Buying children a mountain bike is something that makes me very angry, not at my child mind. But the quality and prices at which I buy them!. I know that I have no images with this post, but I thought that as my wife decided to write about buying children mountain bikes and used photo's of the bikes I'm writing about. You would get the idea!
Kids mountain bikes these days are a complete waste of money unless you spend ridiculous amounts of money for them. The reason I say this is because if you look at them you will see that the cranks are extremely weak, disk and v brakes do not work properly, ie: they rub or sieze up all together, and the levers are to damn difficult for any children to squeeze!
Manufactures make, and shops sell these bikes to the parents from £99 - £400 with the tag that it's a "Mountain Bike". It is not a mountain bike, mountain bikes do not fall apart at the sight of dirt! These so called mountain bikes for children are being sold to parents and the parents are being miss-led. Why? Because when parents take these bikes in for a service because something has gone wrong. The local bike store will ask, "has this bike been off-road"? When the parent replies "yes I think so!". The local bike store would say, "It's a road bike, not a mountain bike"!.
Manufactures should spend more time improving the quality of budget bikes as low as £99 for them to deserve the tag "mountain bike". And parents should be aware that full suspension bikes for £200-£300 are not going to make you or your child happy, when the bloody things fall apart quicker than ridged bikes would! Why? because cheap ridged bikes have better components than one with a suspension, front or both!
What the manufacturers need to tag these bikes as is...'Novelty mountain bike'..at least this way you know exactly what you are buying!!!! Something cheap that is going to fall apart very quick just like the 'novelty' pocket money toys the kids can buy!
Well here we go again, climbing my local off road uphill trails with the helmet hero cam! This is the second installment and the focus this time is on choosing the right lines uphill. The trail is a 12% gradient climb over really rough technical ground.
In winter and on really wet days these trails get really bogged down with water and sludge, and riding them is damn near impossible! I'll show you some wet riding movies in future updates along with more audio. ;-)
I've just spent the morning putting some footage together of my local trails with the helmet hero cam. I then spent the afternoon editing it. This is the first installment. The focus here is on a mountain biker choosing the right lines, and trying to keep the speed up going over really rough ground!
I hope you like it and I look forward to your comments...
This blog is all about my life… my life of mountain biking and ideas I’ve acquired through the years. As an average everyday mountain biker, the learning doesn’t stop. I try to feed my mind in my own little way by writing and promoting this blog. I would like to share what I have learned through this blog with you. Let this blog be an additional resource for your mountain bike needs, and maybe you'll find some much needed ideas you may not have given much thought to before.
My name is Paul Walton, an engineer slave and spare time mountain biker/blogger. Blogging about mountain bikes has become and undying passion, spending most weekends and afternoons on the internet blogging. As well as riding bikes, writing about it also is what I love to do.
