Nothing lasts for ever. Not even an Islabike! As bicycles age it is increasingly essential that they are well maintained. Here’s our quick guide to ensure safer riding on older bikes.

Our lightweight Rothan balance bike makes learning to balance intuitive and fun with the transition to a pedal bike easier than ever.
Our Cnoc starter bike is the versatile way to develop your child's riding skills. It can be used as a first pedal bike or as a larger balance bike, simply by removing the pedals.
Islabikes’ Beinn range of lightweight, perfect fitting, yet practically equipped bikes are fit for any adventure.
Perfectly proportioned, lightweight and loaded with high quality kit. The Creig is a serious mountain bike for young riders who tackle the roughest terrain.
Our lightweight road and cyclo-cross bike. Ride fast on the road, race muddy cyclo-cross, go touring or simply have the fastest bike on the school run.
Family cycling, commuting or touring the Beinn 29 personifies versatility.
Lightweight, low-step through design, with performance features making short jaunts a pleasure.
A svelte step-through road bike that’s lightweight and highly capable.
The ultimate off-road option for the older rider.
The idea that riding a bike, a physical action that predominantly relies on motor skills, should have an effect on a child’s intelligence seems slightly illogical. How could steering, balancing and pedaling possibly improve cognitive function? However, a number of modern studies have found evidence to support the notion that children with well-developed hand-eye coordination do go on to become better learners.
Why should this be? Previously, it had been thought that motor and cognitive skills occupied distinct and separate areas of the brain: the cerebellum and basal ganglia for motor skills; and the prefrontal cortex for cognitive skills. However, a study in 2000 by early years cognitive development researcher Professor Adele Diamond used neuroimaging and neuroanatomical analysis to show evidence of a link between the cognitive and motor centres of the human brain. Diamond’s research even demonstrated that some motor or cognitive tasks could actually invoke both cognitive and the motor centres of the brain.
In young children particularly, this link can be especially strong. Writing on the Scientific Learning website, Dr Bill Jenkins references the work of Karen Adolph who has suggested that infants are in a constant state of adaptation because they learn to understand the world around them at the exact same time that they develop the gross and fine motor skills needed to interact with that world.
“[Infant’s] bodies are changing simultaneously as the world around them is presenting new information,” Dr Jenkins said. “Thus, their physical existence in the world, and their movement through it, is one that requires constant cognitive problem solving. In short, infants spend the vast majority of their existence, when they are not sleeping, learning how to learn.”
In a review published by the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport Irene M.J. van der Fels, Sanne C.M. te Wierike, Esther Hartman, Marije T. Elferink-Gemser, Joanne Smith and Chris Visscherl, conducted a systematic review of a range of studies that provided some evidence of a relationship between motor skills and cognitive skills in children up to the age of 16. While there was no conclusive proof of a relationship between all motor skills and all cognitive skills, the review did say this:
“fine motor skills, bilateral body coordination, and timed performance in movements show the strongest relations with cognitive skills.”
Bilateral coordination refers to the ability to coordinate and control both sides of the body at the same time, which would certainly include cycling.
Although it studied data up to middle teenage years, this review by Van der Fels et al, felt that the highest degrees of evidence for a correlation between motor skills and cognitive function occurred in younger children. It even went so far as to conclude:
“The results of this review would support the concept that interventions in one domain (motor or cognitive skills) may support development of both motor and cognitive skills, especially in pre-pubertal children.”
Other research has gone one step further to suggest that well-developed motor skills can even be a predictor of future intellectual ability. Researchers like David Grissmer, Sophie Aiyer, William Murrah, Kevin Grimm and Joel Steele analysed data from six data sets and found that fine motor skills were a strong predictor of later achievement. Their study concluded that: “attention, fine motor skills and general knowledge are much stronger overall predictors of later maths, reading and science scores than early maths and reading scores alone.”
Of course, at Islabikes we know better than most people that children develop and progress at a pace unique to each of them. But by encouraging your child to get out on their bike and be active, you may be doing more than just helping them to become fit and healthy. You may be helping them to become a more effective learner, too.
Nothing lasts for ever. Not even an Islabike! As bicycles age it is increasingly essential that they are well maintained. Here’s our quick guide to ensure safer riding on older bikes.
On one level choosing a mountain bike over a road bike for your child is just the difference between curved bars and flat bars or slick tyres and knobbly ones. Those of us who have grown up around mountain biking know that it can mean so much more, so we sat round one lunchtime at Islabikes and tried to put our finger on why.
As mountain biking has matured, developed and diversified, so too has the manner in which you can enjoy the experience. Here are the most popular ways to begin mountain biking with your family.
Jayden Randell teams up with Rowan in thier latest production “Freedom” This young duo’s video captures the feeling of freedom and adventure we all seek when riding our mountain bikes.
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