[chiefsilverback]

My 10 year old is a pretty capable rider but sometimes will complain that a trail simply wasn't fun because it was too rough and he was getting kicked around pretty good on his Cub Scout.

It made me wonder whether the fact that he only weights 75lbs means the bike gets bounced around a lot more than it would for a 150lbs adult riding the same trail on a hardtail, and to that end would he actually benefit more from a full suspension because the rear shock would supply the control that his body weight can't?

 

[Mudguard]

Of course, same benefit an adult gets. Hard part is getting damping correct but an air shock and fork makes life so much easier.
I've had my nephew ride an old small Enduro. 130mm of travel each end and it was a million times better than the generic hardtail with a barely functional fork.

 

[Nat]

Yes he would benefit. There's an entire mob of kids his age at our local bike park on nice full suspension bikes absolutely sending it.

 

[CeUnit]

100% yes based on my own two kids (now 8 and 10) and from all my other friends kids we ride with on black/double black tech and flow runs. My kids also have hardtails that we take camping so we've A/B compared the experiences. They definitely say that it throws them around a lot more, but we ride so much, they've already developed the skills to ride a hardtail on tech terrain at an advanced level. For an intermediate rider, smoothing out the bumps offers a lot more forgiveness and enables much faster advancement of skills.

Note they hate riding flow trails in a bike park on their hardtails since legs simply can't absorb high speed braking bumps.

 

[127.0.0.1]

suck it up, kid. get full suspension when you are 30.

 

[chiefsilverback]

Note they hate riding flow trails in a bike park on their hardtails since legs simply can't absorb high speed braking bumps.

This pretty much sums it up. The low speed, primitive, New England 'rake'n'ride' single track we ride locally is no issue, but as the speeds increase he finds himself fighting the back end down and not enjoying the ride as much.

 

[chiefsilverback]

Of course, same benefit an adult gets.

So your view is they don't benefit more

suck it up, kid. get full suspension when you are 30.

I sort of have this mindset, but I just thought about the pure physics involved and a 75lbs kid will have a much harder time keeping a 25+lbs bike planted on the ground than a 150lbs adult would...

 

[lixxfe]

OP, interesting question! I do think kids could very well suffer more on a hardtail. Frame tubes are shorter, and probably the same wall thickness and diameter as adult bikes, hence, stiffer overall. Wheels may be smaller diameter and built using the same gauge (or even larger gauge) spokes, so again, stiffer. Both of these factors + the lighter weight of the kid, and I can easily imagine the ride being very harsh for them.

 

[Nat]

suck it up, kid. get full suspension when you are 30.

That should work...

 

[TooTallUK]

Unless you're willing to pay a LOT, you'll put your kid on a heavier bike with suspension that isn't set up for such a light rider and therefore not worth much at all. If your kid is charging a bike park, maybe since it's more gravity, but pedaling a FS bike with suspension that is nigh on impossible to tune for such low rider weight will be worse than a HT on the same trails.

 

[Mudguard]

Unless you're willing to pay a LOT, you'll put your kid on a heavier bike with suspension that isn't set up for such a light rider and therefore not worth much at all. If your kid is charging a bike park, maybe since it's more gravity, but pedaling a FS bike with suspension that is nigh on impossible to tune for such low rider weight will be worse than a HT on the same trails.

I mean it depends. Look for a decade old small women's bike. Preferably high end. And let's be honest, the tuning doesn't have to be perfect. It just needs to take the edge off. As far as I can tell, kids' bikes are heavy anyway. So get them on a 26" that's light and old.
The example I think of is a friend of mine who wanted to go riding, had a hardtail 29" with an awful fork and 2.1 or something tyres. Rode half a dozen times and it was always sketchy. I loaned her an old Enduro of mine with 150mm of travel, functioning discs, decent tyres and 1x. She had an absolute blast, down all the blue trails, much more comfortable.

Obviously this doesn't necessarily apply to kids, but a lighter old bike might be the ticket.

 

[TooTallUK]

I mean it depends. Look for a decade old small women's bike. Preferably high end. And let's be honest, the tuning doesn't have to be perfect. It just needs to take the edge off. As far as I can tell, kids' bikes are heavy anyway. So get them on a 26" that's light and old.

I've already got my 11 year old on a steel 26" Kona HT. It's about as light a bike as I could get in the size. The FS bikes of the same vintage are heavier with little to no advantage, hence the recommendation I made. As someone off the other end of bike fit and weight, I know it gets harder to tune suspension the further from the center of the bell curve you are.

