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Been toying with suspension for my lad's bike... bhut all the 24" ones are rubbish or unavailable...
I'm sure there's bucket loads of 26" SIDs etc lying around.. would it be possible to simply lower the travel to, say 60mm, and then 'somehow' make them smaller??!!!
Just thinking, tis all!
DrP
Just run a 24 inch wheel in them , front and back if needed and
when the grow you can pop a 26 in
wot blastit said - assuming they are disk and not rim brakes, just run the smaller wheels until kids are biggerer?
Put the hacksaw down and slowly back away from the bike.....
Not a terribly daft question but sliding 24 inch wheels into a 26 fork is a fairly normal approach.
I have seen a bonded lug carbon pace fork 'cut and shut' for 24
Or upside down forks run with triple crown style clamps - Marz shiver SC I think for 20"
The need for time and money for anything custom is high!
You can just reduce the travel on them, same effect.
Put lighter damping oil in too.
This page says theres only 10mm in it anyway:
http://faqload.com/faqs/bicycle-components/suspension/rst-f1rst-air-24-versus-28mm-rockshox-sid
As above, we had 24” wheels in 26 forks, with lighter oil, less air, reduce travel if poss lots were at 80mm which is great, wouldn’t go much less, better off with volume tyres and lighter forks but I reckon 100mm will work fine. Trick with kids bikes is making as light as poss and you find really light 26 wheels and tyres, so as soon as he can fit, get those on. I was amazed how quickly we progressed from 20” (on for two years plus) to 24” less than a year and then to 26”.
After a mini Trek, next was an early Hotrock. We then created initially an XS OnOne with Carbon rigid forks, then transferred to an Xs Klein (was very light) with Sid WC (so noddlie but didn’t matter to his weight), small discs, Carbon bars (older narrow ones no one wanted), conti race kings - came in at 18.5lbs. I know lighter bikes but this was on the cheap. Really got him into Mtbs, still racing high level today.
Run it as a mullet! He’ll be the coolest kid in school!
Got a set of RST F1rst 24" forks for sale if you interested
Shortening a suspension for will likely mean shortening the lower legs as well as internals, this is a very complicated task.
If you have a 26" air fork the run it with 24" wheels. Yes there is additional axle to crown length but not a huge amount that couldn't be adjusted for by slamming a stem and putting the headset spacers all above the stem for a while.
If you want proper little person suspension forks take a look at the manitou J-Unit forks and kit. It looks very impressive.
I just ran a 26” Xs frame FS Giant with RS SID forks, using 24” wheels until my son grew into the same frame with 26’ wheels, and slightly limber stem.
Got Tf to Service the forks (as they were used) and calve them for his weight more closely.
It’s a fab bike with suspension that works properly for him now.
I did a cut n shut on Manitou 3. Fun project, but a lot of work and took a while.
You can just make a spacer to shorten the travel on a suspension fork, you don't have to actually shorten it.
a SID is probably the best bet.
My daughters bike has a set of dual air rebas (26" on a 24" wheel), just pumped the -ve chamber up and sucked the forks down a bit, it also helps as she is quite light so makes the fork nice and responsive. As she got older, can re-tune, now at full length and on pump track duties..