Looking at a new fork for my lads 24″ wheel Carrera Detonate. Current fork is useless, has 400mm a-c but I think the angles would be ok with upto a 450mm length 26″ fork.

So it needs to be lightweight air fork, so I can correct pressure for low rider weight and as short a-c length as possible. Tight budget too! If I could get a 100mm fork and reduce to 80mm would that reduce the a-c length also, making the same fork more usable for his next 26″ wheel bike?

Thinking Fox F 80 (450mm) or maybe an old SID race fork or Pace RC?

Any suggestions? Would an older 80mm race fork be ok maintenance / performance wise?

Pace RC39’s are great but decent ones are not cheap these days. Fox will also be good but I wouldn’t personally go for older Rockshox.

Is the bike disc or canti/V brake? That will narrow down your choice.

Runs disk brakes so that may limit older forks?

my middle 2 kids are on 24″ bikes.

One on RST Air First and the other about to be when it arrives!

No other option really and only 160 euro.

My 8 year olds Spinner Air 24 was only about £60, but it only lasted a few months (the lockout may or may not have been left on coming down the red trails at Glentress…)

On my boys Detonate I used a Fox 80 dropped to 50mm travel (by moving the internal stoppers) the original fork was 2.5kg and the Fox 1.6kg & works much better. We’ve got a retro SID on another bike & that seems good too, 80mm Manitou Scareb is another light retro air fork.

Runs disk brakes so that may limit older forks?

Yep. I was going to recommend some retro forks but not much point now. Best cost to performance in that case and in my opinion would be the Fox. If looking at older Rockshox you may as well check out the mid 2000’s Marzocchi and Manitou as both knocked out some half decent forks that will be a match if not better then equivalent Rockshox and will cost buttons.

Thanks folks, looks like reducing travel on some Fox F80/100s is the way forward, some cheap SIDs on eBay at moment though?

From memory the pre 2009ish SIDS were fragile, bendy and a money pit.