Thanks so much, fantastic set of responses…

jivehoneyjive:
I don’t have experience with any of these particular cranksets, but I’m not a small chap and have yet to break anything from Aliexpress (broke plenty of Shimano Cranks given enough time to wear through them with my heels mind)

The bing bang bosh, jobs a good un solution:

Yep, think that will do the trick to me honest! I think he’ll be on this bike for another year and then I’ll change him to something more modern! Thanks v much.

slowol

I got square taper ones from AliExpress for my lads bike. Seem fine. Ordinary black alloy cranks not dissimilar to the longer length basic Shimano Altus ones on my hack bike.

Great, reassuring and helping me to make my decision, so thanks!

didnthurt
I’ve a pair of these and they’ve been great, obviously you’ll need a chainring but they’re cheap enough, just pick your speed and ensure they’re narrow/wide.

Jet BMX Square Taper Race Cranks

Thanks, I did see those, but they seem to be 160mm.  I went with the BikeDynamics and although a 160mm probably is better right now, he’s growing like a weed so would probably fit a 165mm by the end of next week!!

didnthurt
This is a rebadged version from Hup, who are a more premium kids bike brand.

HUP Kids Cranks: Children’s Short Cranksets (104bcd 4-bolt) Narrow Q-Factor

Thanks, but those don’t quite get up to the crank length that I’m looking for. Cheers though.

jhpbk
I am 95% certain both the rear hubs you have mentioned would need the same whole axle changing to become QR.

Which leads me to think you need this –…

Thanks so much for the post, really helpful and very kind offer!

Its not to change the fit as such. It’s just that I originally undersized the wheels because he was slightly undersized for the bike (and young, so all weight saved will be beneficial). He’s now within range (although may grow out by the end of the year), so it makes sense to fit the sized wheels that are meant to be on the frame so he has the clearance from the ground etc he is meant to have and to make sure it does last him through to the upper height recommendation for the frame.

How tall is he? If still in the range of an XS frame I’d expect cranks will be fine.

The sort of wheels you are after are prime 27.5 gravel sizes so maybe not so many bargains about.

So, I wrote that wrong earlier and now can’t edit – he’s on a 15″ S frame which is 5’3 to 5’7. He was only just 11 and a smidge over 5′ when he started on the bike last year – he’s know around 5’5 do I’d like to get the 27.5s on to help the frame last the summer and also change the cranks to a 160.

I’m 6’2″ and run 165mm cranks…, and previously we were all (almost) on 26″ wheels.

Sounds like it’s the frame you need to change.

He was on 153 cranks, so was going to increase those to 160. He’s still within the overall range for the frame (which is designed for 27.5), but approaching the upper end, so I was thinking the extra wheels will allow that much more clearance to survive the summer. Then winter can be the frame upgrade!

And a couple more Novatech Questions as I’ve seen some others which are advertised; they have a D711-15 and he says are 15*100 and also a rear that is D772SB that he says is 142*12. I **think** the rears may be convertible to QR – is that right??

Thanks for all the replies

GeForceJunky: Where are you located? I think I have (new) 2x Superstar 27.5 rims, 15×100 novatec front hub, spokes, but unsure if I have a rear hub in the right size.

I’m in West Herts. I’ll DM you to discuss more.

hatter: DT swiss 1900’s are still made in 27.5″ non-boost and all versions can be converted to Q/R.

M 1900’s are the all round trail versions and E 1900’s are the roughty toughty enduro versions.

Thanks very much for that. I’ll keep am eye out for those.

ampthill: But I don’t quite follow what the plan is. Your son has grown. Is this new wheels on his existing bike or building up a new bike?

He was outgrowing his 24″ bike, so and as a bit of a project we went with a 27.5″ XS frame and also put on 26″ wheels so it was nicely sized for him to start with. That way we thought we would get a couple of years out of the bike and we could move it up to 27.5″ wheels  for a bit of extra height etc. Then we could step up the frame and keep some of the same bits etc. Seemed to be several people doing that here on this forum and it sounded a good idea. But he’s grown like a weed so I need to source some wheels (and bigger cranks) now.

I have tried a WTD, but no attention as yet – seems pretty quiet on the classifieds.

Any help much appreciated!

Art latex? I’ve used hobby crafts diluted with screen wash and a tube of cheap glitter for years. About £9 for 500mls.

Glitter, eh?

There’s a bit of a delay in the delivery of the d20, so checked Halfords who have their own brand in stock. Anyone used it? Want to check is not awful! Had the benefit that I can pick up tomorrow morning and it’s only £12!

Remove the prickly plant

It at his school, not sure its ‘cool’ to turn up and hack away at the school’s plants.

Barbieri stuff from Planet X

Thanks – if it wasn’t for the delivery charge costing as much as the product, I would definitely give it a try.

