Early Rider

Nuremberg Toy Fair 2012, Roll up! Roll up!

nicholal — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:27:16 +0000

We love the Nuremberg Toy Fair. Once we are there and in the thick of it, that is. The months of planning and the 2 week run up to actually leaving with a van packed with our whole world is pretty stressful to say the least.

The key to the show is getting the stand right – every year we try to make an impact and be remembered for showcasing our amazing products in an exciting and different way. Betty was always a winner but she’s taking a break this year. Since October, with the help of our incredibly talented and patient design agency, we’ve developed and scrapped several ideas until we all fell in love with the idea of an Early Rider Circus. The guys at Mercy have run with it and created what will be an amazing spectacle of balancing fun! I don’t want to ruin the surprise but there’ll be a high wire, flaming hoop and a cannon. Oh yeah.

We’ve also entered our Spherovelo into the Toy Awards. We think it’s amazing and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the judges agree. Nominations are announced on 26th January so we’ll let you know if we’ve managed to capture their imagination too.

Please come and see us if you’re at the show, there’ll be free popcorn to boost your energy while you marvel at our 2012 range of astounding balancing machines! Roll up! Roll up!

Spielwarenmesse, 1-6 February 2012, Hall 7 Stand C-19

2012 Early Rider Bikes Photoshoot

nicholal — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:04:48 +0000

It was a cold, cold early Saturday morning with added frost and billowing breath clouds, but simply perfect for our wintery photoshoot. The location turned out to be an inspired choice – Fishermans Path in Formby, Liverpool – a gorgeous forest of tall pines that leads all the way down to the dunes. The light was incredible; the children were so patient and willing and up for it and easy to work with; the photographer and his team were just amazingly talented and professional and a dream to watch; and our design agency – who were the glue that held it all together – ran a rigourously tight ship. We just supplied bikes, sweets, sandwiches and hot chocolate, stood back and felt slightly useless.

The results are amazing, more than we could have hoped for. Andy is particularly hard to please on these kind of things – anything short of pure genius or perfection won’t get through his detailometer – but he is a smiling man this week. The pictures have brilliantly captured the joy of riding an Early Rider, from the littlest of little people on our Lite right up to the new Belter, our new pedal bike. You’ll see the results soon…

Massive thanks to the team:

Photographer extraordinaire: Will Whipple

Photographic Assistant: Matt Walder

Stylist: Katrina Howley

Design Agency: Mercy UK

Kids Clothing supplied by Boden and No Added Sugar

Riders: Millie, Mya, Ted, Christopher, Natalie, Erica and almost Wren

Catering courtesy of the local motorway services

Learning is doing

nicholal — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:57:24 +0000

We heard recently about a new initiative to get children under 6 riding bikes. Great! We’re all for promoting riding and encouraging kids to explore and discover the world on two wheels. And we are avid believers that a balance bike should be a key part of every child’s development from the moment they can walk. Cycling is one of those skills that transcends age, size, ability – if you get on a balance bike at 2 or 3 you’ll be set for a life on two wheels. No exceptions, every child can do it. But the more we looked into these ‘courses’, the more we were confused by the concept.

‘Balanceability’ – a pre-cursor to ‘Bikeability’, the modern day Cycling Proficiency – is designed to be run in conjunction with schools and leisure centres. The idea is that you sign your child up to a 6 week course at the local sports hall and they teach you how to ride a balance bike. Now forgive me for sounding slightly negative about this very worthy initiative, but there are 2 question marks here. 1) why would it take 6 weeks to ‘teach’ a child to ride a balance bike? They are designed with simplicity at the core, using the child’s natural gross motor skills. There is very little to teach, in the same way that you don’t really teach your child to run once he can walk. It’s kind of a natural progression. And more importantly, 2) why do all this inside?

