Islabike alternatives ?

yungun

Hi all

My daughter has a lovely Islabike Luath 700 which I bought secondhand.

My son would like to try some road racing too.

He's only 8 and probably isn't big enough for the 26 which only leaves the Luath 24.

We can't afford to buy a new bike ( I know they keep the value but it is out of our range) and so are looking to find a reasonably priced second hand racer.

I don't understand why they are so hard to find, you would have thought manufacturers would have seen the success of the islas and jumped on the bandwagon.

Anyone any ideas of reasonably priced secondhand alternative pocket rockets please and where to look?

Thanks

zebra67

No it does not leave just the Luath 24 or Beinn 24 or whatever Islabike (Not to dis Islabikes, we have 3 and are likely to get a 4th soon).

My Daughter (a small and not particularly athletic nearly 9yo) keeps riding everyone else off her wheel (grass track and a road racing event run by Lotus at Hellesdon Park and Ride last weekend) on a BMX racing bike (2nd place was a Beinn 24, incidentally). Her bike is one of these::

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/gt/ ... e-ec020940
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/gt/ ... e-ec020938

You can pick these and similar up second hand, go to your nearest BMX track and ask around. Ideally go to one of the BMX race meets where you will see quality second hand BMX kids racing bikes going for under 100 quid. The only thing I would replace if I could get organised is the cranks -- they are 160mm which is silly on a kids' bike. Race meet listings you might find here, although I can't master that link myself (???). Maybe you have to find your nearest track and look for that club's website and their local news to find events.

Sizing guidelines (rough) for BMX bikes here.

My daughter is winning these events on knobby tyres even; yet I'm not kidding when I say she leaves the competition in the dust. The BMX bike I can throw from one hand to the other, it's that light; the weight makes a huge difference for racing at this age.

She's likely to ride it at a Cyclo-X event, soon (the knobbies will be useful then).

yungun

Thanks zebra,

Congrats to your daughter, I am sure she isn't really unathletic, but I know what you mean - our son is called Lazy Jack for a reason ( despite cycling to Paris on a k'nacked old mountain bike, aged 7.).

He already has the mountain bike and whilst he would love a nice BMX it is a drop handle model that we are looking to buy this time around.

The club his sister is at is a tarmac racing set up and he is showing signs of moving his sights away from football for the first time.

zebra67

I wonder if you could take one of the small lightweight frames and put small drop handlebars on it; I think this is what I saw had been done to make small drop-handle bar bikes (this is pre Islabike days) at Mildenhall. Might be able to pick up free or cheap parts to do this by asking around on Freegle/CTC/places like here/etc., only having to fork out for short cranks and bits like the chain/brake cables.

yungun

Hi zebra, you are crediting me with far too much nouse ( if that isn't just a made up word!)

I wouldn't know one end of a bike from the other - not strictly true, one has a red light and the other is white!

Thanks for the suggestions though.

Tom Butcher

If looking second hand Kona and Decathlon did some small racing bikes in the past. Personally though I think flat bars make more sense for kids up to around 12-13.