Hi guys, hope you’re all keeping well.

My son has a Jamis Dakar A1;
https://www.vitalmtb.com/product/guide/Bikes,3/Jamis/Dakar-A1,24836
1. the frame it a little small now.
2. if I get a bigger frame I can ride it 🙂

I was thinking of getting a Bird Aeris 120 frame and moving the kit across;
https://www.bird.bike/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Aeris-120-LT-Tech-Data-Sheet.svg

How painful will it be;
0. Biggest question is will the shock fit? the Jamis has a 120mm travel – RockShox Monarch DebonAir RL, rebound adjust, lockout. The Bird is built for this travel and the Bird Spec sheet says 210×55 metric shock with 30×8 Hardware both ends (designed for Bearing Mounts)
1. I may need a new headset
2. I need to check that the fork steerer length is long enough
3. The seat post is 31.6 so OK
4. Bottom Bracket is OK I think
5. Rear wheel is 142 and not 148 so would need a Problem Solvers Booster Adapter kit. Anyone any experience?

As my son is an infrequent rider, I’m sort of excited that I could have access to this bike as well as my current HT. And the bike will get more use than it is doing now.

Cheers everyone!

The Bird uses a metric shock – I don’t think the Monarch is metric sized. So you might find the eye to eye or stroke of your existing shock doesn’t fit. I’d be tempted to get the basic deluxe shock with the Aeris 120 frame tbh.

Aeris has a screw in bb so a Shimano ht2 / Sram gxp / Sram dub for screw in will fit.

Haven’t looked at headsets but the Bird own brand one is pretty cheap va almost every other headset you can buy aftermarket – and it comes in different colours.

Hub width depends on your wheel. Wolftooth and MRP make boost kits for some forks / if not you can just get a cheap spacer kit from someone like velo solo.

0 – It looks like the leverage ratio is different – you might be better off with a new shock anyway then you can sell the old frame
1 – I’d put a new headset in anyway
2 – you will
3 – great
4 – BB’s are cheap; but are the cranks ok – sounds like your old frame isn’t boost and the new one is ? Might have chainline issues
5 – Never used an adapter; but it should work fine; just watch out for losing spacers if you take the wheel off.

If you are getting the frame from Bird I’d give them a shout, they are really helpful and know a lot more than us. That said, I’d get the headset and a new shock from bird.
If you are getting the long travel version the forks will be shorter than the rear travel, the longer travel ones also tend to have a bit more pedal contact due to the lower bb height.
LT says 130 to 140mm travel up front.
Headtube length on the bird is m 110mm, medium long and large is 120mm.
I found with my TR hardtail the “cheap” forks didn’t keep up with the bike at speed, great for pootling but when trying they got confused!! 🙂 I found with longer travel it absolutely flew.
Have fun.

Thank you, some really good advice.

As I can’t re-use the shock, probably not the headset, never thought of the crankset so maybe not that and the wheels need an adapter to fit on the rear. Think I’m barking up the wrong tree here.

Maybe an option to build via what spares I have and beg and buy the rest.

Off to look through the classifieds 🙂