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I am looking to pimp my younger child's isla Beinn 26 to have some front suspension to help him keep up with elder sibling.
Think air forks lighter. But a little confused what second hand models to consider.
Budget £100.
Any suggestions appreciated.
It's difficult to get air forks to work properly with little kids. My son is 24kg and even the kid specific forks on EarlyRider Trail 24 the difference between working and diving is about 3psi.
Many thanks. Do coil springs come in different stiffnesses?
Spinner air grind seem to get reasonable reviews but I'm not sure I'd be starting with a bienn for anything off road enough to need suspension.
I put some Reba Race on my son's bike, worked fine but the pressure had to be just right.
Don't Beinns have 1 inch steerers?
In slight contrast to some of the above comments, we got our daughter (then 18 kg) the Hellion 20 with RST SPEX, 80MM TRAVEL, 15mm THRU AXLE and they work brilliantly. Unless I have been lucky (I’ve only adjusted them twice), they were easy to set up too. She has a really good go at testing them on jumps, drops and steep, pretty technical trails and generally attempts most stuff in a committed manner, with the forks doing an admirable job of dealing with the terrain. That being said, the whole bike as a package makes quite a difference... 🙂
2.5w oil in an older Sid might be worth a shot but this inventory is rocking horse poop now.
The 1.5" tyres on the bike are the limiting factor as it's still essentially a hybrid out back.
Old pair of Reba Race here.
When she was smaller and rode a 24" bike I just "over sagged" them with more pressure in the negative spring to get them to ride with 40~50mm travel just to take the edge off without making the steering too floppy.
Now they'll be going on a 26er I think I'll jack 'em up for the full glorious 100mm...
I had wanted some SIDs originally for minimal weight, but they're a bit more popular/sought after on the fleabay so Reba's made better sense.
I've used the following retro forks Rockshox SID, Manitou Skareb, Fox Float R in the 80 to 100mm range, all to good effect (I think I dropped the Fox to 50mm) Sag might be a hard way to set up fork with a featherweight rider, I just put enough pressure in to not bottom out and set the rebound to not pogo.
Prices of these forks are high at moment though!
I put some old Fox Talas on my daughter's bike. The travel adjust is stuck so they are locked at 80mm travel, hence they were sold off cheap. Perfect for a 10 year old. As above, Sids, Rebas, etc. should be ok. The Dual Air Rockshox forks give you a lot of adjustability on getting them to sag enough without bottoming out.
Like others have said a set of old Reba's would do the job. The dual air version would probably be best as they are very easily tuneable.
Don’t Beinns have 1 inch steerers?
If the frame is 1" the other option is maybe some (much) older Marzocchi Z5 air or 'flylight' forks, the bolt together era versions where the CSU could be changed with the use of 4 pinch bolts, there were 1" steerer crowns available, which do still pop up from time to time on ebay or more often Retrobike...
The fork is a very simple open bath, fixed damping, air sprung job, travel can be adjusted by either adding top out springs or finding some appropriate spacers. Air pressure can be set low enough for a lighter person and lighter weight oil (say 2.5Wt) should help it move a bit more freely with less mass over it...