How tall were your kids when they moved on to 26″ wheel bikes, and what sort of riding were they doing?

My son is 4’8″/145cm and currently on a 24″ hardtail – I’m wondering whether he’d manage on a 13″ frame/26″ wheel full suspension bike. I most worried about bb height (unsagged, most bbs are going to be 10cm higher than his current bike). Also a bit concerned about reach – proportionally anything I’ve looked at is going to be longer than my bird!

a fair few of the kids he rides with (e.g. at Little Fodders at the forest of dean) are on 26 or even 27.5 and they seem to get on ok.

He’s an ok rider, racing bmx since he was 6, happy on blues and some reds at windhill/flyup 417, fine on XC rides at trail centres.

I don’t know how tall she is but my daughter is a slightly smaller than average 11 year old, she got a new bike for her 11th birthday. I struggled to find any quality 26in wheel bikes and ended up getting her a 27.5in xxsmall Orbea. Great bike and she is fine with it.

I was just trying out my 9.5 year old boy on it last night and, whilst slightly too big, I suspect I will do the same for him in the next couple of months.

My boy’s on a 27.5 frame with 26” wheels and forks and 150/155mm cranks (I forget which), BB height is nice and low.

I forget how tall he was, though. We built it somewhere around his 9th birthday, but that probably doesn’t help much 😉

(Custom build around a Cube frame from Bike-Discount, cost me £300 all in excluding the wheels, which I already had.)

130 cm should be fine for a small framed 26inch bike. Sure it may not be perfect but just make sure you get something with air forks that can be readily adjusted to a wide range of weights and riding styles.

I expect your son may be an outlier Bez if he takes after you for height! (if I remember rightly from a ride we did at glentress in about…errr… 2004? You forgot your helmet IIRC). I’ve seen a couple of 27.5 frames and that is what I was looking at…

My daughter’s quite tall for her age- one of the tallest in her class. I was surprised how much she had shot up when I saw her on her 20″ wheel bike last autumn when she was 9.5 yo. We had a holiday coming and a new bike was needed for it.

The 24″ wheeled bikes were a good fit but the saddle and stem were close the end of adjustment. She tried a 27.5″ wheeled Trek with a small frame and that fitted well and she had no problem riding it. I think she was around 145-150cm tall when we got the bike.

We put our daughter on a xs/14″ 27.5 genesis which was her bothers, so she wasting to have to use it anyways. She is 148cm tall and it looks she is riding a 29ner but she is managing ok

Thanks all, just pulled the trigger on a 13″ marin hawk hill from Rutland that I’ll stick 26″ wheels on for a while… what a little brat my son is. It was a bargain, so if he takes a few months to grow into it it doesn’t matter too much.

Fine memory, Ian. Might have even been a year or so before that… not sure how to date it as I spent most of those higher-latitude weekends either viciously drunk or viciously hung over 🙂

But yeah, he’s probably on the taller end of the spectrum.

My Lad went from 24″ to 27.5 with no problem at all and he’s only just 5ft tall. I got him a XS Ragley frame and he loves it…. So much so he now wants a full bouncer so the Ragleys Gotta go. 😂.