My 11 year old daughter (small for her age) was finally outgrowing her 24" hardtail, so I started a search for the replacement. She could probably have finished the season on her old bike (NS Bikes Clash Jr), but I promised her it would become her dj'er, and I was anxious to see it transformed. She also has an Intense mini XL that she uses as a commuter bike, but has primarily been riding the Clash as her bike park bike lately.
Lots of her friends are on Trailcrafts, and they come pretty well spec'd out of the box, but I had a few 26" parts lying around from my wife's old Juliana that I wanted to re-use, so I was leaning towards finding a used bike. I found a deal on a '16 Norco Fluid 6.2, which has a 30.9 seat tube, so theoretically, I could also re-use her current dropper post.
Fast forward to having the bike in hand, and there were a few issues to work out. The headtube is 1-1/8" zero stack, so has headset cups, but they weren't deep enough to allow for the external lower cup needed to run my wife's old Revelation WC with tapered steerer. Cane Creek recommends reaming the headtube to allow for 15mm of insertion, but after measuring the headtube and where it tapers, there wouldn't have likely been enough material left. Option 2 - trim the lower cup to fit what insertion depth is already there. It turns out, only 2 or 3 mm were needed to be removed from the lower cup (easily done with a bench grinder).
Her old cranks (SRAM NX 155mm) were probably a bit long for her when I first installed them on her Clash, but I think are a decent length for her now, so they got swapped for the heavy 2 ring Suntour ones the Fluid came with. I changed out the stock SRAM 32t ring for an oval 30t, but it was pushing the limits of the 94mm bcd (the chain rubbed on the spider arms on the short sides of the oval). I filed a bit of the arms down, and ended up adding spacers between the spider and chainring to make space. If I'd have thought of the spacers first, I could have skipped the filing.
Most everything else was a direct bolt up, although the Reverb from her Clash was a long insertion model (420mm insertion, 125mm drop) which was fine for that bike, as she ended up having a ton of post showing once her legs grew. The Fluid has a 15" seattube though, so that wouldn't work for her on it. I swapped it for a 380mm insertion/ 125mm drop post I had in my garage, which coincidentally works perfect for her right now. The frame looks like the seat tube could be reamed out to accept a longer post, but I didn't have to deal with that.
The bike was 30 lbs 5 oz stock, and I managed to cut that down to 27 lbs 6 oz without the dropper. I'd still like to build up a set of wheels with Stan's Crest rims, and have a set of Ashima rotors on their way. I'd also like to get a set of Trailcraft direct mount cranks, but will see how she does with the current setup first.
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Lots of her friends are on Trailcrafts, and they come pretty well spec'd out of the box, but I had a few 26" parts lying around from my wife's old Juliana that I wanted to re-use, so I was leaning towards finding a used bike. I found a deal on a '16 Norco Fluid 6.2, which has a 30.9 seat tube, so theoretically, I could also re-use her current dropper post.
Fast forward to having the bike in hand, and there were a few issues to work out. The headtube is 1-1/8" zero stack, so has headset cups, but they weren't deep enough to allow for the external lower cup needed to run my wife's old Revelation WC with tapered steerer. Cane Creek recommends reaming the headtube to allow for 15mm of insertion, but after measuring the headtube and where it tapers, there wouldn't have likely been enough material left. Option 2 - trim the lower cup to fit what insertion depth is already there. It turns out, only 2 or 3 mm were needed to be removed from the lower cup (easily done with a bench grinder).
Her old cranks (SRAM NX 155mm) were probably a bit long for her when I first installed them on her Clash, but I think are a decent length for her now, so they got swapped for the heavy 2 ring Suntour ones the Fluid came with. I changed out the stock SRAM 32t ring for an oval 30t, but it was pushing the limits of the 94mm bcd (the chain rubbed on the spider arms on the short sides of the oval). I filed a bit of the arms down, and ended up adding spacers between the spider and chainring to make space. If I'd have thought of the spacers first, I could have skipped the filing.
Most everything else was a direct bolt up, although the Reverb from her Clash was a long insertion model (420mm insertion, 125mm drop) which was fine for that bike, as she ended up having a ton of post showing once her legs grew. The Fluid has a 15" seattube though, so that wouldn't work for her on it. I swapped it for a 380mm insertion/ 125mm drop post I had in my garage, which coincidentally works perfect for her right now. The frame looks like the seat tube could be reamed out to accept a longer post, but I didn't have to deal with that.
The bike was 30 lbs 5 oz stock, and I managed to cut that down to 27 lbs 6 oz without the dropper. I'd still like to build up a set of wheels with Stan's Crest rims, and have a set of Ashima rotors on their way. I'd also like to get a set of Trailcraft direct mount cranks, but will see how she does with the current setup first.
