your weight on it.
Rusty chains can be saved from further deterioration by lubrication, but it doesn’t alter the fact that it has had its life shortened already. Anyway, a rusty chain is further evidence of an unloved machine. Bikes don't maintain themselves.
As with aircraft and their airworthiness certificates, aluminium frames have a finite life. Don’t buy VERY old aluminium framed bikes. Steel is fine, notwithstanding what I said about rust. If you aren’t sure and the owner is vague, take a magnet with you! An aluminium frame with steel forks is a very common combination.
OTHER SAFETY ISSUES
Yes, do please get them a helmet. Pavements and the tarmac in parks are just as hard as road surfaces. These don’t tend to be quite so tricky to get a good fit, as say with a motorcycle job. Most come with extra pads to fill out the interior, and it’s important to make sure that it can’t wander about once strapped on. In particular, make sure that the forehead can’t come uncovered.
I’m sorry if they feel like complete dorks wearing them, but who said cycling was a fashion statement?
Well, that’s falling off taken care of, but what about NOT falling off in the first place? Many local authorities/Police forces have cycling proficiency courses, usually rolled out to year 6 children if they do them at all. The borough I work for extends this to on-road training now, and even runs course for adults if and when the numbers are forthcoming.
For some obscure reason which will no doubt become clearer, as we scour their product range, Glaxo-Smith-Klein (GSK) have commissioned a survey among parents, with the finding that 88% of parents want cycling to be part of the National Curriculum, using the argument that swimming is already included 'but how many kids swim to school?' There is some talk of GSK-sponsored riding instruction (there goes MY job!). One wonders if this will be linked to the sudden appearance of Lucozade drinks dispensers at school........watch this space.
I’m told that the City Of York has the ‘beacon’ school's riding scheme that others look up to, so let’s all move there then! I have to say that The London Borough Of Richmond's is none too shabby either, but I would say that wouldn't I?
very helpful
very helpful
