Video: Ripping Hardtails with France's Next Generation of Riders

 Everybody should.

 Yah man full suss makes riding too easy

 @mkotowski1: Riding never gets easier. You just go faster.

 @JacobKmtb: yup.

 Maybe, but some of the best riders I've ever met come from an mx background. They're not afraid to send it.

 I* don't mean to be negative.

 Yup, screwy Geo for a kid. Those "kid specific brakes" or reach adjustment suck. I have that brake on my DJ bike, its fine for that but its the bottom of the barrel and the lever is a mile long. Nothing "kid" about it, tho it is dirt cheap. The tires weigh almost as much as my 29" minions. Yeah kid friendly?? Maybe on a DH bike. Sure a 29.75lb kids hardtail is exactly what they need lol...ridiculously heavy. Head angle is TOTAL trash for a HT. My 7yro rides a 68d and its still way to steep once sagged in. Sure these groms look good (not climbing) but they would look good on a wheelbarrow. The chainstays are as long as my 29er long travel, hilarious. This is just another trashy kids bike that no one put effort into.

NOW, the money bike they did make is their new Clash series. I only know about the 24" but its geo is bang on for an Enduro 24" with kids suspension. The brakes still suck and the NX drivetrain is a tank (especially cassette) but the price gives you room to adjust. Still, it needs light wheels (kids don't need super burly wheels at their low weight) along with trail tires most of the time. Its a good place to start tho and is KILLER looking after you swap wheels and NX cassette.

 FWIW I'm stoked that they are at least doing something. Its light years beyond but what Spesh, Trek, Giant, Santa Cruz, Yeti, Ibis, etc. are doing to support kids. It'll get there eventually as the kids scene is great now. You'll see some new bikes from the kids brands this early summer that will be knockouts tho I think.

 @Svinyard: I know what you mean. The Specialized riprock 24 hardtail looks good from a size/fit standpoint. With a slightly longer fork to make it slacker and a dropper it could be little shredder of a bike. Those 24" plus tires are super cool for kids. That said, the commencal is still a lot cheaper.

The full-size adult metal AM HT has shorter stays than the kids version.

I also applaud all commencal is doing to promote young kids on bikes. I just wish some of the engineers put themselves in the shoes of a small rider and realized what they need.

We're doing a good job making bikes work for super tall riders, but the super short riders still need better options. We have a lot of petite females come to us looking for a legit mtb that will fit them well, but shops keep pushing them to XC 29ers. If the chainstays are longer than the reach on any size, something is wrong. Instead we focus on wheel size, rather than making a frame fit the size of the rider. I applaud Norco and Liteville for not taking the easy path.

 I bought the 24" version of this for my Son. He's only had 2 rides on it, but so far so good. My feedback is that the Geo seems to work fine. He's been stable going over bumps, etc. My complaints are the weight (the tires aren't light!) and the brakes suck (the levers are huuugggeee). I will likely swap the brakes out for shimano (slx/xt?) with more power and smaller levers. The fork is very nice, smooth and weighs less than the cheap 20" suspension fork on my daughters bike by 200g.

 @Svinyard: Agreed. This is what drove me to buy something direct sight unseen instead of something local. I'm bummed that kids bikes from big mfgs seem to be not a focus or out of touch.

 @spinko: Cool, glad to hear it's working well for him. I'll bet it's stable with that LONG chainstay. Is he able to lift the front wheel and get it over stuff on climbs and descents?

 @dustysteve: I have a ton of experience with the Riprock 24". A few kids on my oldest kids MTB team have them and we play bike swap once in a while. Its one of the worst kids bikes made by a decent brand. Its a TANK. The spring fork is completely useless, completely, and close to 6lbs iirc. Its a 26" geometry with long stays (proper stays for a 24" are around 390+-). The plus tires are awful. For 60lb kids its like riding a fat bike. A light 2.3in tire is all a kid needs, maybe a 2.4" if DH racing with heavy casing. Gearing sucks. Brakes suck. Cranks suck. When you see a kid go from a light spawn hardtail to a Riprock, its NIGHT and day. All the kids riding riprocks are at the back, especially on the climbs and they struggle to lift the front wheel at all, let alone manual the damn things. Trust me, its a horrendous kids bike and makes life hard on a kid especially if they aren't a great rider but are trying to be and not just dinking around on the trail. (we live in a mtb where the 8yro's will jump your car kind of stuff on freeride lines so we see a lot of the kids scene).

 @dustysteve: He's a little on the small side for this bike, he will likely be a good fit for it next year. He doesn't seem to have an issue moving around the bike (on or off). He was just starting to get used to trying to wheelie on his 20" bike, but has not tried on this bike yet. 90% of our climbing is fire road around here. www.instagram.com/p/BsRmbGTBVkP Another thing I found about this bike is it's not geared well. It's OK for fireroad, but he would struggle for sure trying anything technical. I may drop a tooth in the front, or look for a different cassette. I'm trying to give it more time before making changes.

