Another build project for the rapidly growing 5year old. Are there any reasonable options for a lightweight 20″ disc wheel set? Never build wheels before but happy having a go. Any cheap options for rims and hubs? Any offers to build them for me when I get confused and have a tantrum?

Cheers

Chris

Building wheels isn’t that difficult, especially with stiff MTB rims, and especially smaller wheels. The stiffer the rim the more tolerant it is to things like uneven spoke tension.

BMX rims are pretty light, tough and ubiquitous.

Hubs, I guess whatever fits, smaller flanges will make life easier when it comes to building.

Spoke lacing, you’re probably limited to 2x, might even have to go 1x. Some online calculators will show you how the lacing will look so you can check the spokes aren’t going to foul the heads of the next spoke.

I hope you are going for 203 rotors… 😎

Not wanting to be a dick but why do you want disc brakes for a 5 year old? V brakes are plenty strong enough for a small child and I’ve seen a few cases of children getting bad cuts on their fingers from disc brakes – especially when the bikes are lying down and the kid spins the wheel and wonders what happens when they put their fingers on the disc…

Sorry if this comes across badly, but kids bikes tend to come with V’s for a reason.

No offence intended…

@boriselbrus

My mates wee lad has discs on his bike. Apparently he complained of sore arms when braking on Vs. Discs have alleivated that.

@cjr61
Do early rider do discs in that size

No worries – you’ll know your kids better than anyone.

And if you’re anywhere near Perth I’ll build them for you if you get stuck.

(Currently unemployed and bored)

Thanks all.

Glad to hear it’s fairly straight forward.

@boriselbrus no offence taken whatsoever.
Partly self indulgence as a project for me to build the ‘best’ bike I can for my lad, partly what I consider as better performance (but that’s subjective), partly just because it’ll look rad! Haha

Thanks @jamiemcf that early rider looks so cool. I like the Vitus 20+ also. Skinwalls are cool!

Sadly @boriselbrus I’m no where near Perth but I really appreciate the offer.

Apparently he complained of sore arms when braking on Vs. Discs have alleivated that.

I solved this with different brake levers when ours were small. Some brake levers are rubbish for small hands, not just size but where the pivot point is made them odd reach (Specialized and Scott, your bikes…) whereas our Kona and Islabike had much, much better levers.

My 10 year old much prefers hydraulic discs to Vs. Small less powerful hands.

Any PSAs for rims or hubs? Budget friendly please. Cheers

You never think kids want hydro discs until they hit a trail centre in the rain with downhills for the first time and they get achy fingers…

Very easy to say keep off the brakes and don’t be a xxxx then realise you’re rolling with Hope 203’s upfront and your old V’s from way back when sucked and would have also given you achy fingers 😂

Haha 203’s all the way

surely hubs will just be whatever cheap shimano hub fits the width of the dropouts? my kids (disk) for has odd spacing (20″ disk riprock), so be aware of that

actually, does the fork and frame have disc mounts?

got sophie’s wheels built up onto the rims off of a riprock 20. Currently got the old 20 inch wheels in the garage doing nothing. can have them if you’re local to glasgow. front and rear are standard QR.

Building wheels isn’t that difficult, especially with stiff MTB rims, and especially smaller wheels. The stiffer the rim the more tolerant it is to things like uneven spoke tension.

Going off on a slight tangent here, and maybe it’s subjective, but I’d say the exact opposite for the same reasons. The more “tolerant” a wheel is of uneven tension, the less likely you’ll be to know you’ve got the build right. A flexible rim will show up any unevenness which means you can easily see whether or not you’ve got a well-balanced wheel; stiffness hides it which means it’s more likely to have issues go unnoticed which make themselves known over time. Small wheels and/or huge hubs also tend to be a little trickier IME. That said, building wheels still isn’t that hard, so by all means give it a go; I just think you kind of need more care with these parameters, rather than less, because they hide more from you during the truing process.

Going off on a slight tangent here, and maybe it’s subjective, but I’d say the exact opposite

My first experience was building Mavic EN321’s (the later Toblerone shaped one, not the older DH rim) and they lasted years.

I don’t think I learnt to build wheels properly until I got a set of Stans Alpha 340’s.

The 340’s still built up nice and straight despite my lack of skill, but they felt horrible to ride and lost their trueness over a few hundred miles. Think I’ve rebuilt them 5 (maybe 6) times now! The last one was because, despite MTB wheels lasting just fine with greased nipples to allow adjustments in the future, a road wheel, with all the integrity of overcooked spaghetti and a maximum spoke tension you could achieve by blowing on it, needs threadlock 🤣

So I’ve acquired a bike and now need some wheels.
Afraid (sorry) I’m going disc brake so any good options for 20” disc wheels (read – stealth advert for wheels or some hubs to build)?

Build or buy complete?

Cheers Chris

In anticipation of the same thing in a year or so is been looking at these :

Spank Spoon 20

And build them up onto whatever cheap hubs I could find at the time (probably have to be in pink, or purple at a push, sigh…..)

Alienation deviant rims were the business when I built up my kids 20″ disc wheels on 240 hubs.
We all have our eccenteicities 😉

My 6 year old has cable disc brakes, I’m thinking of put hydraulics on there, mainly just because I can.

Glad I’m not the only Dad/Mum doing the self-indulgent builds!

Edit.

I was going to point out the obvious but it’s your money! Good luck!

Thanks. I’ll be trying to do these on a budget so won’t be 240’s! Hoping the stw collective may have some dusty hubs tucked away that need new purpose! 😉

Any wheels no longer needed? Or hubs? Many thanks