Hi all,
So a couple of years ago my daughter asked for a new bike. I set about searching for a 24” wheel kids bike that would suit her requirements and struggled. The only bikes I could find that seemed well built with decent kit were very masculine, which she didn’t like.
I asked her “if you could have any bike you wanted, what would it be like?”
She told me that it would have disk brakes, suspension and be purple.
“Purple?” I asked
“Yes, metallic purple, but not shiny.” She said.
Knowing immediately that I was never going to find that (as I didn’t eve believe that colour existed) I decided to build a bike with her, to her requirements.
She’s grown quite a lot since then and during a 6 1/2 hour ride with the family on Monday, we realised that it won’t be long at all before she’s on an XXS or XS adults bike ☹️
So here’s the bike that her and I built 🥰
It’s an Orbea MX24 which was stripped to the bare metal and rebuilt from the ground up with all new bearings, pressed headset and a Shimano Hollowtech 2 bottom bracket installed to open up options for cranks and a 1x drivetrain. The forks were also rebuilt and set up to her weight (about 4-stone 😌)
Orbea MX24
Shimano M6000 1x10 drivetrain
Shimano Hollowtech 2 bottom bracket
128mm crankset
Raceface Ride pedals
Shimano M400 hydraulic disc brakes
SR Suntour 63mm kids Air Fork
KMC Extra Light Chain
HUP Kids lock on grips
Autohaux 35mm stem
Upanbike kids 600mm handlebar
Schwalbe Billy Bonkers dirt jump tyres
New semi-integrated headset
Selle Royal Explora kids saddle
Finished in satin metallic violet
As you can see by the crank length, bar width, grips, fork setup, saddle etc, this bike has been built from the ground up for a child - to be comfortable and usable by a child and she has loved it a lot!
The stickers are all external so can be peeled off and replaced - we do have spares of most of them 🙂
As you can imagine, we want to keep the bike for sentimental reasons and I know we will lose money on it if we sell it but since I know she will be needing a new bike in the next year or so, I may as well ask you kind folks for your opinions, as I’m genuinely torn as to what to do.
Sorry for the long-winded post and thanks in advance for the help.