My little boy,age 6,has just learned to ride a bike,and I want to get him a new one for Christmas.Does anyone have any recommendations?I'm looking at a 20" wheel MTB stylee,such as Trek Mountain Lion,or a Spesh Hotrock.

BMX

Why?

Check out this months edition of What Mountain Bike.

Kiddy bikes are reviewed there.

I still use a tricycle.

my lads aren't up to handling gears and sometimes forget which is front brake and which is rear, hell, they have problems using both brakes at once.
i've got them an american patrol £80 jobby for one (bloody heavy) and a raleigh mr bounce for the other. and the raleigh is the better bike even though its only 16", wierd! this christmas they aregetting pokemon bikes each as they were on sale for £40-45 each and they're about 24 lbs each. they want the name on it ather than function!!!

Since I bought the Trek Trailing wheel I can't get my boy onto his propper bike. Bugger.



PS How many "p's" in propper/proper?

3

I have looked at the Trek and the Spesh, but I think they are very pricey. remember thjsi bike will probably only last a 6 year old three years max - I got a 20" MTBer for my daughter when she was six and she's almost grown out of it at 8 - in fact she can just about ride a v. small 26" incher. It also took her about a year to get the hang of 6 gears! This particular bike was a Dawes assembled ZED, which I picked up for 30 quid, gave it a quick clean, and hey presto! This was so lightly used that the freewheel came off with a spanner! It's a very nicely assembled machine - very solid frame, etc, and a six speed freewheel and thumbshifter, which seem to be increasingly rare!

The moral of the story is to a look about for bargains - the choice of parts of this "scale" means that a lot of bokes are much the same, and you can save cash away from the big brands. Even Raleigh assemble some very niveley sorted bikes at good prices.

PS

The BMX plan isn't a bad idea - you have a longer life span of the bike, it'll take abuse, and doesn't have gears that break! I'm tempted to encourage my kids this way becaue it does teach them good skills. And they don;t rally need gears untill they're 8 I reckon (see above!), at which point they will probably have outgrown the 20" MTBer anyway.

Get him the specialized hotrock, or if you want the best get the secialized hotrock flame with DH style finishing kit on a rigid- £199 for 20" or if you want something better get a 24" specialized hotrok a1 fs- it looks like one of the top of the line m5 hardtails, has suspension and 21 gears for 299- what are you waiting for, the 24" wheels are fine for 6yr olds- I was riding 26" bikes at 8 and I was average size!