It’s a confusing one. Anything that converts parents to the joys and benefits of the balance bike should be supported and promoted. But cycling is enjoyed best out in the open air, through the woods, on the way to nursery, down the hill at the park, to the post office, along the boardwalk at the beach, through the local market – it’s an outside activity. It’s about more than the physical act of balancing. It’s about exploring, it’s about discovering the world, it’s about the feeling of the wind in your hair and the bumps on the road. It’s about family and racing your brother and sister to the swings. It’s about getting out there and doing it. Doesn’t that sound so much more enjoyable than 45 minutes in a sports hall once a week?

So, if you want to encourage your children to ride, buy them a balance bike and use it every time you go out.

What makes us so special?

nicholal — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:38:34 +0000

Not all balance bikes are the same. In the last year or two there has been an explosion in the number of balance bikes on the market. It’s great that parents and retailers are catching on because they are catagorically the best way to get your child confident and balanced and loving bicycles. Not to mention the fun of getting on a bike on a crisp autumn day and freewheeling through the leaves. But not all balance bikes are the same.

Balance bikes are great, they make going to the post office an adventure, they bring a whole new dimension to a walk in the woods. As a parent, they make you wish you were a kid again. But lets be clear on this – not all balance bikes are the same.

We’ve been designing and building bikes for long enough to see other bikes pop up and disappear off the radar. Thankfully Early Rider remains a bestseller. Why? Our little bikes are not just super cool and beautiful to look at, they have been designed – right down to the last detail – to get children riding from as early as 18 months. Our Classic, for example, doesn’t just have a ‘fatboy’ rear wheel because it looks cool, it adds significant stability to the ride. We’ve thought it through.

Our bikes are built to last and we like to think that you’ll want to keep it even after it has been outgrown. It’ll still be going strong.

Here’s a few key things that make us different:

Adjustable steering – 2 steering settings means that you can restrict the steering while they learn the basics and gain confidence, then when they are ready to add steering to their skillset you can open it up full to give a full range of movement. Patent pending – one of our little innovations.
Extra strong construction – all our wooden bikes are made from marine ply – ie the stuff they build boats out of. So they are weatherproof, durable and look lovely. Our forks have been specially designed to make them super-strong in tune with the grain of the wood – you won’t see any other balance bikes built with this attention to detail.
Green – and because we are responsible manufacturers we only use FSC approved birch.
Grown up wheels – fully inflatable pneumatic tyres, lightweight aluminium rims and sealed bearings for the smoothest ride. See? Attention to detail. Oh, and to stop your toddler from removing the valve caps we’ve made them safe – pill bottle style.
Faux leather seat pad – for comfort and cool. Just a nice, easy clean, stay dry, comfy touch.

Of course we also give you adjustable seat height, handlebar grips, quick release front wheel, 2 year warranty and top quality customer service.

So next time you take your child out on their Early Rider, check the nearest window for the smile that will be on yours and your child’s face. You purchased a fine piece of kit. Be proud of yourself.

Thank you.

The Alley Runner – our latest balance bike

nicholal — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 08:25:39 +0000

We’ve been working hard on our new product lines and we’re really proud of the new 2012 additions to the range. I posted earlier on our new pedal bike – the Belter. Now it’s the turn of our latest balance bike – the Alley Runner. It’s deliberately different from our Original Series of wooden bikes and it’s been alot of fun to design and make. It retains all the quality, design and ridability of an Early Rider product, but in a sleek, lightweight, nippy form. An aluminium frame with forged dropouts, carbon seat post and handlebars, sealed bearings and splashes of cool with the leather studded seat and bar wraps ensure this will be as beautiful to ride as it is to look at. In testing there were tears when we tried to take it away. I’m pretty sure that’s a thumbs up. Available from February 2012.

