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Custom steel balancebike for my Kid

Most tricky werw the specialized carbon wheels. The wheelset is designed for theire carbon hotwalk that comes with airless tires. For whatever reason the wheels are available as a replacement part but not the tires. Therefore I have to combine the wheels with tires and tubes but do the rims have a valveholes? Other problem is the 110mm hubspacing. The balance bike standard is 95mm but these are 110mm wide. 110mm balance bike forks are impossible to get and for futureproof reasons I didn't want to build the rear 110mm wide. Seems like the easiest solution is to shorten the endcaps by 9.5mm on each side. 110mm-(2x9.5mm)+4mm(2mm washer on each side)=95mm. The other problem it the use of an 8mm proprietary axle instead of usual 5mm qr. The thread of the 8mm axle is to short to fit 95mm spacing. I decided to use a stainless M8 thread-bar and do kind of a bmx/track hub conversion with a floating axle. To save the ankles and other kids and adults flesh I went for safe and reasonable round dome head nuts even if I would have preferred to use the fancy but sharp edged titanium bi-hex nuts or even the drilled racing ones. Seat post diameter is even a mess on balance bike. The lack of standards in the bicycle industry is shocking. From 22,2 to 25.4mm you can find everything so I went for the 27.2mm most common adult size. The saddle is a pivotal bmx race seat because the pivotal system stay much lower than classic rail saddle models. The stem is a 25mm short Intend Grace DD. It is CNC machined in Germany with integrated topcap and no sharp edges to save the chest area and face in the worst case of a frontal collision with this brakeless rocket.

Frame:
Custom brazed steel bike with 44mm headtube / 27.2mm Seattube with integreated seat clamp / 95mm hub spacing / Cerakote painted in a uni black gloss

Fork/Headset:
Carbon BXT tapered 30mm to 28.6mm Cerakote painted in a uni black gloss / 8.95mm hub spacing / EXTRALITE UltraBottom ZS44/30 & UltraTop ZS44/28,6

Crankset/Bottom Bracket:
X

Pedals:
X

Drivetrain/Cog/Chainring/Chain:
X

Derailleurs/Shifters:
X

Handlebars/Stem:
KCNC Rampant handlebar 25.4mm 400mm Cerakote painted in a uni black gloss / Intend Grace 31.8mm

Saddle/Seatpost:
BMX race pivotal saddle / BMX seatpost 27.2mm Cerakote painted in a uni black gloss

Brakes:
X

Front Wheel/Hub/Tire:
S215500005 Specialized 12" Carbon wheel with custom turned 95mm endcaps & solid axle adapter / Schwalbe Kid Plus 12x1.75" 47mm semi slicks

Rear Wheel/Hub/Tire:
S215500005 Specialized 12" Carbon wheel with custom turned 95mm endcaps & solid axle adapter / Schwalbe Kid Plus 12x1.75" 47mm semi slicks

Accessories:
ESI race grips / Spurcycles compact bell / DIN976 stainless-A2 M8 threadbar with pro-bolt tiatium TIWA8 washers & LSSDOMENUT8 nuts / Ergotec 25.4mm handlebar shims / DT-Swiss valve adapters / Schwalbe Clik valve cores

Added by ianiscaratti. Last updated about 1 month ago.

9 Comments

_rd

_rd says:

This is great! Balance bikes rule. Both of my kids learned pedal bikes quickly on their first days after mastering balance bikes.

Posted about 2 months ago

ianiscaratti

ianiscaratti says:

great to hear that they are good to start and learn cycling

Posted about 2 months ago

jmauur

jmauur says:

not even mack hubs ? ):

Posted about 2 months ago

ianiscaratti

ianiscaratti says:

you think the 1000$ specialized carbon wheelset, custom turned endcaps, custom made axle assembled with pro-bolt titanium bits is not good enough?

Posted about 2 months ago

DuddyJ

DuddyJ says:

I'm not convinced you love your child. Where is the AXS groupset?!

Posted about 2 months ago

ianiscaratti

ianiscaratti says:

It's not even born yet lol

Posted about 2 months ago

benus

benus says:

But I can see a break ;) Amazing! Why? Because you can!

Posted about 2 months ago

benus

benus says:

... using a break in the beginning ist the best thing to do. Handling the first "real" will be No Problem then.

Posted about 2 months ago

ianiscaratti

ianiscaratti says:

This are just pictures from Bea's bike made from Starling Cycles.
Mine will still need some time

Posted about 2 months ago