Passionately home they make the Rosco Kid Bike! But it needs V-brakes! I’ve been looking for another used Woom 4 (20” tires) or 5 (24” wheels) as my daughter grows up, but they’re terribly pricy new or used.
The Wooms wisely has V-brakes and hand brakes front and rear. Learning hand braking is both a valuable skill and a safer, more effective way for kids as young as three to ride. The advantage of the v-brakes also allow for the easy install of a Sunlite front rack - that would solve where to put a water bottle or lunch box for their ride to school, tackle box for their fishing ride to the pond. There are highly adjustable reach for v-brake levers too - like on the Woom getting the lever close to the hand grip makes it easy for short fingers to reach the brake quickly. As I live only 30 minutes from Walnut Creek I volunteered daughters as prototype test riders! Let me spend $450 at Riv instead of Woom! Abe “the kids are too big for the Rosco Baby Bike now” in Napa On Thursday, September 19, 2024 at 4:22:51 AM UTC-7 Ryan wrote: > Wow Patrick that's some origin story....goes a long way towards explaining > your propensity for fixed gear bikes > > On Wednesday, September 18, 2024 at 7:39:24 PM UTC-5 Patrick Moore wrote: > >> You've convinced me that hand brakes aren't hard for beginning children >> cyclists; I suppose if a child is old enough and coordinated enough to >> backpedal to stop he or she can grab a lever. >> >> One advantage of coaster brakes is that they're generally set and forget. >> As long as the chain is not hugely loose they'll work as well as day 1 >> after months and even years of neglect. Calipers, OTOH: most parents will >> buy Target or Costco children's bikes. I've spent much time making the >> calipers or V brakes or cantilevers on inexpensive bikes work minimally >> well; just did that a few weeks ago for the front brake on the bike >> belonging to the 11 year old son of a friend; the brake was -- again -- >> useless. The rear was not much better but at least it didn't get worse. >> This after I'd done a complete brake cable and housing refit and full >> adjustment 6 or 8 months ago. >> >> I guess my only real points are: coaster brakes are not harmful, and they >> do have their advantages. >> >> Me, I learned to ride age 4 -- 65 years ago -- on a brakeless fixie; no >> kidding. I have distinct memories of the rather intimidating blonde sisters >> next door (they might have been 9 and 11) teaching me to ride a tiny, >> rust-red 12"-or-so-wheel bike with solid spokes and hard rubber tires and >> -- again, I have distinct memories from even so long ago for bike stuff -- >> no coasting. They -- probably gleefully -- perched me on it and pushed me >> off down our sloping driveway into the street. Very short driveway, very >> quiet residential street. >> >> >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 18, 2024 at 4:53 PM Ted Durant <tedd...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> >>> On Sep 18, 2024, at 3:29 PM, Patrick Moore <bert...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> I just read Ted's post. I retract the second part, maybe -- instance is >>> not a statistic -- but not the first part of my assertion! >>> >>>> … As just one of the dozens of generations of small children learning >>>> to ride on coaster braked bikes (but *) I think someone was thinking about >>>> things far, far too hard. And there’s more! Can you imagine bike-clueless >>>> parents teaching wildly uncoordinated children how to safely use caliper >>>> brakes?? "Now Junior or Missy, remember that your rear brake is activated >>>> by the *right* lever but that your *left* lever activates the *front* >>>> brake >>>> which does 80% of the braking. Got that, Junior/Missy?” >>>> >>> >>> As I noted, we adjusted the front brake so that it didn’t provide much >>> power, just for that reason. We did that on the balance bike, and on the >>> pedal bike we didn’t feel we needed to depower it as much because he had >>> internalized well the difference between the left brake and the right >>> brake. Woom helpfully colors the levers differently, so you don’t coach >>> them on front/rear or left/right, it’s just green and black. The rear lever >>> is green, so you just coach them to use the green one to start, then when >>> they really get moving you teach them about straight line braking with both >>> brakes. >>> >>> I don’t think coaster brakes are dangerous at kid-bike speeds and >>> weights. I didn’t have any trouble learning to use the one on the >>> solid-tired bike I inherited from my older brother 57 years ago. But >>> eventually hand-operated brakes will have to be learned, and I see value in >>> separating the braking function from the pedaling function. Also, I don’t >>> think most children are wildly uncoordinated, just unskilled. The vast >>> majority of children acquire physical skills very quickly with a bit of >>> repetition and a few mistakes, er, learning opportunities. My grandson only >>> needed to grab the black brake lever hard once to learn to be careful of >>> that one, and at the speed he was going the consequences were scary but not >>> physically damaging. >>> >>> Ted Durant >>> Milwaukee WI USA >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com. >>> >> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/5B0067DF-2B26-4FE6-8DBF-C997192F33CE%40gmail.com >>> >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/5B0067DF-2B26-4FE6-8DBF-C997192F33CE%40gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>> . >>> >> >> >> -- >> >> Patrick Moore >> Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, letters, and other writing >> services >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> *When thou didst not, savage, k**now thine own meaning,* >> >> *But wouldst gabble like a** thing most brutish,* >> >> *I endowed thy purposes w**ith words that made them known.* >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. 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