We reveal our new lightweight belt drive pedal bike

nicholal — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:33:46 +0000

We’re excited about our new pedal bike launch for 2012. We’ve called it the Belter, and it is a belter. We’ve looked at all the things that make a perfect first pedal bike – not something that currently exists – and created the ideal bike to move on to after mastering the Early Rider balance bike. We’ve designed it from scratch to be lightweight, super-efficient and maintenance free. At 5.8kg it’ll be the lightest pedal bike on the market. Weight is key to get them riding effortlessly – if you consider the average 5 year old weighs 17kg, picking up and riding a 12kg steel bike is the equivalent of a 80kg man riding a 55kg bike. It just wouldn’t happen. Our bike is simply easier for a child to pick up and get moving which will mean they will love riding it. It’s called the Belter because we’ve used a belt drive instead of a chain. Several reasons for this – it’s lighter weight, it’s less messy and it doesn’t stretch and sag and loose efficiency like a traditional chain. It’ll be as effective when the child finishes with the bike as it was on day one. And of course this means that the bike will hold it’s value and last for years. We’ve used the lightest weight materials – the frame is aluminium with forged dropouts and the seat post is carbon. We’ve looked at the biometrics of our little riders and made sure the pedal width and handlebar length is perfectly in unison with hip and shoulder width to make riding even easier and comfortable and natural. The child friendly brake will be integrated in the bar-ends and will be adjustable to the child’s grip. 16″ wheels with sealed bearings keep them maintenance free and the thin tyres keep the weight down and reduce rolling resistance and all combine to make the transition from balance bike to pedal bike a simple step up. Of course, we’ve also added those little extras that we love at Early Rider – a leather studded seat and matching hand stitched leather grips. Sweet. It’s likely to hit the market at around £230 and will be available around February 2012.

Early Rider goes down a storm at Eurobike 2011

nicholal — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:12:12 +0000

We’ve just got back from Eurobike (well, a few days ago now but we’re just catching up on writing…) and have begun the process of deciphering the scribbled notes, collating all the business cards and generally catching up on sleep. It was an amazing show this year, much better than we had expected given our stand was pretty much built on the fly and at one point we were looking at just one person doing the whole thing. We brought the updated prototype of the Spherovelo which we didn’t think would appeal as much to the bike market as it does to the toy buyers, but we were proved wrong. Lots and lots of smiles, laughs and promises of large orders from all around the world. The other conversation starter was our new pedal bike – the Belter – (more on that in a separate post) which went down equally as well. So, having picked up potentially 14 new distributors worldwide and spoken to over 250 new retailers we have much to keep us busy. Which is the way we like it.

Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op donates Early Rider bikes to NHS

nicholal — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:48:17 +0000

Our friends at Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative know all about giving back. The onsite nursery at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust were the happy recipients of a donated bike from EBC, but as their users are all a bit wee to be cycling they requested something smaller and chose 2 Early Rider Lite’s for the children. Needless to say they are getting put through their paces on a daily basis and the kids are loving their new rides. Great work EBC!

Victory for the Little Guy!

nicholal — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:24:12 +0000

This week we finally had our day in court. We’ve had an ongoing dispute with UPS since early 2009. In our eyes it was a pretty simple problem to resolve, but they didn’t seem overly inclined to solve it. And as this problem was costing us money on every shipment we didn’t feel inclined to pay for it. Needless to say it’s been passed from person to person to department to legal to… well, who knows where inside UPS, nobody actually willing to sort out the problem, just giving us demands for money.

We’ve militantly held our ground, knowing we had a valid point, and without ever really thinking it would get to this point, ended up in a courtroom on Wednesday: Early Rider Ltd v UPS. Andy did his best to morph into Tom Cruise from The Firm and prepared himself for a Judge Judy style grilling. 2 hours later he emerged victorious! And slightly sweaty.

The judge has restored our faith in humanity – in an economic climate where so much of what we do as a small business can often be at the mercy of big corporate rules, this was a victory for common sense and one in the eye for bully-boy tactics.

The only down side was that there never seemed an appropriate moment to get his “You can’t handle the truth!” moment. Next time…

New Early Rider website goes live

nicholal — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 14:02:53 +0000

So the more observant of you will have noticed that our new look website has gone live, and very proud of it we are too. It’s growing daily and we’ll be adding lots of nice features and info over the coming days/weeks/months.

We’ll be adding a gallery of our intrepid riders from around the world, so do send us your pictures and stories of adventures with your Early Rider.

Do you like the new look? Tell us what you think. And let us know if you’d like to see any new features.