Actually I’ve seen a muc-off 140ml for £4.99, terrible value, but if I only need 20-30ml a go, should do be for a while. Any idea if it is very noticeable particle-y. Otherwise might give the d20 super sealant a go which is £12 but should have enough for a few years of punctures if it works!

I do this all the time with basketballs and footballs.
Just use a syringe to put some sealant through the needle valve, give it a spin, pump it up and away you go.

I use Stans sealant and fire in 10-20ml.
Not enough for liquid to slop around but saves many a ball.

Great to know, anything cheaper than Stans out there – that seems the priciest. Muc Off 300ml is £10 seems a bit cheaper and available in a smaller bottle and Slime 237m is £6, joes D20 500ml is £12… Just noticed a comment that says Joes D20 is noticably runnier, which I’m thinking is a good thing for getting it into a basketball.

Personally I’d just buy him a medicine ball next time and tell him he was warned.

Tempting…

I’ve gone with (5) thanks to the classifieds here having just the ticket!

This is so irritating!

The funny thing is that it literally does fit snuggly, it just seems like someone forgot to make the right retaining nut!!!!

So, after too much reading, my options appear to be:

1 Drill into my brake lever so I can get a recessed m5 (i think) nut there that pops out and to which I can then attach what I have. Low cost, but danger of messing something up more!
2 Make the missing nut – someone seems to have done that here: https://www.mtbr.com/threads/xt-i-spec-ii-shifter-with-i-spec-b-brakes-solution.996480/ but I don’t understand from what they made that nut as I can’t find a “spec a nut”?
3 Buy a separate clamp for to which this can attach – cost something like £10-£17 depending on quality
4 Buy a new spec b top housing for the bracket (around £17)
5 Buy a new shifter, sell my old one (lose a bit in postage/fees – maybe £10 hopefully). But that actually needs me to bother selling something which I don’t always do!

Ideally, I would quite like to do (2) but I simply don’t understand where that nut came from.
Otherwise (4) or (5) is looking like a reasonable bet.

And thanks – I’ll join it with the master link and see how it goes – which is what I think you mean. I don’t have any additional links if you actually mean put in a further link and then join with the master link!

leffeboy

You don’t, it’s just for getting the correct length. It’s much easier to do when not pulling against a derailleur spring

Yep, this is how I read you should do it on the park tool website. Once you have the right length you thread it through the derrailleur and join.

So put a 160mm rotor and and it seats fine. Ruddy manual and RS information (even facebooked them to check I needed a 180mm rotor before buying it).

I have 160mm rotors, but I went out and specifically purchased a 180mm one because of the spec sheet of the fork and didn’t want to risk under sizing the rotor – I even checked it with Rockshox facebook support, humph. I’ll change that over to the 160mm and see how it seats and report back!

OK, I’ll put the DMR defy 50 back on the list!

I have thought about getting the steerer replaced, but I think the lower stack stem will be just fine for now, I have a 30mm upsweep on the bars and it seems about right on the kid.

I’m having to resurrect this thread as I must have done something wrong! I thought that I didn’t need an adapter between the calliper and post mount on the fork

So I have Deore M615 brakes that I’m trying to put on my 2016 Revelation (FS-RVL-RC3-A3). I’ve used a 180mm shimano rotor and yet the calliper won’t sit on the direct mounts.

https://i.postimg.cc/fW00s99L/20220413-175650.jpg

I’m thinking I do need some kind of adapter. Can someone please help me with identifying what I need?

Is it an international – A adapter like SM MA F180P/S or SM MA F180P/P2?? I’m really confused now.

I literally was all set on getting a DMR Defy 50, with the only worry being that I had read that it can click/creak. Given your comments, I may veer back to the Funnduro / ZTTO version of it.

Thanks, that would give me a bit of leeway of a few mm over being ok then as the bolts are always a little bit further down.

edit / or the fun funduro @32mm??

Hi all,

Resurrecting this thread as I have a similar issue. Any help very much appreciated.

I slightly messed up as I purchased a 2nd hand fork without checking the steerer height (this is a build with the son on a budget that is not going so well!!)

Anyhow, fitted to a Brand X HT01 frame with superstar headset, I have 29mm at front/30mm at back of steerer showing. My Brand X stem with 42mm stack height does not therefore work….And this is to go with a 31.8 bar.

So, given the above.

Q1: As a starter, can you go slightly over the visible steerer and if so by how much.

Q2: Do you need any other tolerance/gaps etc.

Q3: So What is the tallest stack on the stem that I can go for?

From looking around, the main options appear to be the Ragley Stubbing V1 (if you can find one although this is 30mm so might be too big), the DMR Defy 50 (31mm height so might be too big), the DMR Defy 35 (27mm height), or a cheaper ZTTO option from Aliexpress/Amazon (29mm according to an Amazon answered question on the item). So hoping one of these will do the trick for me!!

Thanks!!

