Children's cycling gear, where to buy? Also tips for starting them mtb please

[FoofFighter]

My 4yo is keen to start mountain biking now she's learned to ride. I'm having trouble finding out much information on how to get her started, also where to find teeny tiny mtb clothes!

Anybody got any useful hints and tips for getting littlies into it? She's dead keen and been waiting since she was 2.5yo to do it bless her!

For the clothes - try the big online retailers - wiggle.co.uk , chain reaction cycles and decathlon. Apart from the helmet, I would go to a local race before buying anything, as I would think the wee tiny ones are in suitable clothes but not mtb specific.
For getting her into the sport I would look up the website or fb pages of your local cycling club.
If you're in England, start with Britishcycling.org
You could also check out cyclocross as well as mtb.
Round my way, cyclocross has races for the Under 6 age category, but mtb does not. I'm not in England.

This is kids cyclocross:

video link

Spend time riding with her. Sounds really obvious - loads of MTBers ask how we got our DS into it. He is the youngest rider of Strathpuffer, had a film made, sponsored by a couple of the kit makers so not as random as it sounds. Ride for as much as is fun for her and make her part of your ride. It was that simple.

As for clothing Decathlon does for really small. They even do gloves which are so dinky - although only summer weight. We used marigolds to waterproof his hands in winter.

Bike wise he started on a cross bike - it is much lighter than a MTB and their skills improve more quickly.

Thanks all! Will get looking.

We are in N Scotland.

Impressed that your dc did Strathpuffer she's been out every day this week despite the torrential rain, combined with fact she's gone on about it so long, so am confident that she really is interested :)

Go out with her too.
We're out most weekends with dc (8&4) We live in the Lakes and have the hills on our doorstep which is an advantage. But we go to trail centres alot too. There are some fab green & blue routes which are perfect for small children around the country (Scotland is fab for mnt biking centres)
Also, my ds started in the local cycle club a couple years ago, but it's frustrating as no one locally does mnt specific with children under 8, in our experience.

assuming you have clothes sorted by now. But if not, we buy Endura cycle wear at our local MTB shop and it starts at age 4 for padded shorts etc, but I think Altura and Madison both start their clothing at that age range.