My son’s 7th birthday is coming up and he’s outgrown his current bike. He’s riding his sister’s old bike, but it’s got flowers all over it (I’m pretty sure that’s unacceptable in boy world). I’m going to be getting him a new bike for his birthday, but was wondering whether there was something special I should be looking for because he’s the kind of kid that likes to do tricks on his bike – hair-raising things like “surfing” down the hill, which means that he hurtles himself down the hill while standing crouched on the top tube. He also loves to do skid stops. Any suggestions?
bmx/freestyle type bike here I think, anything else will get destroyed. A jump bike would be strong enough too.
Thanks; I’ll do some research on that.
Seconded. When I was a kid I had a BMX with all kinds of trick nuts and extras bolted on at various times. That thing took 5 years of abuse and never went wrong. My parents got me a 15-speed mountain bike (no suspension, this was back in the late 80s) for about my 12th birthday and I wrecked the front wheel and forks within a couple of weeks doing tricks and jumps.
I looked around a little and a BMX/freestyle seems to fit the bill. Are all of these bikes “fixies” or do any of them have gears?
AFAIK BMXs are all single gear but they do have a freewheel so not a true fixie (i.e. if he stops pedalling he’s not going to get catapulted out of the saddle!).