Finally got around to doing this. It was all going very well, very straightforward until I came to swap over the springs. Let’s just say a slightly unfortunate chain of events and the air shaft guide fell off, along with the wavy washer which I found, clean them and they don’t seem to have suffered from the fall.

Pulled the Floating seal head and Floating seal head top out bumper off the 150mm air shaft. Was about to move these all across to the 130mm air shaft and I’m now realising that I am missing a aluminium support washer.

I’ve searched the garage and can’t for the life of me find it.

Pardon the pun, but am I shafted? Where do I get an alternate washer from, can’t even see them online anywhere?

Thank you Thank you Thank you. That makes sense now. I was getting so confused by the front one, but the answer was that you don’t need one!

Are there specific bolts for attaching the brake calliper to the brake adapter – are they m6x20 bolts usually?

Cheers for the replies, 180 it is!

joebristol and carlos – I realise my mistake now, I’m such a numpty. I was focussing just on the instructions on pages 10 to 16 and was thinking that the air spring could be done without lower leg removal. But I take it from the many pointers on this thread that is not possible. I have to say one of the diagrams just didn’t make sense and now I think it does!

MAKE SURE THE AIR IS OUT BEFORE YOU TRY TO DISASSEMBLE THE AIR SPRING.

I know this from a death dodging experience.

This much I had garnered from reading the service manual (though maybe the wrong manual), but thanks for the essential top tip!

joebristol – thanks for the detailed input. It’s odd because I just don’t see where it says to put oil in the manual when doing an air spring; I was looking at https://www.servicearchive.sram.com/sites/default/files/techdocs/gen.0000000004218_rev_a_2013_revelation_service_manual.pdf where it says air spring removal and air spring installation.

Question on the amount of grease needed if putting in a new air spring – would one of the 29g pots of Rockshox butter grease be ok – doesn’t seem like a lot of grease!!

Thanks for the replies, I think I might have been looking at the wrong instructions or misunderstood them as I didn’t see any oil mentioned!

Trailhead shows 38t53187050 it as FS-RVL-RC3-A3. But I feel like the website was showing me a bit more information when I checked last month and able to find the service manual more easily.

ZS headset all have pretty low stack height.

I’ve got a Nukeproof Neutron. According to the drawing on the CRC website the bottom cup is 3mm and top cup is 8mm

Ragley Stubbing has always been my go to stem for a low stack height

Superstar website says:

Top Cups: ZS44 – Stack Height 7.5mm – Insertion 9mm
Bottom Cups: ZS56 – Stack Height 5.5mm – Insertion 9mm
And…Note that some manufacturers list cup only to make them appear shorter than they are. so I don’t know if I can compare those directly to the Nukeproof ones?? But I guess we are only talking a few mm in any case.

I asked similar recently but haven’t actually progressed with anything so far, but might help.

Thanks – that was helpful!

Cheers, is superstar about as slim as I’m going to get then?

Thanks all for the input, I think I’m going to bit the bullet and get a 27.5 revaltion and spend double the budget – ouch. And now I need a new 26 15*100 front wheel, doh!

I’d seriously consider a rigid fork and a big (plus) tyre, the grip and bump absorption on a big tyre suits a kid better, have seen it work really well, my own kid had an air fork which never really helped him.

This is not something I’ve thought about. What kind of fork do you get and how big is a big tyre, does that mean new wheels, or can you also a big tyre on the current wheel. And is our just the front that gets a big tyre? Sorry of Noddy questions!

Maybe I need to reconsider the budget, probably be cheaper in the long run and quite time saving!

Looking at a couple of second hand revelations, what’s the difference between

FS-RVL-RC3-A3
And
FS-RVL-RCT3-A3??

Thank you again continuity.

And any thoughts on a sektor or pike that has a larger travel, but adjusting it down with tokens (as I have read that reducing volume with tokens can help sensitivity)?

continuity

Would a rockshox 30 Gold RL be a reasonable call then as it as MoCo (I think). Over my price bracket, but new for £150 ish.

Open bath for RS meant “motion control” or MoCo. Also see MOCO DNA, Moco Blackbox, e.t.c. I.e. a load of shims attached to a top cap and a load of oil it sits in. Change the oil weight, change the damping.

Old means pre 2018 probably. Nothing that says charger (this is a closed bladder damper).

Thanks, the terminology was confusing me a bit!

The other option I have here is to get an older 26 inch fork with more like a 140mm, and then a 27.5 fork when I move him over to a bigger wheels. That might give me another year and he’ll be a bit heavier. But I don’t know it will make that much difference…. Main benefit is that I don’t have to sort out new wheels now and then can get a whatever front axle wheel to suit the appropriate fork.

Get an old open bath fork. I reccomend something like an early recon, or revelation – with a moco damper, and ideally a dual air spring.

OK, lots for me to think about here, open bath forks… off to research what that means or how early a fork are we talking….