Suspension on a 24” kids bike

Hi all I’m looking for a bit of advice. I’m wanting to put some front forks on my lads whyte 303.

Current crown to axle is 390mm

ive been looking at these:

Rst first air 400mm a2c weighing 1.6kg 24” specific 60mm travel

https://www.starbike.com/en/rst-first-disc-suspension-fork-24-air-60mm-black/?currency=GBP&keep_params&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI16CI1InM6AIVCbrtCh2RfQyrEAQYAiABEgIU5vD_BwE

suntour xcr lo 24” weighing 1.9kg 80mm travel 415 crown to axle

XCR Air LO 24

also considered the rst snyper with 80mm travel and 1.85 kg but can’t seem to get hold of them

also not sure on the crown to axle of these

now other options I’ve been told to look at retro forks but all the ones I find are 150 crown to axle might be overkill for his bike

ive looked at these retro forks

fox f80rlt

rockshox Sid 28mm 80mm travel both seem to weigh about 1.2kg  but both have a fairly long axle to crown

im all confused right now on what to put on

also considered the manitou robes on chain reactions but these have through axle and tapered stearer so id have to change them over on his bike as well then it starts to get expensive.

wheel rebuilt on a different hub and new press into the crown. Not sure how much that would cost.

any advice and links to suitable places or forks greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Kev

i grabbed a nice set of manitou r7 from ebay for my lads bike, i think they can be 80 or 100mm , nice and light, and the beuty of manitou is they want you to take their stuff apart and tweak it.. ie you can adjust the shim stack for really low amounts of lsc to suit a small rider. .a little beyond me

i should add, these were 26″ forks, a little longer in the a to c but not massively so.. turns my lads bike from less of an xc bike id say

Just checked them out they are 456mm crown to axle maybe a bit too long on the 80mm?

maybe… maybe… even sagged that would still be up 46mm…

just measured my lads bike, has a 410 a to c standard.. guess thats why i could get away with it

My eldests 24“ charge went from this:

To this:

With an old set of 100mm Rebas, IIRC this photo is from before I set them down to about 70mm using the negative spring to just drop the ride height. They obviously sag further still in use, I could have found/made hard spacers to lower the travel, but the negative spring was the easier method.
the main point is to make riding as comfortable as possible for her without incurring too much of a weight penalty, so old 26er air forks are almost ideal…

You’re always going to slacken the bike with any suspension/26″ forks, but it’s not made it noticeably worse handling from her perspective, and the major benefit is being able to tweak spring pressures and ride height with just a shock pump.

From the list in your OP I’d go for the old SIDs they’ll be tunable on spring pressure and IIRC they can be spaced down to 63mm travel without too much fuss.

Cookea any chance you could send me a couple of links to know what I’m looking at. I’m technically useless haha

what year are the IIRC forks?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/293530150207

these are some fox ones I was looking at

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/352993400109

or like these

IIRC – If I Recall Correctly

@kevinwilson I’ve got a set of those RST First Airs i’d be willing to sell. Drop me a message if you’re interested.

Sorry don’t understand when I type that in google I get all sorts up. Sorry for the lack of knowledge

Sorry IIRC is interweb slang for “If I Recall Correctly” I is down with the kidz see.

Those are a set of Rockshox Reba Race from around 2008ish maybe?
32mm stanchions, (old style) MOCO damping, 100mm travel (I believe with the option to set travel at 120/100/80mm with spacers) and a dual air spring.

I had them off ebay for ~£25 in August of last year, I would expect they were OEM on a C2W purchased Boardman or similar pre-credit crunch, they’d apparently never been maintained, so I simply pulled them apart cleaned them up, re-lubed/oiled and started playing with pressures. There are video’s and “how to’s” for servicing old RS forks all over Youtube and I downloaded several service manuals from SRAM’s website until I found one where the pictures looked like the bits in front of me… All done on a minimal budget but it works well.

I’ve just popped up to the garage and put a tape over both the old rigid forks which are 385mm A2C and the Rebas which measured 435mm A2C, static with ~72mm of stanchion on show.
So sagged under a ten year old they’re probably about 415-420mm leaving about 50mm of (relatively plush) travel.
Thinking back we did tweak the seat position bar rotation/height slightly to account for the Head angle being slackened and the front being marginally higher.

But If you’re really worried about upsetting the handling with more A2C and have the budget then those “RST F1rst” are probably the best option being 24″ specific. Bare in mind the A2C value given is for them un-sagged, so as soon as Jnr puts some weight on the bike they should get ~10-15mm shorter meaning the geometry/handling is kept almost identical and they’re air-sprung meaning spring rate is infinitely adjustable as he gets bigger…

Cheers cookea

think you could be correct the first air might be the way to go and the lightest.

This was the other option but need to get the head pressed and wheel re built if using these. Don’t know what the crown to axle is on them either or even if they are any good

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/mobile/manitou-machete-j-unit-forks/rp-prod188907?gs=1&sku=sku742443&istCompanyId=8d42cf00-fc35-44ce-8770-97ae3ffd4c16&istFeedId=c759ee22-6d7f-4501-bd00-f1af47c60490&istItemId=iwtaaarix&istBid=t&pgrid=60711842618&ptaid=pla-419534863896&utm_source=google&utm_term=&utm_campaign=PLA+All+Products&utm_medium=base&utm_content=mkwid%7CsgtYcNwEL_dm%7Cpcrid%7C309840120197%7Cpkw%7C%7Cpmt%7C%7Cprd%7C742443UK&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIupKUkq7M6AIVB53VCh0pRg0ZEAQYASABEgIqzfD_BwE

Burchy1 I have messaged you very interested

Do you think there is a big difference between the first air 24 rst and the xcr 24 lo forks? Other than the screen can be turned up to 80mm

Kevin – there is a big difference. The rst f1rst are a simply better quality fork and much lighter with magnesium lowers. The damping is a cartridge with air so easy to get the sag right etc and the lowers are easy to service.

I’ve had both (kid no 1 now on fox f80s) and the xcr’s are just a cheep’ / nasty coil fork.

Cheers Neil. For some reason I thought the new xcr LO forks were air not coil. Cheers Neil