The company's history began with the idea of building competitive but affordable bikes for talented young riders in the dirt bike and slopestyle sectors. That was twelve years ago. Now the Forchheim-based mail order company Young Talent Industries (YT) is returning to its roots and expanding its portfolio with the Jeffsy Primus - the all-mountain bike for young riders.
The aluminium bikes will be available from the beginning of March in wheel sizes 24 and 26 inches; no other frame sizes are planned. The frames are each specially designed and optimised for the wheel size. As with "the big ones", flipchips adjust the finer details of the geometry. For example, the 24-inch fully should suit bikers between 135 and 150 centimetres tall, and the 26-inch bike should cover the 145 to 160 centimetre range.
"This is not a gimmick. We wanted a real performance bike for young talents. Developing a bike like this had been on our minds for some time. After we developed a custom bike for Harry Schofield and saw how well he got on with it, we knew we were on the right track. It's a great feeling to see this project become a reality."- Markus Flossmann, CEO YT Industries
YT Jeffsy Primus: Features, weights and prices
The equipment, "best-in-class" according to the manufacturer, lists well-known brand names, but fortunately keeps a sensible distance from gold-plated bling-bling parts, which would have made the bikes lighter but also significantly more expensive. In the 24-inch bike, the 130 mm Manitou Machete Junit fork damps hand in hand with the Manitou McLeod shock in custom tune for light riders at the rear.
At 650 millimetres, the cockpit is as wide as on adult all-mountain bikes ten years ago, but the handlebar/grip combination has an outer diameter that is around 3 millimetres smaller (handlebar 19, grip around 25 millimetres) for the sake of small children's hands. The cuddly saddle and even the seat post bear the junior stamp.
The four-piston brake makes quite an impression and, together with 160 mm discs, is responsible for the destruction of kinetic energy. But now, perhaps the most important question for the kids: How many gears? There are eleven on the 24-inch bike, changed by the Sram NX.
26-inch Jeffsy: small frame, big technology
The 26-inch version is even more grown-up: a 760 cockpit, 140 mm fork, 12-speed Sram SX gears and YT's own Postman dropper post - the result is a fully-fledged mountain bike, even for tough tours. The grippy tyres without any real weaknesses round off the equipment package of both bikes, while the same approval procedures as for the adult bikes even guarantee their durability up to a system weight of 120 kilos.
"This means that the bike is not necessarily reserved exclusively for small, lighter riders and is always ready for real mountain biking. We worked with smaller riders to better understand what needs to be met." - Chris Hilton, CTO YT Industries
Sebastian Brust
Editor