 

[JCKID58]

All kids, their skill level and the terrain they ride are different. Different bikes work for different situations. This has been the the route I took with my boy who just turned 12 last month. Strider at 2 yrs. old. 16 in. wheeled Specialized Hardrock(??) at around 5 yrs. old, he took off pedaling right off, first try. 20 in. wheeled Trek Superfly with a few small upgrades at around 6 yrs. old. Already at this point his skills were progressing faster than I had expected. 24 in. wheeled Orbea MX with an air fork and a few small upgrades at around 8 yrs. old. At this point he was flying downhill on our rooty, rocky trails here in TN. Going fast enough to make my heart skip a beat while watching the rear end of his bike take huge swaps back and forth under him. Although he always said he never noticed it??? At 10 yrs. old I knew he needed a full suspension bike. There I said it, yea HE NEEDED it. He was riding every thing I was riding and the speeds he was carrying downhill through the junk we ride he NEEDED IT. Just as he turned 10 I ran across a womans Stumpjumper, 26 in wheels, 120 mm travel front and back. I went through the bike, it's all XT/XTR, Stans wheels, Trailcraft crank etc. now, weighs in at just a tick over 26 lbs. I talked to a service tech at Specialized and he gave me some suggestions to set up the suspension for his weight. All I can say his skill level progressed from his very first ride at a ridiculous pace. We spent a week in Ellijay Ga. recently riding Bearhoti and the surrounding area trails. Some pretty steep technical riding. I am a pretty good rider, but when the trail turned down I could not keep him in sight, at all. My opinion for my son is he would not be the rider he is now if I would have kept him on a hardtail.
Again my opinion and experience. It's not the answer for everyone.

 

[kabayan]

Without a doubt, FS is faster and more comfortable. And some kids can acquire the skills while riding faster and some need to acquire the skills first before going faster. If his skills can save him when the speed gets high, then go for it. My kid is a cautious rider but FS will still get him into situations that he wouldn't get into on his hardtail. Same thing with climbing. If he can pick his way up a technical climb, working on lifts and balancing and weight transfers then that extra traction is great. But if he chooses to plow through stuff, that's not quite as good.

 

[stunnerable]

I bought my own when I was 15 after working my butt of during the summer. That was a big $1700 in 1996!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[chiefsilverback]

Some good input here, thanks everyone. He's just about to start on his first competitive freestyle skiing season, so there won't be much riding until April and then he's joining the local XC team in the spring so I'll wait to see how that pans out before I make any decisions. He did a couple of intro rides with the team earlier in the fall and two of the coaches said he's the best 5th grade rider either of them has ever seen, so that's promising...

 

[LewisQC]

It really depends on lots of factors. Mainly kind of riding, budget, if you climb for your descent or not, etc... My nephews (10 and 11 years old but very small) are on Marin rift zone Jr. They have a mini bike park in their yard and dropping 3-4" drop on 24" hardtail wasn't ideal. These bikes can take 26" wheels so you get more time before having to sell them for something bigger. My 12 years old son always rode an hardtail until this summer. He's very tall (now 5'10'') and outgrown his RSD Midllechild small. This was a really good hardtail with progressive geo , Pike 140mm fork and 27.5+ at low pressure for his weight to provide some compliance at the back. He really progressed a lot when we got this bike (he rode a Trek X-Caliber XS before that). To me, with a riding season of 5 months, I consider that paying for a FS bike before would have been too expensive and too much maintenance. This summer, we sell the MC and I got him my brother's Santa Cruz Hightower 2018 in large. He really likes the bike and is more confortable in difficult/techy trail. I think he's less keen to mess around, practicing jump, drop or bunnyhop but it might not be the bike fault...

 

[chiefsilverback]

dropping 3-4" drop on 24" hardtail wasn't ideal.

He has no problem with drops/jumps on his Nukeproof, technical climbing, single track etc... he'll ride stuff first time that took me several attempts to clear, it's just high speed descending where the bike is getting bucked around under him, he still rides it clean and fast it just takes away from his enjoyment...

 

[RMCDan]

Buying my kid a Rokkusuta 20 was some of the best money I've ever spent in my life. His riding instantly jumped 2+ levels compared to the HT he was on. Sure, it cost $2,000, but when he grew out of it in two years I sold it for $1,500.