1 Tyre
What applies to dad's bike also applies to the children's bike: no part offers more tuning potential than the tyre. Heavy clincher tyres are often fitted ex works, which can save around 700 grams in one fell swoop. If you are serious about taking your little ones off-road, you need to place more emphasis on grip and damping and opt for wide tyres. Schwalbe's Fat Albert and the Maxxis Minion DHF are available in 24-inch tyres with a width of 2.4. The right tyre pressure is also crucial. Guide value: around one bar for 20-inch tyres to 1.4 bar for 24-inch tyres.
2 Fork
Of course, a suspension fork is high on the wish list of young riders. However, very few of the models fitted make sense. They hardly work at all with a low body weight, but are very heavy. One of the few exceptions: The carbon fork from 1st Ride works well, delivers 80 mm and weighs only 1440 g. For 300 euros it is comparatively cheap. Otherwise, if you replace a cheap fork with a rigid fork, you can save up to 1.5 kilos. Combined with wide tyres, grip and comfort are better than with a cheap suspension fork and original tyres.
3 Saddle and support
Especially on inexpensive children's bikes, the bulbous saddle and steel seat post add unnecessary pounds. With an old and shortened carbon seat post and a lightweight children's saddle, you can save a lot of weight. Most children's bikes use standard seat post diameters (usually 27.2).
4 Cockpit
Wide handlebars and short stems provide control and safety for off-road use. 550 to 600 millimetres is a good handlebar size for 20 to 24-inch bikes. Here too, it is worth taking a look at the second-hand market. Steep stems and high riser handlebars tend to be counterproductive on the high fronts of children's bikes.
5 cranks
As short children's legs lack a large lever, the youngsters react sensitively to incorrect crank lengths. Guide value: 127 millimetres for 20-inch bikes and 140 millimetres on 24-inch bikes. Triple chainrings make little sense because they are heavy and the shifting option usually remains unused anyway. Retrofit cranks are available
from Vpace and First Ride (Propain), for example.
6 Fittings
Hardly any manoeuvre affects biking like braking and shifting gears. What sounds simple can easily become a problem for small children's hands. The brake levers must be positioned close to the handlebars and the gears must move smoothly. Cheap shifters and Bowden cables can paralyse the gears for children. High-quality sealed Bowden cables and outer covers can work wonders. Always check the gear and brake levers before buying.
To ensure that the tuning excess on your child's bike doesn't end in personal bankruptcy, it's worth taking a look at the second-hand market or in dad's junk box. Bike flea markets and online portals have bargain potential, especially for short seat posts and narrow handlebars.
You can read this article or the entire BIKE 3/2018 issue in the BIKE app (iTunes and Google Play) or buy the issue in the DK shop reorder:
Florentin Vesenbeckh
Editor CvD
