If you’re a parent and regular Bikerumor reader, there’s no doubt you’ve been vexed by youth bike offerings. Things are getting better thanks to lighter weight, impressively spec’d bikes from brands like Trailcraft, Culprit, Priority, Transition and Trek (among others) but it’s still few and far between.
But, what do you do if you’re a frame builder and want to take things to extremes? You build your own and enlist the help of your industry partners to make it wicked light, of course!
Here the story of this project, as told by Ronnie Calvet of Skyde Cycles in France…
A few years, I designed and built a tricycle for my daughter when she was 3-4 years old. She was so proud riding along on her full titanium tricycle !
As she grew up, the tricycle became too small for her, so, for her 6th birthday we bought her a 16’ kid bike from a local store. It was heavy, clunky and ultimately she rode it less and less, but nevertheless she learned how to ride without training wheels, which is an important moment in every cycliste’s life.
In time she outgrew her first 2wheeler, and it was time to look for the next one. Kids grow up so quickly. I started my search at our local sporting good stores such as Decathlon, Go Sport …etc, but quickly became frustrated by the weight of the bikes and how they were equipped. I then turned my attention to what major bike brands where offering, thinking that they may be better equipped to offer lighter and more efficient alternatives and again weight and equipment were still an issue.
I was amazed to notice that the majority of bicycle brands use front suspended forks on bikes for kids. I find that it does absolutely nothing for them, if not to add extra weight for nothing.
Weight is important to me and I do not understand why bikes for children are so heavy! They should be as light as possible as they have much less power than us grown ups. Riding on a “heavy” bike that doesn’t take in account their smaller bodies and power ratio just doesn’t make sense to me. Finally, as a bike designer, it also bothered me that my daughter rides a bike of another brand than mine!
And that’s how I began to imagine what the ideal bike for an 8 year old child should be and what my daughter should ride on. So, I designed the geometry of this new bike myself based on my daughters’ postural study.
Because I wanted this bike to last as long as possible, I specifically designed a 24’ frame slightly larger than normal and made sure that it could be compatible with a 26’ wheel base. That way, when my daughter out grows the 24’ wheel base, all i had to do is change to 26’ wheels and add a longer stem all the while retaining a proper riding position on the bike.
Today the bike is a single speed (hence the specific drop-outs) as at this age (she is 8 years old) children don’t fully master the concept of switching gears. As she learns the basics and when she is ready, we can evolve to the next step and equip the bike with the necessary cassette, derailleurs, etc.
As design and development took their natural course, we wanted to see just how light we could build this bike, so naturally we turned to our partners and discussed with then the nature of our project (ROTOR, WTB, TUNE, HOPE, CHRIS KING, HV Components). They all came onboard and were very excited to participate in such a project.
Artisan wheel maker JPRACING also participated on the project and provided us with the very rare 24’ ZTR Crest rims, allowing us to mount tubeless wheels. Not only did JPRACING build the wheels, they went as far as customizing the colors of their stickers to match the bike’s color scheme.
Another important criteria for this project: I wanted her bike to have disc brakes. Because children have less strength in their hands than we do, equipping the bike with with disc brakes made sense and require less strength than pads, which are found on the majority of children’s bikes.
Then we had to find a rigid carbon fork that could mount a disc brake. Let me just say that it’s not easy to find!
The result is unequivocal! 6.5kg (14.33lb) on the scale, flat pedals included! Objective achieved and it’s half the weight of her previous bike!
But for a girl, the most important on a bike is not the presence of a Rotor crankset or Tune hubs, it’s the color of the bike !!!! 😉 So we drew together, father and daughter, the designs on the computer. As my daughter’s name is Lily, painting lilies on the frame was an obvious choice.
The paint job was done by JUMPCYCLE, a local company with whom we are already work with on custom customer paint projects for our titanium bikes. They also paint all of our steel frames.
Lily is very happy with her new bike, she in now able to accompany her father on the trails nearby and is quite a quick learner. She was very happy to have participated on this project with her Dad and especially TO HAVE A ONE OF A KIND BIKE!
We at SKYDE especially enjoy these kinds of projects which not only bounds our family and company life closer together, but they allow us to showcase of our expertise. As the tricycle, Lily’s SKYDE 246 will participate to promote SKYDE’s image at trade shows and events.
And here the specifities :
- Frame : titanium SKYDE 24″ custom size, for 24″ and 26″ wheels. Singlespeed, but dérailleurs possible
- Fork : SUKIDDO carbon 24″ disc
- Headset : CHRISKING
- Stem : HOPE 35mm, titanium bolts
- Handlebar : Carbon
- Seatpost : Carbon
- Crank : ROTOR 160mm, QRing 34 teeths
- BB : ROTOR
- Chain : KCNC
- Saddle : WTB Volt titanium
- Wheels : TUNE King/Kong purple, Tune skewers carbon/titan
- Rims : NoTubes ZTR Crest 24″
- Spoke : SAPIM CX RAY Lacing JPRACING
- Tyre : SCHWALBE RocketRon, montage Tubeless
- Pedals : HT Components Evo Mag ME0T, titane/magnésium
- Brakes : SHIMANO SLX
- Rotors : Ashima, visserie titane
- Painting : JUMPCYCLE
- Weight : 6.5kg!
