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With some pretty good deals around I thought I'd see what the hivemind recommends for my sons next bike. He is currently on an Isla Creig 26" which is starting to look a bit small for him; he's about 5'1" 50kg, tending towards tall and skinny like his dad. Conventional wisdom would say go for a hardtail as they're lighter, less to go wrong and teach you better skills, but I'm struggling to find anything particularly outstanding.
Pauls cycles has a few Lapierre full susses in small for 60% off:
Lapierre Spicy CF 6.9 Enduro £1720
Of which, the 5.9 would seem to be the sensible choice but I wonder if it would be too heavy? The XRM and XR Race are appealing as they're light weight but the reviews I've seen say that the ride is quite hard and you'd be just as well off with a hard tail anyway.
We're based near Reading, so riding isn't particularly hardcore, with trips to the Wales trail centres and a summer trip to Briancon for the uplift trails around there.
The most appealing hardtail that I've found so far is a small ti broken road for £1400 or so which has the advantage that my wife can use it for bikepacking when he inevitably grows out of it. All of these bikes seem to be 29" wheel, isn't that a bit big for a small frame?
Anybody got any better suggestions? Am I being silly looking at full susses for his age and size?
Cheers.
I have a small vitus escarpe frame/pike + wheelset (27.5) combo for sale if you fancy building something. Good trail set up and did my kids well for a few years at that age, but they grow fast from then on so whatever you get will only see 2 or 3 years of use probably.
Depends on what type of riding you want to do My ten year old is on an XS 27.5 ht and the problem is that his 12yo bro has a M 29er FS. He has the stamina, but not the squish required for the gravity races we're entering. I can't wait for him to have a growth spurt so I can get him an upgrade.