Originally Posted by
CliffordK
Hmmm... I'm a little surprised there are good E-Bikes for 8 year olds (unless you built your own).
I know how kids can get frustrated with hills.
I wonder how easy it will be to wean them onto pedal powered bikes in their mid teens.
Are the bikes smart enough that you can get in and reprogram the power curves?
Our 8 year old rides this super-lightweight e-bike:-
https://www.ben-e-bike.net/en/ben-e-...power-pro_140/
It's lighter than a lot of kid's regular bikes and the fork actually works. You can re-program the power curve, but the default setup is already pretty well optimised for the age group.
Our 11 year old originally rode the above bike, but has since graduated to an adult e-bike (Cube Hardtail in smallest size). It's a lot heavier (I replaced the original crappy Suntour fork with a lighter Rockshox Judy) but she handles it fine and it is very stable on the downhills.
It's going to be entirely their choice when/if they move back to non-powered bikes later on. They both had normal pedal bikes before the e-bikes, so it's not like they don't have any experience. Right now they just prefer being able to keep up with the adults. The problem they face is our local trails are quite hilly and there's a steep climb straight out from the house, which they used to hate. Now they just breeze up it and wait for us to catch up at the top!
It's an expensive solution, but we wanted them to ride with us and this was about the only way it would work at their age. It wasn't much fun when they were both on regular bikes. Our youngest struggled to keep up (she's now the faster of the two on her e-bike) and they both often had to walk hills.