Customer Reviews

Tyco R/C Wheelie Cycle 27mhz

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have a garage full of radio controlled (RC) vehicles that I've bought for my kid over the years (yeah, right, for my kid... :-) ). Tyco has been making inexpensive RC kits (cars and motocycles, even boats) for a long time. I didn't find that this kit is very different in terms of quality or functionality from those of years past with one significant exception: This one comes with all the required batteries (including the one for the vehicle). Typically, Tyco kits have not included the vehicle battery, and these batteries (+charger) run around $30 at retail. So this should be considered a major bonus.

So how is the motorcycle? I found that it works as advertised. It goes very fast, and both the speed control and the ability to pull "wheelies" while moving work as would be expected.

My main criticism of this particular vehicle is that it is not all that forgiving of poor driving skill. It is quite easy to spin out and have the motorcycle wind up on its side--especially outdoors where surfaces tend to be irregular. Of course, it's not hard to pick it up and start again. But here's how these entry level vehicles are almost always used by the kids who get one: Full out throttle, with the vehicle zooming away. In that scenario, this motorcycle isn't going to last more than 5 seconds before you have to run to it and right it to start up again. That gets old pretty fast.

A better choice is a standard car, with four wheels. These tend to be easier to keep upright and can often be re-righted, even after a flip, via the remote.

For an older kid, or for an experienced RC operator, I think this would be a lot of fun. But for a younger kid, my strong recommendation would be to stick to a car.

The "Tyco R/C Wheelie Cycle" is a very cool remote control motorcycle that performs pretty much as advertised. Here are my observations:

* Very cool controls allow for turns, throttle, and "wheelies"
* Goes VERY fast and can be hard for littler kids to control (I would say 10+ to master)
* Needs a lot of room, should be used on long driveways, parking lots, or playgrounds
* A little bigger than I expected, but very solid and durable
* Good battery life (and all batteries are included)

A very fun toy that the kids and parents will want to use! Highly recommended! This also comes in a Tyco R/C Wheelie Cycle 49 MHz, so two can race each other!

And by younger children, I mean my 32 year old husband! Seriously though... this is a really aesthetically beautiful product but it is very difficult to keep it up for more than 8 seconds. Atleast that is how our trials have been. Ready, ok, here we go... pick it up... reset it... ok ready; YOU GET THE POINT!

It is super fast though! We are letting it charge the appropriate hours once again and see if we get different results. I do think that the sidewalk cracks are indeed affecting the performance. When we took it into the street, the bike stayed up for a bit more than the normal.

We do not recommend this for young children. My six year old daughter can't use it; and I assume that an 8 year old will not be able either. Start out with something easier as some fellow reviewers have suggested. That is what we are going to do here!

UPDATE: Today we let it fully charge and what a difference it made! DO NOT USE THIS TOY without fully charging. You will not be able to use all of the functions. The controller is motion-tilt sensitive (like the PS3 controller), so if you turn your hands left or right, it will follow the direction that you are tilting. Today, we finally achieved a flip and landed sprawled on the ground LOL. It truly does go so fast, that we crashed into a wall!

Very fun... but again, not for the young at all. You have to take time to master the movement and speed. My husband suggests that we go to a very big park because the streets are still not big enough for this thing.

BTW.... be careful in the street! Ours was almost run over by a car.

Fast and fun, this bike needs to be on an open road or large open area as it's speed allows it to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time. You need to be careful how it starts, as there can be a lot of tipping on it's side if it doesn't start off fully straight and upright. It can be hard to steer sometimes, especially the further you get from it. It's not a direct stick or wheel action that allows it to turn, it's actually the overall movement of the control. It's a virtual feature where you turn your arms and hand with the handle bar like control, and this moves the bike, sort of like turning a real motorcycle.

It comes with replacement underside parts, which get scraped up everytime the bike comes to a stop. After the first use, these looked pretty worn, so the replacement pieces may be needed in a short amount of time. The charges seem to last a good amount of time with the provided battery, but we haven't used this toy enough to determine long term durability. The bike really needs to gain a good speed and be on a smooth surface before attempting the wheelie, or it may just flip over rather than providing the desired effect. While it's listed as ages 8+, like other reviewers noted, to be fully used on it's own without supervision, it should probably be for a 10-year-old. However, with some adult help, the toy can be fully enjoyed by ages 6-10.

I bought this for my 7yr old son for Christmas. I didn't really think it would be all that good of a toy but he wanted it so I got it. To my suprise it is really durable. He has had a blast with it. This sucker has jumped over ramps, people(laying down) and trash cans and still running great. I highly recommend this product.

I thought this toy was too fast and too hard to control. You need a lot of open space to be able to enjoy it. It took a long time to get used to controlling it, because it goes from zero to 60 in .1 seconds. Once we got it going, we ran out of space in the basement and it hit a wall. So, this toy needs to be played with outside where there is plenty of open space. I feel that if you play with it outside and have good driving skills and balance, then you will like this RC motorcycle. If you need something that is more forgiving go with something with 3 or 4 wheels for balance.
It is durable, because it hit the wall several times and still worked. It takes a beating well.
The RC motorcyle comes with all the required batteries and has a rechargeable battery pack. A plus in my opinion.

