Marketing manager Steve Chapman tells us the story behind this successful kids’ bike brand
Islabikes started after Isla Rowntree was asked by her sister what bike to buy for her children and couldn’t recommend any. At the time, children’s bikes were incredibly heavy with disproportionately sized componentry. Even safety-critical features like brakes had levers small hands couldn’t operate. With this in mind, Isla set up Islabikes.
We don’t make compromises. Our bikes are incredibly lightweight, with proportionately sized, bespoke componentry. We take a holistic approach to design, with each component choice complementing the next. We continually invest in new tooling and opening moulds to allow us to tailor the ride experience to be the best it can.
We’ve recently launched The Imagine Project – a long-term research and development project that runs in parallel to the main Islabikes business and is based around utility/ridingto-school usage. We're working
towards a fully circular supply chain. The aim is to be the cycling industry experts in the sustainable supply of bicycles.
Getting kids into anything active is a good thing and if it’s cycling related, then that’s even better. The great thing about mountain biking is the amazing places it can take you. We’re a company of cycling enthusiasts in all its forms but the feeling of exploration you get from mountain biking is hard to beat. The key is to not rush it. It’s understandable and fairly common that bike-mad parents are really keen to get their children into cycling as well. This is great, but it’s important that an interest in cycling is shared at the child’s pace. In the early days, it’s all about ensuring kids have positive experiences of cycling, and turning up the volume on adventure nice and slowly.
Kids tend to focus on the colour of the bike first and then want it to look like their parent’s bike. So we like to offer vibrant colours with high-quality graphics and components. In the past, there’s been a tendency for children’s bikes to have unnecessary features added, like suspension – most notably, steel suspension forks on 20in-wheeled bikes and smaller. We only spec suspension forks on the Creig mountain bike model, with 24in wheels and above. On these bikes, we spec a highquality, lightweight, air-sprung suspension fork. This enables the fork’s set-up to be tailored to the rider’s weight, which is key to achieving the intended performance.
We have a packed schedule and travel round to as many events as possible in a year. Events such as Tweedlove give us a unique opportunity to be immersed in a cycling-mad community chock full of super-talented kids.
Give kids time to take it at their own pace. It’s all about facilitating positive experiences and creating an environment that’s encouraging.
Mountain biking is in a good place at the moment. The level of infrastructure is seemingly on the increase all the time and the advent of the trail centre has marked a real step change in the accessibility of the sport, making it easy for families to enjoy the trails together.
"We make a big effort to spend time with kids and parents to gain feedback. This is critical to future development plans"