Check out nine year old Felix Vincent’s Specialized Big Hit Grom.

It always makes me happy when I see young kids on bikes. Felix’s dad Ian got in touch a while back with details of the bike he built up for his son.

Felix in Les Deux Alpes, about to hit some serious descents to the valley below.

I spent the summer hols 2010 in Andorra with my son Felix (he was 6 just about to turn 7), he was riding a Specialized Hotrock 20 and rode some pretty good stuff (Route 66, the Maxi Avalance Superior etc) but the bike was giving him a beating on the rougher tracks.

Braaap!

The rig.

When we got back I decided that it wasn’t really fair for him to have to ride a poorly suspended bike when every one else doing the same stuff had at least 6ins of travel, I decided to try a find him a decent suspension bike.

Looking around, all the small off the shelf suspension bikes had coil suspension which was pretty useless for a light kid. Eventually I found a Big Hit Grom from a shop and made them an offer with the intention of building the bike from bits I had spare.

However:

The frame came with a RockShox air shock that had very slow rebound so I replaced that with a second hand Float.

The forks that originally went on it died and had to be changed too, so I got some reduced Rev U-turns.

Normal cranks were too long so I got some BMX race cranks at 145mm (Funn Hooka MX)
Lightish second hand 24in wheels are pretty hard to come by so I had to get some made up.
Normal saddle restricted the stand over so I had to buy a BMX one.

I haven’t worked out how much it eventually cost (in denial) but it’s quite a lot!

Spec is:
Big Hit grom frame with Fox Float shock
U Turn Revs (Race?) with 20 mm front axle
Clarks S2 hydraulic disc brakes 160 rotors
XT rear mech and Sram attack grip shift
Funn hooka mx cranks 145mm
E13 chain device
Sun singletrack rims on xt rear hub, da bomb 20 mm front
Halo choirboy tyres
Odyssey junior bmx saddle
Easton bars and seatpin
45mm stem (cant remember what)
DMR V8 pedals

Its a really nice bike and I was amazed at the difference in my sons speed between this bike and his hardtail. It’s still a bit big for him on tight and steep stuff but on the sort of open /jumpy tracks you find in the Alps he is pretty fast and goes fairly big on the jumps!

Have you built up a bike for your young ripper? Then send an ebeam to Billy