Kid’s new bike day

New stem arrived today to try – felt maybe it was a slight stretch to the bars so going from 50mm to 35mm

@joebristol – and so it begins,next thing you know it’ll be tubeless tyres, carbon rims laced to Hope hubs with BERD spokes, dropper and carbon bars  LOL

Ours turned up today, like you said they seem nicely put together and actually look like real mountain bikes. But bloody hell a 20” 2.6 tyre looks massive compared to when it’s on a 29er rim. Lol. I think I’m going to fit some 2.1 Small Block 8s on my daughters as that should lower the saddle height by about 2cm and removing the rear reflector dropped it another so that’s a 30cm saddle drop for £20. And have already ordered sets of purple and red Nukeproof Urchin pedals for them.
i like your thinking with the shorter stem as well.

I’m intrigued to know if the shorter stem made a noticeable difference. 

Will come back and update once we’ve tried it. Still need to fit it. Wife is out getting her hair done Saturday afternoon so I’m going to take Eva out on her bike hopefully then. Once she got going she was bombing along, but getting started was tricky wobbling about. I think because it’s that much longer.
Got to see if the Vitus fits in the boot of the car like her Isla or if I need to stick another bike carrier on the roof for it. Got a couple of spare Thule 532s lurking around. Car has a decent size boot and could flip 2 seats down easily enough (Jag XF Sportbrake)

Changed the stem this morning for the 35mm Nukeproof one – just need to pop some frame protection stickers on before taking it out this afternoon along the cycle track. New stem seems to have a slightly lower stack so added in an extra spacer. Headset feels graunchy if you do it up too tight so I wonder if it’s a cheapy loose ball bearing one.

I totally forgot about frame protection. Are you just buying a roll of helitape and doing it yourself?

I attempted to 3M tape one fork leg and couldn’t get it perfect so gave up on that. Got a thick chainstay protector I’m going to trim to fit and then some big round protection stickers – just going to put them where the bulging bit of the fork legs would contact the ground / where cables would rub – then 3M tape the straight / easy but of the other seat stays / chainstay 

I think the stem was worth doing – she seemed more comfortable with the reach to the bars and she’s nearly setting off on her own already. Just getting the hang of getting enough of a big push on the pedal to set off. Slightly harder to do than the 14” wheel Cnoc. But she’s nearly there already so won’t be long.

Once she’s more comfortable with that I’ll see if I can get her going on changing gear as it’s in 3rd at the moment and she could be going faster easier a few gears higher.

I’m not planning on introducing them to the gear shifter for a while. 

a friend has an old 35mm long stem I can have as he didn’t like it on his bike. I’ll try that. 

She discovered today she could still skid it even with those big 2.6” tyres on there. That was on tarmac on the Bristol / Bath cycle track. So on some light off road trails it seems like the mechanical discs should do the job ok. As long as they keep working reliably that is. Looks like the inboard pads just have a dial on the caliper to wind them in as they wear.

My daughter has gone off using the gears after the initial excitement, which was bit of a relief on the canal towpath today as I was doing a fair bit more than a gentle pedal in 10th today to keep up with her spinning her legs like mad in 2nd 😬
At least the timber bell gives people enough warning.

Such a good route to practice on (well if you’re going along the river, some of the parts nearer Bristol are a bit uphill for little kids).

I’m in the same camp about the Tektro brakes, if they need upgrading at a later date I’ll get cheap Shimano (or Clarks after your recommendation) but they’re not very heavy so mechanical ones should work.

I think it’s less a power thing and more a reliably working without loads of frequent adjustments and nice feeling lever thing. But then Eva doesn’t know any better at the moment and she seemed quite happy yesterday so I’m going to leave well alone.

You can get a bigger range freewheel to stick on there if they struggle on the hills a lot. Think it’s 28t lowest cog standard but you can get one with 34t I believe. Only about £15 to change

What’s the standover height like on the vitusses? My eldest is dwarfing his 14″ Early Rider and is chomping at the bit to get gears. I’ve looked at a couple of geared bikes and he’s way too small for them – I think 10cm below the standover height is pusing it too far!

