so having come up from a Cnoc 16 about 8 yrs ago, my oldest boy is growing out of his Beinn 26 Small, and we are looking at a new mtb for his 12th birthday at end of year.

the ideal replacement would be : alloy hardtail, 100/120 mm travel, small frame, light as poss within budget, so maybe 1×10 setup. I can probably stretch to £800 as long as i dont tell the Boss 🙂

Thinking likely secondhand at that price, any ideas ?

happy with 26 inch wheels if any bargains about !

It’s not super light, but I’d be tempted by this Canyon for £599. Even has an air fork.

Edit. Oops, it’s a 29er.

aye, no way he’d get on that 🙂

what about This whyte

I’ve bought my 12 yo daughter a jump bike – GT Chucker – made up from other bits and soem decent forks. Low standover and slack head angle, running it as a 1*9
Quite few kids at that age group at our local junoirs section of the club run Commencals.

some good ideas, thanks. That Whyte does look ok, pity they dont do a small geometry one with deore level kit….

You won’t like this suggestion, bought this for my boy at that age, Spesh Hot rock, good frame shame about the fork.

thanks fergal 🙂 he’s too big for that now anyway, having outgrown the small 26 inch Islabike ! The Giant Talon’s look quite good, might try source a discount 2014 one later in the yr

This Whyte 401 is the dogs whatsits.

that Whyte is cool, his wee bro would love it ! too samll for the elest thought as he is a touch over 5 ft now and probs needs a 15 inch frame with 26/27.5 wheels

Ooops meant the Hardrock 26!

The approach I took to this problem was to put a wanted ad out for a small or xs frame and then scour the classifieds, eBay and parts bin for all the bits to put it together. I’ve just done the same again for the next size up. I’ve managed to put together two bikes – a Klein Attitude xs and a small kinesis decade for about £400 each including rebas, fairly posh wheels and x9/x0/xt for about £400 a piece. 26″ kit is so cheap used at the moment that there didn’t seem any point at all in looking at new bikes when there’s so much well priced used kit about. The only new parts on the most recent build was thick/thin on one chainring and deore brakes (which were less than £60 shopping about). More time and effort involved, but good fun.

Tyred Jr the elder and I recently completed his first 26″ wheel build, comprised of frame, fork, wheels and a couple of other bits off here, some new bits and a couple of spares bin odds and ends.

We took our time to get the bits we wanted and tried to keep weight and cost as low as we could. Once we gathered it all together, he built it with me supervising. I tightened the tight bits, indexed the gears and fine-tuned the brakes, but other than that he built it up by himself, hopefully learning loads on the way.

He now has a sweet little bike weighing a smidge over 10kg, which cost me somewhere between 5 and 600 quid.

The wee daftie then went and wrecked a brake lever crashing in a race last Saturday.

Highly recommend this approach, loved doing it with him and he’ll hopefully value the bike a bit more than one that came out of a box.

^ agree with what bol says about 26″ bargains, plenty out there just now.

After trying all sorts of things, we ended up on a Decathlon 8.1

It looks much much nicer in the flesh than those awful photos!
http://www.decathlon.co.uk/rockrider-81-mountain-bike-grey-id_8168918.html

I swapped the fork spring for a soft (for about £35) and it’s perfect.

Unfortunately, I haven’t got any photos that show the bike off really.

I have a small Charge skinny Duster that’s classifieds bound if you are interested? EDIT: frame only, but I have all the other bits are required.

My 8 year old is on a 24″ Hardrock, but it uses ‘real’ components.. thinking about a 26″ front wheel and fork as he grows!

brassneck – possibly, was ideally after a full build new or SH, but if you wanted to mail me (address in profile) that would be great

Ooops meant the Hardrock 26!

They weigh a ton!

that Decathlon 8.1 looks like a lot of bike for the cash, a good chunk less than equivalently specced Giant Talon

You not thought of haggling on a KTM Ultra 1964 ed. rrp of £949 but could be done for the £800 if you get the right bike shop owner!

My 12 year old got my old ‘first mtb’ when he outgrew his Carrera Blast. An 18″ Marin Wildcat Trail. I had old bars that i cut down to around 700mm and treated it to a new deore crankset. Total cost £54. Kinda lucky that my boy is 5’10” 😯 . There’s no way i’d spend £800 on a bike for him at present. The way he’s growing he’d outgrow it in a year.

Euro – fair point re growth, but he has a younger brother who at 3 yrs younger inherits them. We have managed to do it quite successfully through the Islabike range that way, such that the wee guy has only actually had one brand new one; his current Beinn 24.

We did the same as Bol, get a frame and build your own. This was my sons second 26″ hardtail, (old) ladies 15″ spesh rockhopper frame and all used bits (including light roval wheels and decent forks). Did not cost much, about £300?

Ladies frames are good as they have short top tubes, so more adjustable. His first 26″ frame was a 13.5″ spesh rockhopper frame. My oldest son started on 26″ with an on one scandal, he did not like this as much because of the long top tube.

My boys are now 11 and 13 and on a 15.5″ cove handjob and a 16″ ragley mmmmmmbob (both 26″).

They have been on 26″ bikes since about age 9/10 ish.

Old picky:

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