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To those of you with boys in the 8-14 range, are the boys rough with each others' bikes around?
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my son needs a bigger bike and I'd like to get him a nice mountain bike
Yes they use each others bikes and they are "thrashed".
Get him a cheap mountain bike until he is old enough to appreciate the worth of a good one, will take care of the chain, brakes, and spokes, etc.
It's not that they're literally throwing bikes (I think it happened once during a heated argument), but that they tend to go after each others' bikes when they have their spats with each other.
Um, no not on my watch.
If my kid was doing this he wouldn't have a bike, period, and if his "friends" are doing this, he would not be allowed to play with them.
I
You should look for a bike-shop quality bike on Craigslist. It may be cheaper than buying a new mountain bike at Walmart, and it will hold up better to the occasional abuse kids give their bikes.
I was going to make the same suggestion. Craiglist or area thrift stores are the place to go for quality used bikes at bargain prices. Bike shops that allow trade-ups are another option. They usually cost more, but they offer some free servicing benefits.
From the answers above, I guess it depends. We used to treat our bikes pretty bad and they were bought, built, and paid for by us and we never saw anybody with a new one except maybe at Christmas. We didn't use kickstands. Only the girls had those... after all, they were girls and deserved better. But we would jump off our bikes with them still going across the yard, down the street, etc. Dump them on the ground etc. We didn't do things like stomp on each other's stuff but we certainly used them up.
Bikes are pretty fragile now-days so you probably can't do the stuff we used to do but we always had fun with our bikes; swapping parts with each other. Putting on "custom" parts, etc. The best was when somebody's dad or uncle would build them a bike with the frame upside down. Every kid in town had to see that!
I told my boys as long as they wore out there stuff I would be more than happy to buy more, and they didn't have to treat it like a piece of fine china. It's just a bicycle. Just don't let it rust down like a lot of bikes I see now-days. Personally, I think it is a waste of money to buy a multi-speed bike for a kid. They are like rolling typewriters with all the parts and no boy who has any juice or adventure in him is going to make one last the summer.
We've never had the roughness with bikes, but I've found some groups of boys are just rougher than others. My boys didn't tend to hang out with rougher kids. Those kids usually didn't stick around for more than a playdate or two because my kids didn't want them there.
But we would jump off our bikes with them still going across the yard, down the street, etc
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My dad used to ride around the neighborhood with me before his dementia got bad. We had to stop riding because he was doing that, and a weird running start where he'd race down the street and then throw his leg over the bike and take off. It didn't make any sense to me, but it sounds like maybe he was just riding like he did when he was a boy.
My dad used to ride around the neighborhood with me before his dementia got bad. We had to stop riding because he was doing that, and a weird running start where he'd race down the street and then throw his leg over the bike and take off. It didn't make any sense to me, but it sounds like maybe he was just riding like he did when he was a boy.
thats some old school biking, a true talent. dad was being himself.
with the "just turning a teen" age range, I would wait a little while for a new one. He should still be on a 20" or 24" bmx or cruising type bike. I have seen some skilled riders doing mountain biking on a bmx, it takes a special skill.
I had my first bmx at 12 yrs old, had it stolen from me, leading me to build my own bike with found parts. Many of us did it this way, since our parents were not swinging $200 away on some toy. As I learned, things like quick release hubs, and bike pegs became important necessity. I really learned and better appreciated my bike.
We were VERY rough on our bikes growing up. Jumps, hitting dirt trails, etc.
I bent wheels almost monthly, and broke chains, broke derailleurs, etc etc. I recently found mike bike from my late teens and tried to rebuild it but discovered it more cost-effective to just buy a new bike. I beat that poor thing up.
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