Sea Otter 2015: Trek Fuel EX-Junior

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Something that seems a constant with our bike industry pals that have children, is that they all end up building super-trick bikes for their kids, usually based around a small hardtail frame, with cast-off cool bits from mum and dad’s bikes or, if you’re John Tomac, or own Hope Technology or whatever, something one-off and super rare from one of your frame builder friends (or the 3d Printer). Meanwhile, our non-industry friends’ kids have rather more normal looking bikes.

One of the most photographed bikes at the Sea Otter
XFusion shock for (much) lighter riders
And finally. Somewhere for your old 26in stuff to upgrade!
Gary Fisher has been one of the champions of the EX Jr at Trek

It must be that many of Trek’s engineers have been having kids as it has come out with the Fuel EX Jr. – one of the coolest kids’ bikes you’re likely to see.

It features 26in wheels and all the cool bits and pieces from Trek’s bigger bikes, like the ABP back end, Full Floater suspension swingarm, a tapered head tube, hydraulic disc brakes and 90mm travel front and rear (with lockout).

Looks about right in proportion from here.

 

The suspension has been made by X-Fusion, but designed with Trek’s in-house suspension expert, Jose Gonzales to work for much lighter riders than normal. (A regular air shock has too much inherent stiction to work well at lower pressures, so the X-Fusion rear shock features a smaller shaft than normal to work more actively under 40-80lbs riders.

Time to get rad, junior…

 

Looks rubbish, right?

 

There are 160mm cranks, a low BB and a shorter top tube to fit a 4ft 4in to 5ft tall rider. The frame is officially a 12.5in size. It’ll be available in June and will cost £1400.

More details here: http://www.trekbikes.com/uk/en/bikes/mountain/trail/fuel_ex_jr/

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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