10-year old is pushing me into getting a proper bike

He’s got skills! He’s taller than my 11 year old daughter who rides. I’m shopping for a 26r for her. Something old but high-quality. Hydraulic disks and a decent fork hopefully. I’ll make it a 1-by drive train with a massive cassette in the rear and maybe add a dropper post.

Look on Facebook marketplace for sure. Idk your budget but you should be able to get something real nice for either of you for 1-2k. Some say hard tail, that’d be good and cheaper than full suspension, and help develop the skills needed to maneuver a bike without the crutch of full suspension. However, if over time you kid really likes the dh aspect then a full suspension is the eventual path to go on so you could find a cross country bike (100-120mm travel) or trail bike (130-140mm travel) for himto start out on. Same idea for you, hard tail and cross country bikes will do better uphill, but not be as comfortable and manuverable on dh. I’d recommend getting something newer than 2016, as it will come with some more modern features. Look for bikes with a 1x cassette, dropper post. Usually can’t go wrong with name brands like Santa cruz, yeti, ibis, specialized, trek, etc. just do your research on what to look for when buying used mtb. I find chatgpt or any AI is good at knowing what to look for to see if the thing you’re trying to purchase is in bad condition. You can always send a screenshot to an ai and ask if this is a good purchase for the price, would this be a good bike for my kid who mtb and likes x and ask it what to look at when seeing it in person.

Get the lightest bike you can afford. I’ve been looking and it’s crazy because many 24” and 26” kids MTBs are heavier than my 29” large full suspension. And mine isn’t some crazy light carbon bike or anything. I don’t have any recommendations as I just started looking myself, but I can tell you weight makes a bigger difference to a 65lb kid than a 200lb adult.

Yeah this dude needs a proper bike.

I know it’s just a Walmart bike but it might be tough to go hardtail after having dual suspension, even if it’s fake shitty dual suspension.

I’d recommend a Polygon Siskiu D24. Once he hits 5ft you can put 26” wheels on it and get another couple seasons out of it.

If you think he’s going to clear 5’ in substantially less than a year, it might be worth pricing out an XS 27.5” adult-ish trail bike (Marin Rift Zone, Polygon Siskiu T7, used Giant Stance 27.5 XS) as an alternative. Probably the lowest spec you can find given his age and he won’t know the difference.

An XS bike might be big on him for a bit but I’ve seen some tiny kids dirt jumping some ridiculously huge bikes, so maybe not an issue.
Might be just me but I wouldn’t cheap out and go hardtail. Find something cheap/used but get something he has a reason to be really excited about and feels like a “real” bike.

We not going to talk about this jump form?

no get him a real bike