After talking with Luc and Mike (is he on this site?) about kids and mini-bikes it motivated me to mess with some video I took this summer. My son and I took the bikes to the trails to spend some quality time together. This was only his 2nd time out there and his 2nd time riding the gas-powered explosive motobike.
It was a fun day! As you can see the electric bike is fun for all ages.
If you look under my vids you'll see another one I made where it was his 2nd day riding it and my daughters 1st time. She was 5 at the time.
Anyway, there ya go.
Thanks. He was 6.
He was riding his bicycle w/o training wheels at 3. He was eager to ride. She was not. She screamed her head off whenever I tried to get her to ride w/o wheels. She had to want to do it on her own. Now she rides her bike all the time.
The razor is a great bike! This winter I'll probably put another battery in it, so it will be pushing 48volts at 500amps. It'll be a screamer then.
we need to get together sometimes with the little guys I found nice used small KTM on craigslist but it has my son intimidated (sound and power I guess) I was thinking that I needed to try to get him to try an electric bike first to build some confidence. I am sure your son would like to take the KTM for a spin!
Kyle actually bought it for his niece & nephew. They rode it a lot but finally outgrew it. Kyle gave it to me for my daughter, but she is 5.5 and not riding without training wheels yet. So instead, the neighbor kids have been burning the tires off my MX350.
The neighbor kids will sure miss it, but if you want to borrow it for a few months, I don't need it back until Rachel can ride her bicycle without training wheels--probably late this next spring.
that is very kind of you, I probably do not need it for that long, just enough to get his confidence back... Let me know whenever you come that way or I may be coming your way soon
I have never seen these, I'm trying to get my 9 yr old daughter to give up on her gas 4 wheeler for dirt bike, but this might be a good transition.
Is the electric bike very jerky when you take off? I guess I'm thinking like the electric golf cart that will jerk hard at take off.
CRF 450x
Favorite quote:
"If it looks good, eat it" and "Check out that smoke ring, baby"
Andrew Z.
Savage will chime in regarding his MX500, which is a substantially better machine.
My MX350 is a bit jerky. In fact, the "throttle" is really just a power on switch when you roll it back. So it's either full speed or nothing. I had to teach the neighbor kids to wap the throttle on and off frequently to control speed. The older kids (7 years old) have gotten comfortable enough on it to just ride full speed most of the time, but the younger kids have to constantly put throttle on, off, on, off to keep the speed down.
Despite this, it's very easy to ride. In fact, I have 8 neighbor kids that ride it. Boys and mostly girls ages 6 to 8. All of them have been able to pick it up and ride it from day one with relative ease. As long as a kid is comfortable on their bicycle without training wheels, they are ready for the MX350.
More importantly, the MX350 is really too small for a 9 year old, so the 500 is better suited for you. The MX350 is advertised for kids that old--in fact it may say "8+", but that's lawyer CYA BS. There is a 10 year old boy across the street who wants to ride it and I don't let him because he's really too big for it.
It sounds like the 350 has an MSC instead of ESC (electronic speed control). If you want you can putt around with little throttle or give it full throttle. Here's a vid of my 5 yr old riding it for the 1st (and last) time.