My (very short) 10 year old has a Vitus 24+. It is such a good bike that we bought one for our 8 year old too. They are really capable bikes. Had some great times this summer on the top of the Quantocks, Haldon Blue and Whinlatter Blue, amongst other rides.

I’m a fan of the big tyres for cushion without a weighty suspension fork.

@stevious – stood in her trainers my daughter is 118cm tall. She can stand over the Vitus 20” ok – although I don’t think she’s got much clearance there. She can get on and off the bike herself so I figure it’s fine for riding on the cycle track at the moment / maybe give her another month to see how she goes on some flat / easy off road 

hmm. As I suspected, he’s way too short to move up to 20″ yet – only just about 110cm tall – unlikely to grow *that* much by xmas.

Might have to source a cheapo 16″ to keep him going a while.

@stevious – that was an option I had in my back pocket – just picking up something cheap 16” wheel for 6 months or so. Luckily haven’t needed to do that (would have got grief from the wife for yet another bike) but there are quite a lot of cheap 16” wheels about I think.

Worth looking at the islabike Beinn 20 Small. It has one of the lowest seat heights of most 20inch bikes. It’s obviosuly not mtb specific but my boys went from 14 > 20

Also there is the Vitus 20 (non plus) which probably has a lower stand over height – saw a few secondhand for about £100 when I was looking (not many 20+ for sale secondhand).

more a reliably working without loads of frequent adjustments

cable discs only need adjustments as the pads wear. 25kg of kid stopping from 10mph on the flat is disappating almost no energy compared with a “big boned” IT deskjocky dragging their way down a blue at bpw, so need almost no adjustment. In the 2 years my kids been riding his tektro cable disks I think they’ve needed the cable tension adjusted once (10 second job)

If it’s any use to anyone, I found this in my parts emporium. They came off a bike I bought for #2 son to shorten it. I ditched them for normal bars quickly.

Quite a sweep and decent height hike.

Don’t want anything for them.

brnad new vitus 20 plus on ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166384049024?hash=item26bd431b80:g:NzYAAOSwr~ZlL-P2 (maybe wiggle stock?)

I’ve just bought one of those! Ffs 😂

Trisports Resort is Chiggle on eBay. That’s the brand new colour just out for the Vitus 20+. Just be wary about Chiggle going into administration – the news suggests they’re just in the process of doing that – not sure how this will cross over with eBay sales.

The last 20+ I was watching on eBay went for about £260 I think – with paint damage – seemed mental when CRC were selling perfect ones for £280 at the time.

The last 20+ I was watching on eBay went for about £260 I think – with paint damage – seemed mental when CRC were selling perfect ones for £280 at the time.

There is something about trisportresort (chiggle) on ebay but people seem to lose their minds when they sell stuff, I’ve seen so many things on there sell for near RRP or even slightly over when they have some kind of damage or lightly used. Maybe people like the assurance that it comes from a proper retailer and not a person?

Yeah but they could just go to the Crc / wiggle website normally and just buy a new one for similar cost…..makes no sense

Here’s an update from me:

Looked in a lot of places for a decent 16″ second hand bike and it was tricky to find anything good up here. This thread inspired me to do 2 things:

 – start treating bikes as ‘get when you need’ not ‘wait ’til xmas’. It helps that like the OP I keep a kids bike fund running

 – see what vitus had going, and thankfully their 16″ model is just over 200quid, which is more than I wanted to pay but not mental money.

The bike arrived while he was at school today so I got to do this to surprise him for pickup:

And then took him to the local uni for a try-out. Not sharing any pics but just imagine a wee ginger boy with a big grin shredding about and you’ll get the picture. Ace.

