One of the best parts of framebuilding is designing a bike for someone who isn’t served by the mainstream market. As you can imagine, this means designing bikes for riders on the outer edges of the bell curve – kids, people with physical limitations like flexibility or imbalance issues and then of course the Clydesdales. For reference, I’m a Clydesdale with a 14mm leg length discrepancy and no flexibility.
Part of designing the bike is finding the right parts that will work for the riders size and intended purpose. Sometimes this means scouring the interwebs to find just the right thing.
Here’s a case in point – the MTB I am building for this kid needs crank arms in the 150mm range. Most in that length are for kids BMX bikes and were less than inspiring in finish and chainring options. As I searched, I found Trailcraft Bicycles. These guys are devoted to making stock lightweight kids MTB’s, parts and accessories. They have a sweet Direct Mount crankset that is lighter than new XTR in sizes of 140mm, 152mm and 165mm lengths. They come with a 1x chainring and are SRAM direct connect compatible so chainring selection is great! 26t to 32t are available with purchase but there are compatible spiders allowing 2x configurations as well! They have a lightweight aluminum spindle and a really nice finish for a bank friendly price!
Draper Cycles 