Carrera Blast 24"

I’ve read they’re meant to be a decent bike for kids (building a XS 26″ aside).

I really had my heart on buying the lad a Ramones 24 from Commencal for Xmas, but with shipping they’re £300 and come with v-brakes and non disc hubs.

I’ve just seen the Blast is reduced to £230 – are they geninely good bikes, or just ‘cheap’ I’m incredibly wary of Carrera and Halfords in general.

I couldn’t bring myself to impose the awful Ryanair colours on my two kids. And the brakes are crap (tho’ you could swap for BB5/7s). So they’ve now got Frog 62s.

I, like many here, bought a second-hand Blast (£90 off eBay) and up-graded it. Most of it came from my spares box. Descent wheels are the hardest to find.

New wheels (existing ones are 7 speed only)
Hand-me down 10 speed mech & shifter
XT disc brakes
Shorter stem
Wider bars
New chainset
Thick / thin chainring

Not certain I’d recommend one stock build.

Superstar are doing stans crest 24″ wheels, they are £250 though, or their DHX 24 wheels are £150.

I’m thinking of buying a second hand one next year and fitting some RST 1st air forks and using it as an excuse to learn to build some wheels. I’ve got everything else in a box waiting for something to hang it all off!!

Hopefully will be be good father and son time building it.

are they geninely good bikes

Yes, but not as light or well specced as we come to expect on adult bikes.
Definitely worth a punt second hand.

I bought one of the earlier ones for £55 second hand, changed loads of parts inc rst air forks, superstar dhx wheel set, 1×10 sram gears, avid elixir 5 brakes, seat and bars. It’s now a great little bike, my son (8yr old) has used it on blue scar and penhydd at afan and the blue trails at BPW.

Yeah I’m not expecting anything brilliant – it’s less than the cost of a chainset on most adult bikes.

I was planning to hand him down my Deore Hydraulics and get myself some XTs, strip off the excess crap they come with and go from there.

The Commencal looks a lot nicer, but it’s £100 more and doesn’t have disc hubs – braking is one of his weaker points and I was hoping a decent set of Hydrualics would give him more feel (even if he will no doubt go OTB the first time he rides, he’s not a good listener).

http://www.commencal-store.co.uk/ramones-24-yellow-2015-c2x14495053

this is Lewis’s old carrera blast before I bought him a transition ripcord. was under 2lb. still have frame, rst forks, set of wheels, tyres and a 1×9 (brand new) kit, bar and stem

‘m thinking of buying a second hand one next year and fitting some RST 1st air forks and using it as an excuse to learn to build some wheels. I’ve got everything else in a box waiting for something to hang it all off!!

You cannot get cheap 24 ” rims so it wont bother

I have those superstar ones and they are beefy and a set of hope ones on some rims – s/h. Did not find decent priced 24 ” rims this time last year when i was looking

Yeah I’ve noticed there are no cheap 24″rims apart from the superstar ones. £25 a rim.

if i get a second hand bike and the wheels are decent i might just swap the hubs so I can fit a 10 speed cassette and use the same rims. Should save a load of weight just swapping the forks i reckon.

massive easy savings are

1) Forks to anything air – I used old SIDS as they are similar A-C
2)Bars – tend to be steel !!
3) Pedals – little feet innit
4) Tyres if you want Rocket rons or some such – I dont as I hate them

Superstar will do a 20 % or 25% sale at some point so those wheels become reasonable but they are 2 kg a set iirc

Think Tarty bikes are cheapish for spokes but not rims

•Velocity Aeroheat are a little over 400g a rim or there is the Alienation Deviant rim. couple with a set of light hubs and DB spokes should make for a ~1700g wheel set.

if price is no object stans do[did last year anyway] a 24 ” rim but it is £70 or thereabouts

yeah SS are doing full wheels on stans crest 24″ rims for £250 a pair, think i saw rims for £65 each.

Will check out the ones Poah mentioned as well.

OVERVIEW
Age Group: 8-12
Approximate Weight (KG): 16
Brake Type: Mechanical Disc Brake
Frame Material: Alloy
Number of Gears: 21
Stabilisers: No
Wheel Size: 24″
Frame Size: 13″
Front Brake: Disc brake
Gender: Boys
Rear Brake: Disc brake
Type: Junior Bikes

35lbs 😯

what the hell are they made from?

@Poah – could you be parted from the bits you’ve got left?

yes

Cool, drop me a line at mrjones 77 AT rocketmail DOT com and we’ll chat.

sent

I built a set of 24″ Crest for my son during the summer with Novatech hubs (same as the Superstar ones) and Sapim Race spokes. Cost me around £275 but i had the fun of building a set of wheels from scratch which was a first for me.

Totally transformed his Genesis Core 24.

the crest wheels from SS are not that light. I recon about 1700g

UPDATE.

Mrs. Jay demanded that Xmas presents have to be new so it was back to the drawing board.

We tried him on a XS 26″ he just about fitted on a ladies hybrid, but gents/unisex bikes were all too long standard and Tredz didn’t have any 26″ unisex / gents ones.

So I ordered a Felt:

http://www.cyclelane.co.uk/m5b0s367p7929/FELT-Q24D-2015

Sadly, it was out of stock, but they’ve sold me this years:

http://www.cyclelane.co.uk/m5b0s367p9539/FELT-Q24-DISC-2016

For £270 which I’m well pleased with.

Yes he’ll grow out of it in 2 years and they’re pennies to buy on eBay, but hopefully the mech discs will help his braking issues at BPW and I’ll upgrade it after Xmas when I remember what money looks like.

poah – we have no such scruples over second hand kit in our house. Drop me a mail if its still for sale 🙂

P-Jay – please tell me it’s the Rasta one? 🙂

poah – we have no such scruples over second hand kit in our house. Drop me a mail if its still for sale

Or me if ir_bandito doesn’t have them.

jonathan – Member

P-Jay – please tell me it’s the Rasta one?

I have to admit I went with Black – he’s obsessed with Cannabis at the moment since they had Plod in school to give them ‘the chat’ and he’s got access to Google, I don’t need another link to weed in my house – ha ha, too many old photos in shoe boxes of me stoned.

I’m in the process of building it back up with some spare parts so will post pics when I’m done

I would not touch a bike from Halfords,Adult or Kids.
If you decide to,don’t take it back for a service,as it will come back deformed.Or scratched to high buggery

What length cranks are you putting on these 24″ or x small 26 frames?

152mm

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kettenradgarnitur-SR-Suntour-T20242-Zähne-schwarz/dp/B0029MP3AO

I cut a set of sram cranks down to 152mm for my sons blast.

My lbs has given me a set of deore cranks to try that. Just need to find someone around south Manchester with a pillar drill. 152mm for a 10/11 year old?

Lewis has a thorn 150 triple running a 30t N/W, I’ve got one of those suntour cranks above to put on the blast

Aren’t the deore crank arms hollow? Thought you couldn’t shorten those.

Lbs has said not hollow where I’d be drilling the new holes. They also said they have loads of spare sets waiting to go to scrap so can give me more if I stuff it up!

are they not machined at the back so you have less space to put a pedal in. personally I’d not risk it