Two thumbs up for the Puky balance bike here

[brittone2]

DS is **loving** it. He can cruise pretty fast on it (still just walking on it, but he's going faster and faster). No problems steering, so I'm glad we got one that has the ability to steer (I think he learned from his trike).

He has lots of room to grow on the smallest model. He's pretty tiny...just over 36 inches and just turned 3 years old. We have the seat pretty much all the way down so his feet are flat. It gives him lots of growing room since he's pretty short for his age ;)

Anyway, he's loving it, and I'm glad things worked out w/ the Glider Rider people after our initial customer service issues.

These bikes are very cool :)_

[kochh2]

hey Beth, i forgot to ask... where did you get it from?? we happened to check out the one at target the other day, and it looks really cool, but flimsy... are there any reviews for that one yet??
:) H

[shilo]

hi beth,

when you say you have the 'smallest' model, i'm confused. i thought glider rider carried the middle sized puky? is your's the one where the seat goes all the way down to 11"? in which case, even the smallest one is not going to fit my DS for a very long time (he's just about a quarter inch shy of 30" right now). btw, i resent my email from xmas time to glider rider early last week (as in it's now been almost 2 weeks) with no response from them. do you happen to have a direct email for any of the guys you dealt with?
thanks! lori
Sam 5/19/05 How lucky I am that you chose me.

[brittone2]

You are right...it isn't the smallest available. I think it is the medium one then. My apologies!! Sorry if that was confusing.

Eeek about the lack of communication from the glider rider people. I've been trying to give them the benefit of the doubt after they relayed their story to m DH, but wow, now I'm wondering if their customer service issues are a long term problem.

I unfortunately don't have a different email. I sent several emails w/ no response, made one or two phone calls without a response either. I only got a response after I contacted Puky via email directly (from their website) letting them know several people were having major customer service issues w/ their only US distributor. Only then did we miraculously receive a phone call from Glider Rider w/ their apologies. (so I wonder if it was related to Puky communicating with them?) At the time, I also sent the Puky people links to the board with discussions about poor customer service so they could see what was happening.

I'm really disappointed they haven't gotten things cleaned up on their end. I felt like I had to post our good experience once they finally straightened things out, but I'd sure hate to send any business their way if this is how they are continuing to go about things. Yikes.

I hope you can get some answers. I can't believe they are still not returning phone calls, etc. That is some really terrible customer service :(

[brittone2]

I haven't seen any extensive reviews here on the Target model but I'm not online that much lately. I do remember someone saying the seat height is fairly tall. I believe the poster's DC was like 38 or 39 inches and it was still kind of big or just barely fit? Not sure if I'm remembering right but if you do a search maybe it will come up. My impression from her post was that it would work better for a kid at least 39 inches? Not sure if Aiden is that tall yet but my lil guy is only 36 and a little extra, so I ruled that one out. I know for the Puky they say you want their feet flat on the floor so it is easier to walk/run on and so they are balanced.

The only place to buy a Puky bike in the US right now that I've heard of is from Glider Rider. They have a website. I had some customer service issues w/ them initially but they apparently had some family problems (one owner's mom was ill, and I think the other had a family member pass away?) and whoever filled in for them wasn't handling things very well. After a few emails and phone calls they were very apologetic and took care of things quickly. I was hoping their customer service was back on track but based on the post from Lorien, it doesn't seem like it. There is German retailer of Puky bikes that will ship to the US via DHL. There was a recent post w/ the info. The price wasn't that much more than the total through Glider Rider if I remember right??