Bit of a preamble but bear with me please. My nephew has just started going to the local skate park on his BMX. It's was about £100 – £120 new. It's got a pretty big chain ring which he claims is catching on the ramps and he was looking to replace it with something smaller. He is also looking to work on his fitness by doing a few street circuits. I've advised that to replace bits on the BMX is false economy and that he might be better going for a 24" wheel mountain bike as a good all round compromise. Due to family circumstances, money is a big issue.

So, anyone offer an advice?

Buy him one to use, obviously when you are not radding-it-up?

Managed to build my son a Dr Jekyll out of an acquired frame and odds-sods from me and other riding buddies – biggest expense was a set of 24" wheels (CRC £100).

Buy him one to use

I'm not paying for it…

obviously when you are not radding-it-up

Huh?

Looking for advice on budget options. A Dr. Jekyll, Identiti 666 or DMR Transition would be a great choice but they are too expensive. I'm ideally looking around the £200 mark for a reasonable s/h rig. GT Chucker seems a possibility, no?

He's your nephew, and I'm guessing from your post that his folks have no cash – so why not help out? You'll get plenty of pleasure from his pleasure.

My eldest has a Chucker, he's destroyed almost every bit that was attached to the frame, only the frame, seatpost and bar/stem left… – so maybe false economy.

I'd be more inclined to look for a more serious jumpbike through ebay/classifieds.

try pinkbike load of cheap jump bikes on there

merlin are selling 2008 commemcal maxmax 24 for £199 EDIT £179 online price, at moment, i believe they were highly praised on here a while ago by peaple of a jumpy persuasion

br – Are you related to me? 😀

I'll probably make up the difference.

Khani, cheers for the tip off, that *does* look appealing?

I realise that this reply is a abit of a cheek but is intended to help

My brother in law flogs old BMX bikes, Here is his website

re-buy-cycle

If you contact him and explain what you want either in terms of parts or whole bikes he should be able to help

Often he has bikes lying aroubd not listed as they aren't worh much so getting in touch should be more use than just looking on the site

haro do a 25/9 conversion kit. it would give him the ratio he wants and its not a bad price. http://www.harobikes.com/bmx/tab5.php

I've seen those conversion kits on ebay – can't find the link at the mo' as ebay is being soooo slow today, but worth considering as in order to swap to a smaller front sprocket you need to factor in the cost of a new rear wheel to run a cassette cog. If he's riding skateparks I'd check before recommending an mtb (even 24") as if his focus is park then he'd be better off with another 20"er (though most BMX bikes with microgearing seem to start at around £300-400. Oh, and if you did decide to go for one of those Haro conversion kits, make sure he has seatstay mounted brakes and not chainstay mounted – I'm running a still pretty large 39T sprocket on mine and have had to file down the brake caliper to stop the chain rubbing on my chainstay mounted brake.

Cheers for the advice guys, really appreciated. Thing is he will only own the one bike so what ever he goes for will be a compromise solution. I'm trying to find something that will do the skatepark but also something he can mooch around on and do the odd 10 mile road curcuit on. I sorted out the BMX for him a couple of years ago and tbh it's really not worth throwing any money at.

Amphill, I'll check your bro-in-laws site out.

the mongoose chamber http://www.mongoose.com/usa/eng/bmx/Products/BMX/Details/2778-M10CHA-Chamber is an amazing bike for the money. full cromo set up and the micro-driver hes after. rrp in the uk is £310 i think. you just have to find a shop that has one as there thin on the ground just now. there is a review in ride bmx this month.
joe x

doing 10 miles on anything other than a full sized bike is horible, even 26" jump bikes are a PITA.

If skateparks are what he rides then its not realy worth comprimising, BMX's dont hold any value secondhand so £800 custom builds can be had for penuts.