This is AWESOME!!! The speed and power this unit has is incredible. The ease of steering is perfect. My kindergarten nephew is a pro with it. It pops wheelies ... does stands ... and even roars like a motorcycle does. Even when idle ... the touch roars and vibrates. All I can say is AWESOME!!

I bought this toy for my 8 year old son. It is great fun for the whole family. He has operated r/c vehicles, but this is his first motorcycle. It is super easy to operate. He was immediately able to do wheelies and tricks, including starting it by just resting it against his shoe. You definitely need a large area (we used our school's parking lot). The battery life was exceptionally long. I would definitely recommend this product!

This Wheelie Cycle is a BLAST for both young and old! It comes with everything you need, right out of the box. The reason this is so great is because after doing some research here on Amazon, I found that quite often the battery pack/chargers are usually sold separately.

We initially charged it overnight to make sure we could get the most battery life out of it on our first attempt and after reading other reviews, we didn't even attempt to try it in the house. Instead we opted to take it out into the neighborhood cul-de-sac.

I let my 16 year old son have the first try at it, since he's probably more coordinated with things like this. The first 15 minutes were filled with multiple attempts to get it up and running without falling over or taking off to fast and crashing. Eventually he did get the hang of it and drew quite a crowd of onlookers. He was having such a good time with it I decided to give it a shot. I think I had an easier time getting it going because I had been watching him. For me I really liked the handlebar control, in my opinion it's much easier and definitely more fun than the box style.

Overall this is a great toy! My 14 & 16 year olds took to it pretty easily, but a 8 year neighbor that gave it a shot had a hard time and became very frustrated. I would recommend this to 10+ UNLESS they have had previous R/C experience.

As for the price? To me it seemed a bit high at first, but now that we have had a chance to play with it, it seems reasonable. Additionally the battery impressed me, we used it on 3 different occasions before it needed a recharge!

I did take a video of the bike in action and once I get it transferred from my camera I will come back to post here.

Ever since I was... well, old enough to proclaim I wanted a motorcycle I wanted to get a remote controlled motorcycle. Twenty years later I attained my motorcycle license and bought a real bike, however, I still had a childhood desire to drive an R/C motorcycle across my living room floor and harass the dog with it. I thought this Tyco R/C racer would do the trick... I was dead wrong.

The first issue I had was with the controls and starting the bike. The controller is shaped like the handlebars on an actual bike. The controls operate almost identically as you have to engage the throttle to get the bike going or press the "turbo," button. I discovered the turbo button was probably designed for people not having their parents present to give the bike a gentle push to get it going. You cannot simply place the bike upright, engage the throttle and watch it go. It took me three minutes to figure that out (RTFM mate?).

The problem with the control in this regard is that you either just use the turbo button or you need to have someone present to push the bike. This was a poor move on Tyco's part.

The next control issue, and probably the most pertinant, is the steering. A ball bearing inside the controls determines pitch in order to steer in accordance with the direction the controller is steered. In other words, if you lean left it is supposed to go left. Either I got a defective one or the other reviewers know something I do not as when I lean left the bike steers right and vice versa. Sounds fun right? Well, if it worked right it would be.

At first I thought I was holding the controls upside down but one glance at the decal 'gauges' on the controller told me I was holding it correctly. A standard, although mundane, controller should have been used since it does not have more varibales for Mr. Murphy's Law to come in and screw around. And even when I finally got the controls figured out, steering the bike is exceptionally difficult. The bike literally turns like an 18-wheeler only it's speed makes it impossible for even the most modest of turns. This R/C is a glorified sprinter.

So this bike does have speed. I'll admit I was super excited at first when I got it to go only it went so fast out of my hands that it sprinted across the kitchen floor, out the doggy door and right into my roommate on the other side of the door and scared her to death. I still laugh when I remember seeing the bike go through the doggy door and then hearing a crash and a scream on the other side... *sigh* good times.

The incredible speed was confirmed again when I took the R/C into the garage and let it loose to test the range. It went right out the garage door in a flash... and right into my brother's car (sorry Chris!). However, this also suggests the bike has considerable durability since it cracked the bumper on my brother's car, but the bike got right back up and went for another round!

However, I then noticed a serious problem. Even as a sprinter, the bike would not accept a signal from the controller after 15-20 feet. Sprint cars require a long distance to be of any real value. On top of that, the bike does not get up on it's own and requires to be set up and pushed whenever it tips, which is frequently. This means you're walking over and setting it up every five seconds. That loses the novelty fast. Not to mention it ruins the 'stunts' as you have time for maybe one manuever if you can hit the flip button fast enough.

If the range were better, this bike would be just good enough to keep but one cannot expect a toy owner to run alongside with it since the range is so limited so it lost its value with me quickly.

All in all, this Tyco R/C is just not worth as much money as it is. If it had better range or four wheels it would be. I have more fun with those cheap R/C helicopters that are a fraction of the cost anyway. They're a much better investment and they hold their own better.