Frog Bikes - what are they like? Comparison with Islabike?

[JennyWren]

Does anyone have a Frog bike for their child? Our DD has grown out of her Islabike and we were planning to replace it with a larger one, but our local bike shop has suggested that we consider a Frog bike instead. There seem to be some small differences between the two, but the Frog seems to still have the lightweight frame and child-size brakes etc. that we were looking for. They are also a bit cheaper, which would be nice.

Does anyone have one - what do you think?

we have one - I got one for my 10 year old. It's really good (although I'm no expert on bikes!). the bike shop man told me they're just as good as Islabikes but much cheaper. it's so light and dd really likes it too.

No complaints here - I'm getting one for my other daughter too.

That's good to know - thank you. How long have you had it? Do you think it will last in a good enough condition to hand down to your younger daughter when they both grow? Our DS is going to have DD's Islabike (thank heavens for unisex colours!) and it is still in really good condition, so I'm hoping that we'll be able to pass down DD's new bike as well, in a couple of years.

Personally I would still go for the islabike, if for no other reason than the resale value. I looked at both for my son - the frog bike was about £60 cheaper but they don't appear to hold their value. The cheapest second hand islabike I saw was 60% of the new cost - and that was 6 years old and not in particularly good condition. A bike 2 years old will sell for about 80% of its new cost. I've seen second hand islabikes sell for more than the new cost (the road bike when islabike couldn't fulfill demand!) There doesn't seem to be a market for second hand frog bled at the moment.

I think that Frog bikes have only been available for about a year, so I guess that few will have been up for resale yet. We'd plan to keep ours for about 4 years (2 years for DD then passed on to DS for another 2 years), so hopefully there'll be more of a market by that time.

Fair enough. They are certainly good bikes and have some advantages over islabikes - most notably that the components are standard and replacements can be picked up anywhere, whereas islabikes have made bespoke stuff and therefore you can't get 'off the shelf' replacements.