Cupracraig
Member
So a while back i bought my 3 year old son an Indybike e-balance bike. We go out on loads of walks with the dogs over *Private Land* and i often end up carrying him, combines with him wanting a Motorbike, this seemed like a great option.
The decision to buy one of these was further enforced when my son had a horiffic accident in Jan of this year when he snapped his Femur, almost severing an artery. Subsequently he was in a hip Spiker for 9 weeks and essentially had to learn to walk again. He has a limp now but its reducing with time. Getting him out with us again was super important and for such an outdoors boy it was what he needed. He can ride a normal bike just fine and we use that to build up his muscles again, but those bikes are no good for walks on the *Private Land*.
Link to the bike here : indybikes.co.uk I got it on sale foe £180 which seems a lot, but when you look at the world of e-balance bikes, it really is not.
The bike itself has a 100w motor and runs on a 7 cell Li-Ion battery ran in Series making 24volts. its a 2ah battery so its good for about 75minutes on tarmac, less with more hilly and challenging terrain. It has a twist and go throttle with battery indicator, aluminium frame and drum brake.
The bike itself comes with these terrible white road style tyres, so thats no good off road. They were the first to go and upgraded to some 12" off road tyres and tubes. Instantly making it much better in the mud and hills.
The next thing to address and this is my bigest gripe with ALL kids bikes was the brake. Loads of kids bikes have a drum brake which is hard for little hands to use, they struggle to pul the lever and even if they are strong enough, the brake is generally pretty crap.
Having taken the brake off i saw that the drum itself was threaded onto the wheel axle, so a quick measure with a Calliper tool and a disc adapter was ordered for the grand sum of £5...a 120 disc also ordered to suit.
I then had to have a think about the brake itself, settling on a Shimano MT200, under £30 new with pads and an adjustable lever. this is the important part as it needed to be adjusted as close to the grip as possible for little hands to reach and engage. The hydraulic element was also critical for ease of use...escaping the cable friction.
So where are we now? i'm off to the bike shop today to see if they have any Shimano caliper mounts that might help with bolting to the frame. If not then i'll speak to a welder friend to see if he can weld on some brackets.
Next thing on the order list is a 4ah battery to double the ride time but also provide more peak power for longer. 36v or even 48v might be on the cards but not for a while
Any questions, please let me know... also any tips or suggestions also welcome!
Thanks, Craig
The decision to buy one of these was further enforced when my son had a horiffic accident in Jan of this year when he snapped his Femur, almost severing an artery. Subsequently he was in a hip Spiker for 9 weeks and essentially had to learn to walk again. He has a limp now but its reducing with time. Getting him out with us again was super important and for such an outdoors boy it was what he needed. He can ride a normal bike just fine and we use that to build up his muscles again, but those bikes are no good for walks on the *Private Land*.
Link to the bike here : indybikes.co.uk I got it on sale foe £180 which seems a lot, but when you look at the world of e-balance bikes, it really is not.
The bike itself has a 100w motor and runs on a 7 cell Li-Ion battery ran in Series making 24volts. its a 2ah battery so its good for about 75minutes on tarmac, less with more hilly and challenging terrain. It has a twist and go throttle with battery indicator, aluminium frame and drum brake.
The bike itself comes with these terrible white road style tyres, so thats no good off road. They were the first to go and upgraded to some 12" off road tyres and tubes. Instantly making it much better in the mud and hills.
The next thing to address and this is my bigest gripe with ALL kids bikes was the brake. Loads of kids bikes have a drum brake which is hard for little hands to use, they struggle to pul the lever and even if they are strong enough, the brake is generally pretty crap.
Having taken the brake off i saw that the drum itself was threaded onto the wheel axle, so a quick measure with a Calliper tool and a disc adapter was ordered for the grand sum of £5...a 120 disc also ordered to suit.
I then had to have a think about the brake itself, settling on a Shimano MT200, under £30 new with pads and an adjustable lever. this is the important part as it needed to be adjusted as close to the grip as possible for little hands to reach and engage. The hydraulic element was also critical for ease of use...escaping the cable friction.
So where are we now? i'm off to the bike shop today to see if they have any Shimano caliper mounts that might help with bolting to the frame. If not then i'll speak to a welder friend to see if he can weld on some brackets.
Next thing on the order list is a 4ah battery to double the ride time but also provide more peak power for longer. 36v or even 48v might be on the cards but not for a while
Any questions, please let me know... also any tips or suggestions also welcome!
Thanks, Craig
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having seen a few kids first bikes without any brakes.
