Any long term reviews of the Yama Jama? For me its either this or the Flow kids bikes out of Truckee.. My daughter is 5, 19 inch inseam, 3'8" tall.. good fit?
The Yama Jama 20" is an awesome bike, and a little cheaper than the Flow bikes we compared them to. My daughter is 5, 3'8" as well, and the bike fits her perfectly with room to grow. I am thinking she will be on it for another two years before she needs a 24" wheel.
These bikes cost a lot of money for a kids bike, unless the kid is really into trail riding. Ours started on her sister's hand me down Trek Mt60, but hit the ceiling on what the bike would allow her to do in about two months. In essence, she earned the Yama Jama with her enthusiasm and ability to mountain bike, and was a great investment for us because she has been riding a pedal bike without training wheels since she was two, and on trails at age 3 trying to keep up with big sis. In looking at what it would take to upgrade the Trek to what she needed to do real trails, the Spawn was about the same cost for the upgrades that I wanted to make her Trek a capable trail bike. We have had it for a month, and ridden singletrack almost everyday with her, and have now put in over 150 miles on it so far. If your kid is not really into biking, it is hard to justify the costs of these high end kids bikes, but if your kid is into it, The spawn was a game changer for us and allowed us to go out on real trails with a five year old.
The fork makes the yama jama 20". With the ability to fine tune and adjust the air pressure as well as the rebound, we have been able to set the fork to maximize the travel (rare for a kids fork), while allowing the front tire to track great through rough, root-filled and rocky terrain. The 15mm through axle up front keeps the wheel stiff and helps the bike to track well. It has allowed her to dramatically increase her overall speed and the amount of trail we can ride (about 15 miles of single track now). The carbon fiber dropouts make the bike much lighter and easier to handle than every other kids bike we tested. In essence, this fork is the real deal. We have had no issues running the tires tubeless yet, and the entire drive train is geared right so that the bike can actually climb. The bike is tough - our kids nickname is "crash", and she has had some good ones with the bike coming out unscathed thus far.
For us, we live in the midwest, so we are limited to mostly cross-country style trails for singletrack, but we have some good technical climbs. She used to walk most of them if we even tried them at all, but now she can clear so much that we never thought would be possible, and I don't think we have even come close to how good she could get with this bike as she keeps progressing almost daily. Instead of struggling to finish a climb, she is now singing and smiling at the top, and it really is because of the bike.
Overall summary, the yama jama was well worth the price, but only if your kid really bikes. The older sis didn't really show an interest in real trail riding until she was about 7, and this bike would have been overkill for her when she needed a 20" wheel.
2019-01-16_09-07-54 by Eric Ferris, on Flickr
2019-01-16_09-06-43 by Eric Ferris, on Flickr
2019-01-16_09-07-31 by Eric Ferris, on Flickr
