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Envious of the cool 'Dad' builds on here with mini Fox forks and hope hubs but not within our budget.
Looking to get a bike (24" wheel) for my daughters birthday later this year. She's keen to do some gentle off road with me so wondering whether to go for something like a hotrock or pick up a tiny frame and build something from parts? Or equally how far can kids push a lighter weight rigid these days?
Frame must be blue (or predominantly blue) is the only stipulation from her!
Any advice, bargains or thoughts welcome. Any German Cube special bargains for little'uns?
Budget not massive and up to £150 really.
Thanks
I loved building my lads Blast but these area also great bikes. And it's blue.
https://www.orbea.com/gb-en/bicycles/mx-24-dirt-18
I’ve a 24” Carrera luna frame that’s not being used, drop me a pm
Thanks both. Ads did you go bouncer forks or rigid?
KIds don't need suspension; it's disproportionately heavy on kids' bikes and doesn't work well thanks to their light weight. Plus, you won't be riding anywhere they might need it. Save weight with rigid forks and fit decent quality tyres.
KIds don’t need suspension; it’s disproportionately heavy on kids’ bikes and doesn’t work well thanks to their light weight. Plus, you won’t be riding anywhere they might need it. Save weight with rigid forks and fit decent quality tyres.
Sorry, that's a massive generalisation and completely dependent on the riding and racing that the kids do. You'd be amazed what some of the little thrashers on here are doing at this sort of age. Yes, of course some kids will potter around on the playground or down at the canal, and will be fine on a rigid Islabikes Beinn, but others that you'll see mentioned on here from time to time, like to pound the red and black runs and really work their bike skills and they both deserve and appreciate suspension no less than the adult trying to keep up with them!
Yes, there's a whole load of stuff you can do to tune suspension to lighter riders and this makes a big difference to the effectiveness of it, but that's not the same as "kids don't need suspension".
I'd agree globalti, for probably 99 percent of kids you're bang on.
Thanks for the advice guys.
The search has begun!
Just a thought as I did this same tjing 6 months ago . Wall those premium brand kids specific bikes full of child sized lustworthy bits and nice paint (possibly more important) have a phenomenal resale value on flee bay arc when the little one outgrown it (always quicker than you hope) and if you do the cost versus depreciation argument it might give you another option.
I have the joy of a child in pink and blue favour so never want the same arc and that gave us a much more cost effective transition than buy cheap sell peanut approach I started with :/
Just to give you yet another option you probably don't need :/
James
Get her to help you build it.
She won't actually be much use, but make sure she gets to hold all the various tools, and then you just "finish off the tightening" bits.
Later on when she is older she'll remember that she built her own bike and have the confidence to have a go at any repair jobs because she's "built" a bike. 🙂
At least that's what's happened with my daughter...
Suspension also adds standover height they can do without.
We got the 8 year old nephew a Frog 62, 2 (and a bit) years ago.
It's been great for the riding he's done, gentle off road stuff, much like your wanting to do, OP.
It'll be up for sale when I can get round to it, but unfortunately it's a red one. 😕
Blah blah kids don't need suspension......
My lad rides his on proper trails that adult riders ride big full suspension bikes on. Do we need 140mm of rear suspension?
I think my lad probably preferred having suspension forks when he was riding in Les Gets and Samoens and will do again this year.
cjr61 - I went for the RST F1rst air forks. They seem to do the trick and are not too heavy. Bike weighs 10.5kgs using luggage strap scales
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Awesome advice and inspiration! I like the idea of having her help with the build
Depending on what type of riding they do kids definitely benefit from suspension.
When we took mine to bpw for the first time he was on ridged forks and suffered from quite a lot of arm pump. So much so he had to stop riding half way through the afternoon.
Second time he he had a set of modified reba's on the front. No arm pump and happy to ride all day. Posibley might have been faster.
All comes down to the type of riding they do and what type of riding you want to encourage them to do
Get her to help you build it.
This
And get your kids suspension if you can afford it. I found mine wanting to push the boundaries after their confidence rose tremendously on full sus bikes in Whistler last year ( a bit too much perhaps!)
Get her to help you build it.
...or at least be involved in the spec'ing, component selection and colour design. I think the reason why my son loves his mountain bike so much was because he knows it was built specially for him and while he didn't have that much say in the build (most of it was eBay and bargain sales scavenged!) he knows that there is no other bike quite like his in the whole world and this makes it very special to him. He also has the first set of wheels I ever built entirely by myself which he is really proud to tell everyone, even though when he mentions it to grown-ups, they always wince 🙂
Also, building bikes is fun!
So Rocket Ron 24's seem to be the preferred tyre for little 'uns then?
Cheers
Nobby Nics here for a bit more grip in the wet stuff. I probably should swap them off for some more summery tyres now you've mentioned it, but the boy always seems to find mud wherever he goes, so it's probably no real hardship.
some gentle off road
A fully rigid will be fine but get some decent tyres. Then you'll be fine up to about trail centre blue or so. The 2.1 rons are pretty good and fit the likes of islabike frames. If you have more clearance then go bigger. If she is keen though and progresses a lot then a suspension fork makes sense. Maybe a frame you can fit a fork to later? Something like that RST one ^. Or just get though the 24" wheel stage fully rigid and then go full mini-me with a spare-parts build when she gets to a 26er?
Check out the 2nd hand Hoy Bonaly's on ebay. My twins had them and they were great. We tried the Hotrock but it should have been called the hotlead. It weighed a ton and the suspension was a joke.
The Bonaly is rigid but we added an RST 24" fork which was lighter and actually responded under their weight. The kids appreciated in BPW and the alps but for easy going tracks the weight saving of rigid was fine.
Decent kids bikes really do keep their value too. I recently sold 2 well used, 61/2 year old Isla bikes for the same as I paid for them.
Good luck.