Little lads sus forks are in a word crap with little or no movement so I’m debating fitting a set of rigids for him as it will lighten up the bike but I’m not sure what size I’d need. Then I’d have to convince him he doesn’t need sus lol

I’ve been impressed with the air forks that came on my lad’s Saracen Mx24, wee Suntours

Mick – I stuck some 400mm A-C rigid forks on my lads 24″ wheeled bike, they seem fine. They are some 700c steel CX disk forks, so have a bit of flex and combined with a decent size front tyre he seems happy enough

I sourced some Frog forks from the lbs to replace the crap forks on the boys Giant. Work nicely if you are looking for callipers rather than disk, were about £30.

Just be aware that riding a completely rigid bike around a trail centre for a day takes some serious willpower, even for a grown-up and it’s a really big ask for a kid. I see a few people here making comments about “kids not needing suspension” and “it’s all weight” before jumping on their own enduro bikes to go out riding with them.

My son transitioned from a 20″ rigid (Beinn 20) to a 24″ hardtail (Creig 24) to a 26″ full-suss (Frankenbike!) and this worked brilliantly for him, allowing him to hone his skills while doing longer and longer rides. Yesterday we did a local endurance event and he was pounding down stuff quicker than his dad could keep up – I’m certain he couldn’t have completed this course on a rigid bike, at least not without a lot more time and a boat load more complaining!

Anyway, now that’s said, his current bike is a 27.5″ frame with 26″ wheels. It has a 27.5″ fork (Fox 32 Factory) but travel-reduced from 120mm to 80mm and this is absolutely the best fork I could put on this bike even if money was no object. As an alternative to a rigid fork, perhaps you could do the same by picking up a good quality 26″ fork and then reduce the travel and fitting it with 24″ wheels. If you do this, you’ll be in illustrious company as it’s what Islabike do with the Creig 24 Pro because you can’t really buy decent quality 24″ forks, so they use 26″ instead:

http://www.islabikes.co.uk/products/pro-series/item/creig-24-pro-series

You’ll need to watch the geometry too though. I was able to adjust this through offset bushings on the rear shock, but you won’t have this option so would be limited to an offset headset, if your frame will take one.

To demonstrate he doesn’t need suspension then slap a cable tie around the stanchion and go for a ride to see how much travel it actually uses…

Then assuming the geometry is good, just measure axle-to-crown and buy a suitable fork. On my son’s 24″ (ex-Carrera Blast) I swapped the coil fork for a carbon fork from carboncycles.cc, the one sold for 24″ wheels was a good fit.

To demonstrate he doesn’t need suspension how rubbish forks are on most 24″ kids’ mountain bikes then slap a cable tie around the stanchion and go for a ride to see how much travel it actually uses…

There, fixed that for you 🙂

Yeah I guess that’s what I meant. 🙂 Proper air fork or rigid.

Cheers all. So then what would be a good 24 air fork

Islabikes still use 24″ RST “F1RST” air forks, and while they work OK, they are also pretty sturdy things to carry around at the front of a bike which is, I assume, why their pro bikes use 26″ Rockshox now. They’re also not desperately cheap.

Would your geometry take a travel reduced 120mm->80mm 26″ fork?

I’ve just had a look the fork model is a sr suntour sf11-xct-jr-24-mlo, it has bolts on the bottom a preload adjuster on top of one leg and lockout on other so I’m presuming they are not air but I don’t use suspension so know nowt about it.

Geo wise I can’t lift the front of the bike anymore or it will be too cumbersome for him. It’s a 13 inch spesh hotrock 24

So far so good on a Spinner grind 30 air here.

More details here http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/the-24-inch-custom-build-thread