Specialized bikes for children - anyone else had problems?

[Anastasie]

We bought a very expensive bike for ds2 last year, well about 14 months ago to be exact.

He hasn't used it that much but we took it out at the weekend for a family ride. It has some quite good stabilisers that attach with a hand-grip bolt, which simply unscrews when you want to stash them and have a proper go without.

We got about a mile up the hill and one of them fell off - I found the remains of the threading from the frame around the threads of the bolt.

The threads have sheared off after maybe a total of an hour and a half's riding on it if that.

I contacted Specialized who said go through the shop but they would replace the frame as it has a lifetime warranty (I should think so at that price - we got it as an investment for ds2 and ds3 as well when he is big enough)

The shop have contacted them and said this is a known issue apparently, and the guy at Specialized had to replace his child's with a normal bolt and nut and said it was 'much better'

I have said no, this isn't acceptable - I need to be able to take them on and off easily and quickly and so does my son when he is out on his own.

I wondered if anyone else had had problems - I'm still waiting to hear from them about replacing the frame.

Its a lovely bike apart from that but I am cross that it is sold with all these little touches that make you think, yes that's worth it, and then a sodding wheel falls off. Apart from anything else he could have been hurt.

I do see what you mean, how annoying!

How about you use the opportunity to get rid of the stabilisers?

And if you have balance bikes for your younger sons they may never need stabilisers 😊

I'm a fan of stabilisers (yes we have had balance bikes, too) My tuppence is

That's annoying but I wouldn't pursue the stabs issue further, too much stress (assuming that's bike's only flaw).

So find a way to fix stabs on & leave them there.

Won't be ready to ride without stabs until the bike is almost too small for them anyway. At which point stabs come off completely so they can learn to ride that same (too small) bike without stabs; the easy-off feature was never really helpful for anything, anyway.