mustang1
Guru
- Location
- London, UK
I have no experience of carrying kids on bikes so take this with salt.
If you're going on forest trails, you might actually enjoy front suspension, but like the others say, it's certainly not needed and you can save money and weight by not having it. It's probably better to buy from a local shop but it's fine to buy from online or elsewhere especially if you have a local shop nearby who can fix things up for you.
For the bikes or brands themselves (which is pretty much what you're asking), I'm afraid there are so many bike brands out there that it gets a bit confusing and that's why some of us mentioned to just go with whatever your local bike shop sells (assuming it's a shop with good people working there and IMY they usually are). If you push me to give bike brand names, then I'll stick with the well known names like Giant, Specialized, Trek, Cannondale which are usually available in brick-and-mortar shops but there are plenty of others like Focus, Bianchi, Canyon and so on which are available in brick-and-mortar shops as well as online-only.
The best thing is to ensure you have the correct size bike so if you're buying online, take all the measurements (Canyon go to great lengths to ensure you measure yourself up IIRC). Ah yes, and you may want a bike with mudguards in case the trails get, well, muddy. I have not ridden this bike but have considered an e-bike in the past and this is one I was interested in (currently the small size looks to be sold out and I see them for around £2500 list price down to £2k for discounted end-of-season stuff:
https://www.giant-bicycles.com/gb/quick-eplus-electric-bike
Hope that helps a little and welcome to the forum!
If you're going on forest trails, you might actually enjoy front suspension, but like the others say, it's certainly not needed and you can save money and weight by not having it. It's probably better to buy from a local shop but it's fine to buy from online or elsewhere especially if you have a local shop nearby who can fix things up for you.
For the bikes or brands themselves (which is pretty much what you're asking), I'm afraid there are so many bike brands out there that it gets a bit confusing and that's why some of us mentioned to just go with whatever your local bike shop sells (assuming it's a shop with good people working there and IMY they usually are). If you push me to give bike brand names, then I'll stick with the well known names like Giant, Specialized, Trek, Cannondale which are usually available in brick-and-mortar shops but there are plenty of others like Focus, Bianchi, Canyon and so on which are available in brick-and-mortar shops as well as online-only.
The best thing is to ensure you have the correct size bike so if you're buying online, take all the measurements (Canyon go to great lengths to ensure you measure yourself up IIRC). Ah yes, and you may want a bike with mudguards in case the trails get, well, muddy. I have not ridden this bike but have considered an e-bike in the past and this is one I was interested in (currently the small size looks to be sold out and I see them for around £2500 list price down to £2k for discounted end-of-season stuff:
https://www.giant-bicycles.com/gb/quick-eplus-electric-bike
Hope that helps a little and welcome to the forum!
