[Closed] 24" kids recommendations

http://www.on-one.co.uk/i/q/CBOOBBYFAT/on-one-fun-fatty-fat-bike

About to do exactly the same.

Dawes new range gets good reviews, but I'm finding the sizing varies hugely across brands. Frog fit her nicely, all the others are still just too big.

A couple of my kids have had Trek MT 220s. Good bikes and with adjustable stem and two pedal positions on the cranks they are assured a good fit.

We went through this a while back. I'd have gone for a rigid fork, but my son wanted a suspension fork. Most suspension forks add a hefty weight penalty & are crap, in order to get a suspension fork that works we went for the air sprung Cannondale Race 24, not imported into UK but is available from Germany for around £330.

Only bits i've changed (for parts out of the spares box) are: Tyres (originals are slicks), rear mech (original rattled about too much off road), handlebars (for wider), stem (cos i had a cooler one).

http://www.bike24.com/1.php?content=8;navigation=1;menu=1000%2C173%2C182%2C315;search=cannondale+trail;product=63253

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http://www.cannondale.com/eur_en/2015/bikes/kids/boy-s/race/24-m-race-l-gloss-black

Available in medium & large.

[i]A couple of my kids have had Trek MT 220s. Good bikes and with adjustable stem and two pedal positions on the cranks they are assured a good fit. [/i]

+1

My sons old one is 10 y/o and now on its 3rd owner/rider.

Just get another Carrera. You can pick them up for next to nowt on eBay. Junk the crap Clark's cable discs and shove a set of cheap hydraulics, or some BB5's on it.

Just unloaded the Binnerettes respective 20" and 24" Luna and Blast off the back of the car. We're off to Phillip Park on them in the morning 🙂

Thanks all, some food for thought there...

Second the Carrera comment from binners. Fadda Jr (9 y-o) has Avids on his, and we'll be doing the Verderers again on Weds (sorry, proud dad here...)

Anyone know if there's geo differences between boys' Blast and girls' Luna? Are differences just in colour?

Carrera 3rded
I bought a sh one off eBay for miss j as a second bike and it's very good.
Master j had the full sus blast too which he loved ragging around Laggan

just got my boy a Carrera , i could only get the girls model , so far so good .

you can only tell it is for girl as it has some flowers painted to top tube which can be easily masked with a sticker .

i ll upgrade brakes next month . forks are ok ish .

Commencal do a very nice 24" bike - disk brakes and decent forks.

Also check out Raleigh (meant to be very light).

That said my boys have a Isla Beinn 24 - but I'd have bought the Commencal if I'd have known about it then.

Hoy Bonaly 24 is a cracking bike and almost as light as an Isla but £80 cheaper.

My boy also has a 24" wheel carrera blast, bought it cheap 2nd hand but have done a lot to it, elixir 5 brakes, rst air forks, 1x10 drivetrain etc. he enjoys riding it which is the main thing.

Guys, what wheels are you running on your kids blast/Luna I have bought my daughter a Luna and plan to upgrade it. I am awaiting some rocket rons which will lighten it up, I have a set of brakes to fit, ordered a set of proper 152 cranks, but the standard free hub is 7 speed so need to upgrade rear hub. I would rather buy an off the shelf lighter wheelset but could do with recommendations.

I fitted a set of superstar dhx24 wheels, not the lightest but it enabled me to fit a 10speed cassette.

No wonder all the 24" Lunas are going off eBay!

👿

Genesis Core 24.

I got the 2015 model for my son at Christmas and it's really good bike but not cheap.

Upgrades so far -

XT 1x10 using SLX shifter, XT clutch mech, XT cassette
Shortened Sram cranks (from Ebay USA) with Superstar N/W chainring
Hope grips
Folding Rocket Ron tyres from Germany

And then last weekend I built my first set of wheels -

Crest 24" rims, Novatech hubs and Sapim Race spokes.

I'll get some pictures up later.