Just noticed these have come back into stock, for anyone else thinking about one. Currently only 10% off Rrp though.

https://www.wiggle.com/p/vitus-20-kids-bike-104545768

Bit of inflation there, I paid £359 for the 24+ 5 months ago. 

Has anyone sticking hydraulic brakes on these kids bikes found it too much power? 

I seem to have found myself with a spare pair of Code R brakes as I’ve upgraded my bike to RSCs…..the temptation is strong to fit them. Because you need all that power for the cycle track 🤣

Has anyone sticking hydraulic brakes on these kids bikes found it too much power?

#SkidsMatterTyresAreReplaceable

Mine have had hydraulic discs since they started on 24″-wheeled bikes – standard fitment. Currently both have Clarks hydraulics with 160mm rotors on Vitus Nucleus 26’s but eldest is swapping to a Ragley 27.5 this week with my old SLX 2-pots and 180mm rotors both ends… slight overkill at her <40kg weight.

I whacked some cheap CRC Shimano brakes on ours and through using them and their previous/current bikes which are Hope Early Rider 16s (daughter is still a tiny bit too short for the Vitus, but her brother loves the Vitus) having Hope X2s on them I  think that hydraulics are fine. If you have spare Codes then stick them on it. The improved ease with which to pull the lever over cable discs is worth it alone. Also I found the cable discs fiddly to set up so sacked them off.

@JoeBristol – how’s she getting on with the bike? My son has just got his this weekend and he’s loving it. We fitted some bargain NP Urchin pedals and grips, cheap Shimano brakes (cables need trimming), shorter stem, trimmed the bars and fitted some 2.0/1.8 MaxxDaddy tyres to drop the standover a little and make it roll better on BMX tracks.

First trip to the trails is this weekend.

We haven’t been out since October as I got appendicitis. Hoping the weather sorts its life out in the next few weeks so we can get going on it again. I have Feb half term off and if the weather is dry then I’m planning on taking her to Ashton Court to try some mild off roading and see how she gets on.

Our Vitus is mostly stock other than a shorter Nukeproof stem and Burgtech top cap on it. I have the Code R brakes sitting around doing nothing and I also have some of those bargain urchin pedals in the box.

Planning to see how she gets on though before I change the brakes or pedals. If it ends up being mostly cycle track and not off road then I’ll leave it as it is.

Appendicitis? Hope you’re recovering well. I think she’ll love the Brakes (Codes on a kids bike? Sweet). Ashton Court and Leigh Woods are great for small kids as relatively flat, one of the things we miss since leaving Bristol along with FOD, Devon doesn’t have anywhere like FOD.

Hope she enjoys the bike.

as anyone sticking hydraulic brakes on these kids bikes found it too much power?

Not really. TI stuck on some slx brakes on my kids bike

they are amazinly powerful. What it means is his little hands are able to modulate easier. Definately noticed a hige difference between this bike and his old isla v braked bike (obviously). The confidence he has on this bike is amazing

Has anyone sticking hydraulic brakes on these kids bikes found it too much power?

As has been said, it’s not about power but about ease of use. Hydro’s are really easy to brake with so you don’t need to pull them very hard, which is great for kids as they only have little hands and can’t pull them too hard.

Exactly, my kids went from a CNOc 14S and Frog 40 with rim brakes to Hope Academy 16s with Hope brakes and the difference was instant. Lots of skids, but much easier to brake with tiny hands. 

And what kids don’t love to skid?  We even refer to the left hand brake as the ‘skid button’. 

(I basically got annoyed when setting up the Tektro cable discs and CRC had some Shimano bargains (£9.99 a brake) so I bought them both a set for their Vitus 20+s. 

My son has the Vitus 20+ but is struggling with the (Shimano) shifter. It can be rotated so either he can get the upshift lever with his finger or the downshift with his thumb. There isn’t a happy medium where both are comfortable.

Can I swap the shifter for something better? The rear mech is 7spd Altus.

Also can the hubs on these go to 9spd?