Isla bikes rental scheme

boardbeer

Brilliant idea, wouldn't have a Beinn 24" taking up room in the shed:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/oct/21/islabikes-radical-new-plan-means-you-may-never-need-to-buy-your-child-a-bike-again

fat bloke

It does sound like a great idea in fairness. They kinda of did have a version of that in place anyway in that you could trade in your old bike and buy new, and presumably that trade in was then sold on again (and perhaps re-traded in later again).

But their pricing is well out of whack in comparison to other manufacturers. Their new "pro" range for example iirc start at around 1800 pounds sterling and for that you're still getting an aluminium cx style frame, and not a superlight one... I did a lot of research lately into road bikes for my kids and the upshot of it was -as soon ever as you can you need to get them off the childrens bike cul de sac and start looking at the smallest adult frame builds -which manufacturers are increasingly beginning to cater for.

smacl

Brilliant idea. I love the concept of building things to last as long as they possibly can with replaceable parts, as opposed to designed obsolescence which wastes finite resources and adds to land fills purely in order to meet a business model.