Binnerette number ones Carrera Blast... upgraded with Avid BB5's, shorter Spank stem, and wider Concept bars (kindly donated by Ton - thanks!), more appropriate semi-nobbly Intense Tyres. I got a nine speed Deore drivetrain to go on it, but she says she prefers the grip shift so they've stayed on. Total cost for the lot: about £130

[img] [/img]

She's ready for moving up to 26" soon, so theres a Pace RC325 frame with her name on it, waiting to be built up

I do like the lime green on the Blasts!

Raleigh seem to do a decent kids bike range. There was a recent thread on it, here

http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/kids-bike-review-raleigh-performance-20-is-it-better-than-an-isla-beinn-20

https://gravitykids.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/raleigh-performance-20-kids-bike-review/

That review is referring to the 20", but they do a 24" wheeled bike as well:
http://www.raleigh.co.uk/ProductType/ProductRange/Product/Default.aspx?pc=1&pt=9&pg=12915

The SRAM cranks are easy to shorten yourselves, don't need to buy the ones from America. In work now and can't remember the model I cut down for my sons blast. Will have a look later if anyone wants the details.

The reason I got them from the States was that they were available unused for less than £40 which is less than I could buy a full size set from this country for.

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He didn't want his picture taken in the third image!!

My boy has a blast that got modded over 18 months or so.

rst first air 24 forks
thorn crank 30t raceface NW
XT cassette + superstar 40t xpander
SLX GS shadow+ mech
Zee shifter
superstar zenith stem 50mm
easton haven carbon bars 711mm
alex ace 20 rims superstar evo hubs DT DB spokes
hutchinson toro 24 tyres set up tubeless
SLX brakes XT rotors

getting a transition ripcord in the next couple of weeks though

[img] [/img]

So do the 24" wheels take a 9/10 speed cassette? Ours are 7 at the mo, but the wider range of 9 would be a great upgrade...

depends on the hub. the wheels that came with the blast won't

Most of the kids bikes don't come with a freewheel type hub, they use a freewheel that is built into the cassette so you will have to at least change the rear hub.

I bought the Novatech hubs from eBay Australia. Less than £50 pair delivered including skewers.

Good work above 🙂 . My thoughts on this are to run stock bikes up until 26" wheels, then amass a pile of decent bits, some 2nd hand, that can be moved between frames as my lot get bigger.

Luckily the mini-Yaks haven't yet noticed that some of the other kids at the xc races are running a whole lot of non-stock pimpy upgrades, nor that a lot of them are on spds too. Keep it cheap whilst you can!

my eldest son , 12 years of age , has stolen my winter bike . Kinesis maxlight xc pro 2 , with Rev , xt brakes , and xo transmission .

he finds it so much better than his previous bike ,cheap bmx , i wonder why !!

finding decent light'ish 24" wheels is proving a nightmare. Think I am going to have to buy the components and drop them into my local wheel builder.

russyh - that unfortunately is the only way to get light wheels for a child's bike.

I had always fancied building a set so downloaded the wheel building guide from

http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php

It still won't be cheap though -

Hubs £50
Crest 24" rims £130 (after a good discount)
Spokes £70
Valves and rim tape £20

Oh and then I bought a wheel truing stand but that will be used anyway. The main thing for me was the satisfaction of building the wheels from scratch. I'm just waiting for the funds now to build a set of carbon wheels for my bike now.

Lewis's wheels cost £150 including build (shop) and they weight 1700g. crests are about 80g lighter but cost a lot more.

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s'cool xx24 fat lite. Fab little fat bike bike, really decent aluminium frame, drilled 70mm rims,24 x4.00 rubber giving it a 26" outside wheel diameter, disc brakes, decent gears and cheaper than an on one baby fat even with importing it.

more importantly a really good stand over so dismounting on soft stuff (sand and snow) wont cause boy bit top tube interface issues

Cube 240SL here, running 1x10, shorter stem and an upgraded fork (RST first air).

So lots of kids with great bikes then...must being something to do with their Dads.

I've upgraded my bikes as far as (politically) possible so the kids' bikes will have to be pimped next...