 @Svinyard: That's some great real-world feedback, thanks! I've had small women ride the riprock 24 around the parking lot and they liked it, but they were used to 30lb bikes and have way more muscle than young kids. Great feedack, thanks for sharing that.

 @spinko: You should look into swapping that stuff out if you ride a lot. If you built some Stans' Crest wheels (1250g vs 1900g of these), threw the GX drive train on there with Spawn Maxtion 24" 2.3 tires (600g vs 800 of these)...you'd drop about 3 to 4lbs and have a much sweeter ride with a 10-42 gearing (which is equivalent to an 11-46). Dropping all that weight and increasing the gearing would be night and day for literally everything he is doing. Especially all that rotational weight. Tho man...buying a bike and needing a new drivetrain, wheels, tires and brakes pretty much sucks tho. I wish they would have just done it right the first time. Kids really benefit from it tho. You'll get some of it back in resale value however. The demand for nice, used kids bikes is pretty big.

 @Svinyard: Great tips for sure! Thanks for that. Going to play it by ear as I'm not sure how much riding we will be doing this year. Maybe a great list for next year.

 @Svinyard: Funny, my kid spent a day on a Riprock 20 and loved it. We were in Vegas and he rode it at the Henderson bike park and Bootleg, so actually he loved the riding there and the bike was secondary. Was surprised that he was actually getting it in the air on the jumps. He's just stoked on riding. Loves his Commencals, 20" Meta HT and Supreme, has also ridden the Spawn and Norco in Whistler, and although he's only 48" tall, enjoys ripping around the neighbor hood on my 26 DJ bike. His first Commencal was a 16 Ramones and moving him up to the 24 Supreme soon. Being small for his age the Commencals have the best geometry, not interested in the Clash though, it is a good deal but prefer the Supreme.

 @dirtpedaler: yeah kids will ride anything and have a good time. It's different when you see a handful of groms swap back and forth and climb, jump, manual, log ride, drop etc. The difference is STARK with proper hardtail VS Riprock. The fork alone is a huge difference when hitting some Gnar.

How can you say your not interested in the Clash?? The geo and specs aren't released yet (pm me if you are interested in them). The geo is the best FS geo I've seen yet. Better than Spawn, Trailcraft, Lil Shredder, Transition and the Supreme too. The suspension looks really really special. Something we haven't seen before.

 Not to mention the 24" Supremes looong chain stays and the reach is shorter than that of the dang 20" (way to short at a rediculous 313mm ). It's a flawed (Franken) bike compared to the competition. Lil Shredder, Spawn, Trail Craft are much better options and lighter too. Clash is replacing the Supreme and you'll take a hit on resale a bit for that too.

 @Svinyard: All good. I've looked all the specs over carefully, want a dh bike, rear center same as spawn but wheelbase is shorter, kid is small, want the smallest dh bike possible. Technically he still probably won't hit the minimum size for the 24 this summer. For what we're paying for the supreme not sweating the resale. Clash is a great deal for sure and looks awesome, we'll check them out this summer.

 Pretty fly for a little guy.

 Certainly not lacking in Self Esteem

 Really going to smash it up

 lol yeah kids man. Struggling to close every door they come in contact with. I'm sure my front door is open at this very moment inexplicably despite it being 40 degrees outside. The juxtaposition of little people who can barely close a rear car hatch yet are smashing a smaller road gap is pretty good film .

 Sadle, they weny with 20", 24" and skipped right over 26" to 27.5" for this model. It's like companies are afraid of the 26" wheel size.

 @dustysteve: If you want a hardtail just go buy a Spawn or Trailcraft in size 26". The only decent kids bike (so it seems at least) that Commencal have made is their new clash. fwiw I do see a lot of kids skip 26" and move to an Adult XS 27.5...tho I agree, going to bikes too big holds kids back in certain skill development department. Tho they do roll faster and straightline better. Its like an Adult riding a 31" wheel in one size to big of a frame. It'll def be awesome at stuff and Jeff Kendall-Weed would make it look amazing, but for the rest of the mortals (let alone low muscle kids) it'd not be the right bike. Same here.

 @Svinyard: Yeah. those two have pretty short chainstays, but that 68* hta is pretty steep for a hardtail. I think hardtails need to be slacker than FS since they get steeper as they sag. With FS, both the front and rear sag together, so the hta remains close to the same. I feel like a 63-64* HTA would be ideal for an aggressive hardtail. It would probably be around 65* when sagged, and 66* when hitting bumps.

 @dustysteve: I agree 68d is too steep still (the commencal is 68.5 in this 27.5" version). Prevelo put out a new Hardtail with nice fork and their HTA is around 67. Still too steep but its getting better. I'd like to see 65d hta for sure. These bikes are short anyways, its not like the WB is a big problem...tho you want them to get the front end up easily. Regardless, if the kids shred already, a FS is the ticket as its way more versatile for a kid that only has a MTB and a BMX bike. They don't lose as much efficiency do to their low weight and therefore minimal pedal bob too. Looking at new Lil Shredder, Spawn, Commencal Clash for our new 24" this spring/summer. Those brands will all have a new bike out around 2k$ to 2500$.