Road bikes for tweeners (4'9" approx)
I have twins who've done well at local youth tris riding their 900 lb fat, knobby tired mountain bikes. In fact they've won the local races a few times. But when there's any kind of "field" (e.g., at recent youth nationals, where I went for my teenager and because we have family where it was held), the kids with road bikes are all at the top and mine are usually near the top of the kids with mountain bikes. (Maybe this is a chicken/egg thing, with the road bike kids being "serious", but I don't think so; their bike splits was where they lost more time than anywhere else.)
Anyway, I'm not pounding my 10-year-olds with triathlon training...trust me on that... they "practiced" transitions a few times and have always liked running... but absolutely no "formal training". I just want everyone to know I'm not a psychotic dad.
Nonetheless, they are pining for road bikes. If we can swing it, I'm willing to splurge for something modest - after all they are going to grow a ton in the next few years. Used would be ideal, but it's really hard to find them, at least in Iowa with our low population density
We have one ancient but functional 47 cm Trek 1500 with down-tube shifters that I think we can probably get one of them on, but that leaves me one short.
Does anyone have any experience with the entry level very small road bikes out there? My LBS (which I like very much) can probably get anything, but they deal mainly in Treks and Giants. Both sell some 47ish sized bikes they call women's sized.
The twins are in the neighborhood of 4'9" this week.
Comments
Uh, yeah- that would be me :-) They could probably ride my Trek WSM 1500 (it's either 47 or 48cm I don't remember), I'm just barely 5'2". To that end, it might be really easy to find a used womans bike on ebay in fairly good shape. The Trek 1200/1500 series bikes are all pretty much the same frame, it's the component set that improves as you move up in price. The kids probably don't need much fancy for now- like you said they will be growing out of them soon enough!
Since we haven't decided to get them both bikes, I haven't actually sat down with them and the 47 cm Trek we have, but I've eyeballed it pretty good against their mountain bikes, and I'm 99% sure we could get it to work. I measured it this morning against the current WSD 47 cm Trek specs, and it's just a smidge larger than what Trek currently sells as a 47. (The entry level bike also has a sloped top tube instead of a flat one, which might help a little more for small guys.)
MY road bike is an ancient 1400 of the same vintage as the 1500, so I'm well acquainted with that old series! :-)