I like the Dawes Academy MTB 24, it's just a bit pricey. But, it's a nice skinny frame and fairly decent forks.

http://dawescycles.com/product/academy-24-mtb/

s'cool xx24 fat lite. Fab little fat bike bike, really decent aluminium frame, drilled 70mm rims,24 x4.00 rubber giving it a 26" outside wheel diameter, disc brakes, decent gears and cheaper than an on one baby fat even with importing it.

more importantly a really good stand over so dismounting on soft stuff (sand and snow) wont cause boy bit top tube interface issues

Tazzy - let me know when that bike is outgrown. I might be interested.
Not for me you understand, I'm not short, well not that short, no really I can reach the top shelf all by myself these days...

I started my two 14" One On Inbreds as soon as they were off 20" Isla's

I bought used 100/120mm SIDs cos they are good and light and dual air allows you to drop the travel especially when the kids are light.
I bought some used 24" wheels (now for sale) that were also decently light and made them tubeless
I fitted 1 x 10 Deore clutch mech/zee shifter, XT 11-36 cassette, deore brakes with a 30t front ring. (Later fitting a double for faster bridleway/road stuff)
I got 140mm Cranks from Bikesmith in America for £80 knowing they were good until the kids are at least 5'5 or 5'6 (square taper but the cranks are light and sware taper isn't a bad thing)
SDG I beam because massive adjustment and light
35mm stem from Superstar and cut down One One flat bars to fit width.

The bikes came in as light as a 24" Isla with all of this decent kit on and I had kids on good geometry bikes, with forks that worked and disc brakes that work with one finger in any conditions. All up cost me about £500. Even managed to colour coordinate it to make them feel good...

I did it in the knowledge that with the addition of 26" wheels and a wider bar we would have years of use and a really good bike. quality 26"wheels are now as cheap as chips and I had some brilliant Hope Hoops on Stans Alpines, CX rays lying around as I couldn't bare to part with them for what they were worth...

So as they grew, I added the 26" wheels, then I increased the fork travel to suit...no more new bike all the time and decent running gear...

Then as they became more confident and 26" quality frames etc became cheaper still...I transferred all that running gear to xtra small FS frames whcih is what they are on now and very happy.

I still don't think anyone does a proper spec and geometry kids bike for me at the money you can do it for yourself if you select really really good, but not necessarily new, key parts like forks and wheels and even frame.

I should add that I have two girls and at 7 the OnOne was slightly too long for the youngest and I bought a Luna from Halfords. Stripped it completely apart from frame/wheels and bars, replaced all the heavy stuff as above. Its a good light frame and the wheels are fine.

It was unbelievably lighter when I'd done. (If you don't want to use forks the 440mm a2c OnOne carbon forks fit a treat and barely change the geo at all with 24" wheels)

Then when she was a bit bigger I put all the original stuff back(unused) and sold it like that) and put the running gear on a new OnOne frame.

Chainline if you are selling your 24" wheels then I may be interested chuck me an email (in profile) if so.

Russ

Ok Russ, I am...just haven't got round to it. I'll email.

Thanks chainline.

So I should probably start my own build thread. However, the Rocket Ron tyres arrived yeasterday after a long wait. Fitted to my daughters bike this morning and have lost over 1.5lbs in the process!!! Ideal. next up is to sort the wheels (hopefully chainline will tick that box) and brakes. I am in two minds with what to do with the brakes. I have two sets of Avids, neither a complete set. However to make them a complete set i would need to buy a bleed kit, olives, inserts etc. I am looking at a set of brand new Altus hydro brakes on CRC for £30!! Plus £5 for the olives and inserts when i have to shorten the hose. Has any one used the Altus brakes? I cant see that they have reach adjust which may be important for the girl.

I got these for the wife's bike

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-acera-m395-disc-brake/rp-prod119954

came with olive etc for shortening hose

I think that's slight more cash Poah for what looks to be a similar level brake-set isnt it? as you have to buy them individually Not to up to speed with the entry level kit to be honest

only needed one