20''
The first mtb
Every child deserves an appropriate bicycle. Especially in the early days a bicycle which the child loves to ride can make the difference. And wouldn’t it be great when your child prefers riding its bike outside than hanging around inside or even in front of a screen? A well thought through children’s bicycle would do right that. Because its not only other children’s bicycles that are competitors, but also toys and nowadays especially smartphones. Another important factor are the parents. Assuming they have a higher interest in cycling and overall appreciate a well-made and designed product, they are willing to spend more on it.
With that in mind I wanted to create two children’s specific bicycles that in the first place please the child but also convinces the parents. As weight is especially important, the frame shall be made from aluminium. To save production cost, the tubesets should be shared between the two sizes. By the way, 20’’ and 24’’ are planned. Some parts of the frame are being made with the help of a 3D Printer as no high production volume is planned. That would be the case for the BB-Part, the joint of the seattube and toptube as well as the dropouts. The rest of the frame consists of rather simple shapes. The downtube and seattube are just straight profiles. The toptube is hydroformed as well as the rather simple shaped seatstays and chainstays. Thanks to the muffed 3D parts, welding those together should be a rather easy job.
The geometry overall is really child focused rather than scaled down. The idea is to be more in the bike than on it, but still have a very compact and easy riding experience. As both sizes are more MTB focused, both are designed around a suspension fork. For the smaller one a rigid fork would also be available. The cockpit then is also rather high. That should make steeling easier and helps with a more ergonomic posture. Also, for the 24’’ Bike a dropper post is intended. Again, because it should be a great experience for the little rider. And why not give them the same comfortable features we adults have on our bikes. For more flexibility of the cockpit height, the headtube is quite short for both sizes. That means that stack height is low, but the bikes would come with enough spacers and a longer steertube so that it is possible to adapt the cockpit height perfectly to the rider.
Other components are child-specific too. Like the cranks that are 155mm for the 24’’ and 120mm for the 20’’ bike. Also, the saddle, pedals, grips and handlebar as well as the fork are child specific.
For good reasons, all bikes come with disc-brakes all round. There is no reason not to. Especially because they are cool. And who wouldn’t have wanted disc brakes on their children’s bike back then. Also, a dropper post must be a really cool feature to show your friends. And isn’t that a good enough reason to have them. Imagine having fancy dials on your suspension fork. Children would mess around with them all the time but through that process would also learn how to set up a fork. That’s something even many adults still would have to learn…
