We have a bike rack at school stuffed with heavy, clumsy, cheap kids bikes equipped with components made of cheese. Most of our families are not wealthy, by any means, the school is on a tower block estate in North Peckham and don't have the kind of cash to stump up for an Islabike. They scrape together 50 quid (often less, believe it or not) and trek down to the big superstores on the OKR. The only decent bikes in the rack are a Cnoc and a Luath belonging to children from a couple of the very few middle class families in our school community, who are employed in jobs that pay enough to fund the more expensive initial outlay. They last much longer, however, and these families, who are friends outside school, have got a kind of club going, whereby they pass these bikes around as various children grow out of them and into the larger models. I wouldn't be surprised if, over time, they save money compared to the poorer families, as the Islabikes will outlast the cheaper bikes by years.