Good God LIKE A BIKE is HOW MUCH??!!? what's the alternative?

[gatheringstones]

I am reeling after going into local toy shop and being told like-a-bike is £179! a few kids round here have them - i can't believe anyone would pay that.

so i'm after recommendations for better value alternatives please!

We got one from ebay, not 2nd hand but from a shop, it's a wooden balance bike but not LikeaBike, I think it cost about £35. i think they are a bit more now but still not as much as £179!

The St. John's Street Cycle ones (and others on Ebay) are decent quality. Islabikes does a metal version one, too.

Ridgeback do a really good one - comes with two seat posts, so the height adjustment is good, and the bike lasts a long time. It's about £90, has a brake and bell and is very good. dd has the islabike rothan, which is brilliant - very lightweight and stable. It's about £100, but has brilliant resale value on ebay. I'd probably go for a ridgeback if I were to buy another one, though I do love the Islabike.

Remove the pedals and chain from an old bike (eg from a car boot sale)

thanks all will take a look at recommendations and certainly think about removing pedals from old bike!

We got ds this one. It's £39

oh i like that one. but do love the lime green of the ridgeback... have a bit of an aversion to pink. but can't bring myself to put a girl on blue (i know, i know. stoopid)

a car!

Is it a balence bike you're after? We have a Puky - the medium sized one. Quite adjustable and long lasting, extremely solid and sturdy but also light.

she would like a car...but she can't reach the foot pedals.

puky also good - they sell them in the other local toy shop.

starting to prefer the metal over the wood...

yes - personally I don't see the attraction of the wood for bikes - I mean they look nice and must be light I presume, but I would have thought metal was more robust and weather proof

I have a rotham Isla Bike for DD. It was £99 plus postage of around £10. Its great, very robust, just like a proper bike but without pedals.

DH loves it, and it will last and last and last, and apparantly when she is ready for the next one up, they will part exchange according to condition for a new one, which is great if you do not have another child to pass it on too (which we will).

Wooden ones are nice enough, but not robust enough for our DD!

here and excuse my spelling mistake, its 'rothan'!

Pavlov, apparently you get more back by selling on ebay than by px with islabikes.

i got a wooden on in lidl for £12. pretentious friend was heard to sneer and say their likabike was so much better quality. the £12 quid job has taught 3 kids to ride a bike and still going strong.

habbibu oh good that is wort knowing...will prob keep it for next baby, DD is likely to trash it anyway!

I had heard about the ones in Lidl for £12 would have been happy with one of those although I am not so keen on the wooden hobby horse style ones, but they had none when I went in to check it out!

My dds all learnt to ride perfectly easily with just the traditional bike-with-stabilisers and then bike-without-stabilisers. One at 5 one at 3 one at 4.

Am not convinced the like-a-bike really makes much difference.

Phoenix, how heavy is the John Lewis one? Just wondering if DS would manage it...

we got an orange one for ds from Tesco, it was less about £26 iirc.

The Puky ones are very good quality, very popular in Germany.

The balance bikes are great for the DC learning to ride bikes, my two were riding bikes without stabilisers by the age of 3yo.

JStainy I'm not sure it's appropriate for you to be posting here

We have just bought one of the aluminium likeabike kokuas for ds2 (ds1 already has one, but not ready for pedals yet, unfortunately), and althought they are monstruously expensive (though ours were less than £179, so it's worth shopping around on the net. I htink we paid £120 for th first one adn about 150 for the second) I think it is money well spent if you can possibly afford it. There is nothing to break (and ours both get put through their paces), it's incredibly lightweight but very sturdy. ds1 has had his nearly a year adn it looks as good as new, so I'm hopeful of getting quite a good amount back if we re-sell once he's grown out of it.

I haven't tried the other makes at all, so can't really compare, but we went to look at pedal bikes in Halfords for ds1 before deciding to get another balance bike and they are so heavy, not particularly well-made.

" (a lot of balance bikes out there have high levels of poison in the grips and tyres) " Poison? Have you got proof of this? That's quite a claim. I mean, I wouldn't let dd eat her tyres, so if that's what you mean by poison, well, no-one's selling them as foodstuffs...