Wooden balance bikes - which one to get?

[threefeethighandrising]

I'd like to get DS (2yo) a wooden balance bike. Does anyone have one? Which one would you recommend?

TIA

Are you really dead set on a wooden one? An Islabikes Rothan is better than any of those IMHO. You could try researching opinion at www.singletrackworld.com/forum/ where they know more about bikes than mumsnet, but you'll mostly get the same answer!

Thanks for the reply

The Isla bike is DP's favourite actually.

The present is actually from my mum (I'm helping her with her shopping) and I know she's quite taken with the wooden ones.

I must admit the Isla bike is tempting though, it does look really good. Do you know anywhere that stocks it by any chance?

At this point it's a question of finding one we can actually get by Christmas!

I found this wooden one which Evan's cycles stocks which I quite like the look of too.

just be careful with how tall they are, that's my advice

i couldn't find a wooden one small enough for ds2 last year (he was 2 at the time)

we ended up getting the smallest puky which is raelly lovely!

Have to agree with the Islabike Rothan. It's fab. We bought ours directly from their website www.islabikes.co.uk

AFAIK you can only get them direct - might still be able to get one delivered for Xmas, so try contacting them.

Isla bikes are excellent - my dc's have 3 between them and as they are unisex get handed down. Ds has one of these learner bikes and we have been really happy with it. The only reason i went for one of these over the rothan is that i wanted something that looked more childlike before going onto the more grown up isla bikes.

Sorry
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agree, wooden ones generally have very high croos bar which is hard for smaller children to manage.

the puky is an excellent little bike, very usuable for younger and older kids.

We're going to go to an Evans Bikes store tomorrow (weather permitting!) and try the wooden one they do (it says from 2). Luckily DS is too young to really understand Christmas and will still get excited if he gets a bike next week even if he saw it in the shop this week!

If it's too small, we're going to take a 50ish mile detour to go to the Isla bikes shop in Ludlow on the way to my family (weather permitting!)

Wish me luck

Thanks for your advice everyone.

My DD is very short and one of the only ones that the seat went low enough is the strider bike - so impressed with it (really really light), although shes not had a go yet!

We got a wooden Early Rider for DS from Evans Cycles when he was 2.5. He absolutely loves it. Never had a problem getting on it and picked up freewheeling within days. Can't recommend it enough.

we got this one for ds last christmas, just before he turned 2. he loves it and learnt very quickly.

www.bikedock.com/home?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage-bd.tpl&product_id=5168&category_id=112

:)

I got a Puky bike for DD - it has been great - low cross bar, comfortable seat. here. Her balance has got great - sometimes she scoots it which I think is dead clever!

Anyone know where you can get one in South Wales ?

Completely failed to get one before leaving London this week. We're in Cardiff for Christmas now, and the nearest Evans cycles is in Bristol, - we may be driving over tomorrow if I can't find one here.

I'd be very grateful for any ideas!

Just in case anyone's interested We got a Ridgeback Scoot balance bike from Tredz in Cardiff in the end.

It's this one but in silver.

We're really pleased with it, it seems very well made - Ridgeback make proper mountain bikes - DP says he'd like an adult Ridgeback but it'd cost more than our car's worth (I'm not sure if that says more about our car or the bikes .)

We got the last one in the store and the guys in the store were lovely - they knocked 10% off for it being the display model. (it was a bit cheeky to ask, but if you don't ask you don't get IME!)