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Ok, following on from previous thread about which bike for a 9 year old. Size wise, a good fit for him is the Islabike Beinn 26 small - reckon it'll be good for learning to ride on - which hopefully will be in a couple of days! After that, if he wants to ride around where we live it will on steep hills - grass fields with lumps and bumps in and sometimes a bit muddy.
So anyone with this bike - do you think it's capable of that kind of riding? Thanks.
Yep no problem. It's a 26" wheel 90s mountain bike. You'll need to stick some proper MTB tyres on it for some of that - I've taken a 10 year old round parts of the Beast in CYB on a Beinn with 1.9" MTB tyres on it.
Our second child has nearly out grown theirs. It been a great bike, will cope with mountain biking with knobblies on, has raced cyclocross with narrow tyres and has been and road tours with slicks.
Thanks! Forgot to mention the hills are also the muddy lumpy fields - so very steep grassy fields.
Islabike say they can fit 2.1" Continental Explorer tyres before shipping it (if we go for it), which sounds good. As we don't want to keep regularly swapping tyres straight away, would they be ok on tarmac while learning to ride for a short while?
We had 2.0 high rollers on my boys.
Looked like a mini fat bike.
A great bike.
We have a Beinn 26 small - great bike, and definitely suitable for what you want. Yes Conti Explorers will work on tarmac, though they're not the ideal tyre if you're going to do much of that.
I've fitted 2.1 Schwalbe Nobby Nics to ours and there's plenty of clearance. I think the fork might even fit a 2.4 and I'll try that shortly as we're going on a biking trip (and have one in my spares collection!)
[quote=jkomo ]We had 2.0 high rollers on my boys.
Looked like a mini fat bike.
A great bike.
2.0 tyres on a 26? I can't imagine how that looked like a fat bike.
Thanks that really helps! Are the Schwalbe Nobby Nics better than the Continental explorers in some way please? Riding on tarmac will just be for learning really at first. If it becomes a regular thing will change the tyres back to the ones it comes with.
[quote=hazel123 ]Are the Schwalbe Nobby Nics better than the Continental explorers in some way please?
Maybe, but it's not really important or significant for you - they just happen to be what I have lying around, if I'd had Explorers I'd have fitted those (mini aracer 2 currently has an Explorer on his unicycle which mostly gets ridden on tarmac, but swapped for the standard tyre because he does sometimes ride on fields etc. - bought for use on our 16" Islabike which was sold a while ago, because they were cheap).
Thanks. Any bike helmet recommendations? There seem to be a number of good ones but our boy is very fussy about chin straps and discomfort!
Just trying to decide whether to get it shipped with the 2.1" continental explorers and keep the 1.5" original tyres as spares for now. Initially he'll be learning to ride on a tarmac road - a few days maybe? Would prefer to keep the 2.1" tyres on as I think he would prefer the look initially! But would it make much difference to the initial learning phase with the bigger tyres on? ie should we have the 1.5" ones on and just swap to the 2.1" ones later?
Thanks. Any bike helmet recommendations? There seem to be a number of good ones but our boy is very fussy about chin straps and discomfort!
Try them.... obviously there are known uncomfortable ones but a lot is down to preference.
Costwise you are better with a youth size but my 7yr old can use a Bell Small Adult .... and I use a Medium Adult Bell and can use his general purpose Bell helmet almost on max. (Only mentioning grand because obviously sizing differs)
(I can uncomfortably squeeze into his Full Face ... medium youth but its not pleasant)
This is his Medium Youth (general helmet) that I can wear comfortably. (Hence should last)
https://www.bellhelmets.com/en_eu/cycling/helmets/kids/sidetrack-youth-mips-equipped
But would it make much difference to the initial learning phase with the bigger tyres on? ie should we have the 1.5" ones on and just swap to the 2.1" ones later?
Not in terms of learning on the tarmac.... obviously once he's learned the tarmac will be a bit slower..
Tyres are always going on sale.... especially 26 as they have stock from when that was the only size for adults .... but you could also just look out for some extra wheels ... which makes the whole thing much easier... (a 30 sec job) but you need to make sure they have
1) V-brake rims
2) Same number of gears (8) or you can just change the cassette to a 8 speed at the same time
Changing the cassette is better as you can then have "road gears" (narrow spacing and smaller big gear) and "off road gears" (wider spacing)
Thanks!