Sizing for a 7 year old

nozzac

It's my son's birthday coming up and he needs a new bike. He's 4 foot tall and has a 22" inside leg.

When we tried some at Halfords he sat on a 20" bike and the assistant was saying it was perfect and there was no point in looking any bigger. But we did anyway and as soon as he sat on a 24" he was saying that THAT was actually perfect and any smaller would mean he grew out of it too quick.

On the 20" we had to raise the saddle. On the 24" he could touch the ground with tip toes with the saddle right down but the bike looked large.

Now i'm confused.

Mike Healey

Try http://www.islabikes.co.uk/bike_pages/p ... rt_web.pdf to get some idea. The chart obviously refers to Islabikes but should give you a reasonable basis to work on.

If the bike looks large and the saddle has to be right down, it probably is. I don't know hwat your budget is, but if you can stretch to an Islabike, you'll find that the resale value can be pretty high - as much as 80% of the original. Keep an eye on Ebay and you'll get some idea - so the net cost over the life of the bike will turn out to be pretty low by comparison with a cheaper brand which crashes in s/h value

PeeDee

Sizing for kids is a problem for several reasons:

1) kids keep on growing, so unless you are contantly buying new bikes the bike is nearly always going to be a bit too big/small for them

2) bike wheel sizes for kids go up in 4 inch increments. This is a big differrence, which means that when they move up tp the next size wheel there is a big jump, so there will be a time when neither size fits properly

3) kids often have shorter legs compared to adults (relativel to their height), so usually either the frame size is OK but they can't touch the ground, or else they can touch the ground but the frame size is too small.

Unless you plan to do some seriously long rides with your son, then I wouldn't worry too much, buy the bike he likes best. The smaller bikes will be easier to pedal, more manouverable and good for tricks, the bigger bikes will be more stable at higer speeds and safer for riding in traffic etc.

As Mike Healy says, Isabikes are the best kids bikes out there by a long way, but not cheap. We have had 3 Islabikes for our kids so far and they have all been great, and they are very easy to sell second hand, we had other mums and dads queing up to buy our old Islabike. Unlike Halfords Islabikes only sell kids bikes and have some very knowledgable sales staff who can advise you.