£205 for a second-hand children's bike?!

[Wallace]

I have read on here about how fantastic islabikes are so I thought I would like to get one for my ds2's fifth birthday. No way we could afford a new one (£249.99) so I have been looking on ebay.

More than £200 for a 4 year old bike

I knew you were going to say it's a Islabike then

To be fair, they're fantastic bikes. And very affordable when you can sell them on for £50 quid less than their original cost.

Dd2 has a Beinn 20 large which she loves!

Her next bike will probably be the Beinn 26 at £350
Infinitely more affordable because we'll be able to sell her old bike for between £150 and £200.
It's been hammered (use-wise) and is still in mint condition.

Dd3 has the cnoc (moved on from the Rothan) which again, she loves!

I will sell the Rothan to fund her next one ...

We pop down to the local saturday auctions in town there are hundreds of bikes there every week. I got DDs for £3! it was almost brand new. I had to buy a new tyre for it, popped into Halfords... guess what?... self same bike for £150!

DS1 has the Ridgeback (same as the one up thread) and it's been good. Tough, good quality... If you buy it new then most cycle shops you get it from will service it either cheaply or for free for a while. Our local shop will sell it on for you too, providing it was bought through them. His Ridgeback cost 129 new and they were selling the size below his for 65. So not bad...

My only issue is that it's the first bike he's owned that's actually quite desirable so the days of heading over to the adventure playground, slinging it down while you play and expecting it to be there still when you get back are over! We take a lock for it.

properbike so if you can't afford £200+ on a Isla bike you haven't got a proper bike . I ride proper bikes and they don't cost that much. Raleigh is an excellent make imo a proper bike.

I would not spend £200+ on a child's bike (especially for a young child) who are going to grow out of it in a year or two time and who will might not treat it properly thus not retaining its value

Oh that's nuffin, my sons first bike cost me £500 soddin quid

ApocalypseCheese what type of bike was it?

Bloody SN bike. Basically a large trike, put SN in front of anything and you get ripped off the price goes up. Don't even get me started on the nappies at £20 for a pack of 30, don't need them anymore thank gawd.

We could have got it funded but chose to pay for it ourselves, irks ever so slightly that most kids bikes cost less than £100.

Have tried to get a swap shop thingy going but no bugger was interested, mainly because they can flog them for quite a lot of money on ebay when they're done

Oh right Apocalypse I thought it might be but wasen't sure, yes SN equipment does cost the earth its disgusting really how they put the mark up so high. They know that people need it so they are going to have to pay top whack for it.

We just bought an Isla bike for our 4 year old too.

He had tried other friends bikes and he commented straight away on getting his that it was much easier to ride, so the quality really does make a difference. It's a lot lighter, and the components are made at child's size, rather than adult's bike components put on a child's bike.

The cost is actually really reasonable long term because, in our case, we have a daughter 19 months younger it can be passed down to {most inexpensive bikes seem to have a girl or boy theme to them, so the fact this in unisex makes it more appealing too}.

Then the resale is excellent, so we will have two kids use it for an overall cost of £50 to £100 {after resale, Isla will buy them back from you, or they sell well second hand as OP has noted}.

So they're actually a bargain for such a good quality bike that is so much easier to learn on! :)

what do isla bikes do? for that sort of cash I would want it to come with an instructor to get boys on two wheels about to start googling

The bikes are so easy to ride (and progress do easily from the balance bike) that the children don't need any instructions to ride. That's part of the beauty of them :o

so

I think for some kids it doesn't matter, they will learn to ride a bike no matter the bike.

I think for some children though the difference between an Isla bike and a much cheaper heavier bike will be the difference between them learning to ride or not.

A friend's daughter has some issues with balance and coordination although nothing that you'd really notice day to day. Two attempts on two different bikes to learn to ride accompanied by lots of tears. Once they bought an Isla bike she learned to ride in a weekend. She was 6, old enough to be aware that she couldn't do something that most of her friends could manage. Her happiness at finally being able to ride a bike was well worth the cost of the bike.

I bought my 13yr old DS a new bike at the weekend. It was second hand. I bought it from the Re-cycle charity that sends bikes to Africa for nurses, community workers and doctors to get round, and the children's bikes help kids get to school and be kids. It cost £40. The £40 goes toward the shipping cost of the bikes. He is very pleased and knows that he is helping a worthwhile charity. And the bike looks brand new.

Look, if you can afford an Isla bike then I'd recommend them, DD1 is due a new bike, I would love to get her the next size up but we can;t afford it (don;t think we'll get £300 for the Rothan and DD2 is will use the next size up) so we won't.

Its like anything, if you like it, want it and can afford it get it, but don;t put yourself into debt. But I don;t see why people should have a go at someone if they can afford it and recommend it to others.

Well an old lady up the street just gave him an old bike that is slightly larger than his one (still 16inch wheels but bigger frame)

So it looks like a proper bike will maybe have to wait til his sixth birthday...