Recreational & Family - my son's new bike

This year, my 10 year old son took to biking like...well, I guess like I did at that age. He has had bikes (BMX dept. store bikes) for a few years, but until earlier this year was pretty anxious about hills, the prospect of falling, etc. Anyway, this year, it really all 'clicked' for him and he was trying to ride every bike at the house (which, uh, is many) though most were far too large. I've taken him on an organized ride and on a few rides on greenway trails and urban areas where I could (relatively safely) teach him safe riding on roads. Anyway, he'd been riding a nice, but low-geared 24" wheel mountain bike and he wanted a faster bike for longer family rides....so I made a cyclocross conversion of an old (late 80s?) Specialized Hardrock that I picked up from a friend for $20. I thought I'd show it off here, along with it's proud rider!

as an aside, one thing I learned doing this is there are a number of "24 inch" bike wheels out there & apparently none of the ones that fit the typical youth mountain bike wheels are also good road wheels...so, right now the bike is certainly more 'cyclocross' than 'road'....which, I guess is fitting for the season.

http://www.fiataccompli.com/bike/assets_c/2008/11/hardrock_cx_side-thumb-350x211.jpg (http://www.fiataccompli.com/bike/photos/hardrock_cx_side.jpg)

http://www.fiataccompli.com/bike/assets_c/2008/11/hardrock_cx_from_front-thumb-225x240.jpg (http://www.fiataccompli.com/bike/photos/hardrock_cx_from_front.jpg)

http://photos-f.ll.facebook.com/photos-ll-snc1/v482/56/46/609127303/n609127303_1230125_4392.jpg

oh, btw, thanks for the space here...I've only lurked on this forum in the past...i usually only speak up in mechanics/C&V/commuting/or FGSS

Nice build with bar end shifters and bar top brake levers no less! What's next, clipless pedals? :) Our 7 y/o can hardly wait to get a road bike ("with brifters," he says). BTW, you might look into some Alex rims, either R390 or DA22; they are alloy, for the road and come in 24" x 1 1/8" size.

stan
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you jest, but he's already asking about clipless. At least he shares a shoe size with my wife for the moment! I stayed with cages for about 20 years and just started to go clipless on my bikes this year....so I'm having to unlearn some sorta bad habits. So, we might do clipless soon. I'll look into those rims. I'd been hung up on the ISO 520 wheels....since I already had such nice tires for them.

I was looking for pictures/stories/writeups like this when I was planning this for my son, so i figured it might be helpful to someone else. Happy boy & happy dad, here.

Awesome. Now you just need to sign him up for a cyclocross race! :thumb:

Love to see the excitement in the youngsters. My 12 yo son started riding my brothers Raleigh Grand Prix this summer (with a Cycles Gitane jersey to be "cool") and my soon to be 11 yo will receive her 82 Trek 610 within a week that I have overhauled. Next year will be the first time I can actually have longer family rides with those two kids and watch the smiles on their faces because they have more than one gear in the wind and on the hills.

That's a nice bike! Just so I understand, you converted a 24" mountain bike in to a road bike, by putting on new bars and smoothy tires? I wish I thought of that for my son! :thumb:

Well, the tires are still an issue. It's still got (very mild) offroad tires (fully aired!) - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I changed the crankset to a road triple and changed the stem/bars/brake levers/shifters......and, of course, cleaned/regreased/rebuilt rotating parts that needed refreshing and put all new cables/housings on.....no welding/braising or frame spacing. It's cool + a tough bike, but if $$ were the only factor considered, I would have bought a used youth road bike. A used youth CX bike is probably a bit harder to find if you don't have the right 'connections,' but road bikes show up for around $400 periodically on CL or ebay. Well, come to think of it, even with some new wheels, the Hardrock still didn't hit $400........