Reader’s Ride(s) – Everybody wants to Get a Lil’ Rad

A couple of years ago, we predicted that kids fat-bikes might reach Stingray or PK Ripper status for the current generation of grommets. I don’t keep my finger on the pulse of what’s cool for grade schoolers, but if I’m reading the tea leaves of the cycling interwebz correctly, there’s a 32% chance that we did’t get this one right. I mean Trek and Specialized both came out with squat fatties and 9:Zero:7 just got a shipment of their Squall kids fat-bikes that would certainly thrill most youngsters, but if your ten year old has roughly, a thousand posts over at MTBR and routinely drops some knowledge in the comments over at bike rumor….you may need to take a look at this custom fat shredder from Rad Bikes. The owner of Rad, Matt Craig, made this one for his son and it pretty much knocks the ball out of the park, when it comes to pint size, fat-bike bling. I’ll let Matt fill you in on his son’s awesome Grizz Junior!

This Jr Grizz i just built is for my son! ive had my boy run around the shop help me drill holes and crank handles since he was 2 years old. he has spent countless hours in the shop with me and always loved the fat bikes i build for customers, so for his fifth birthday i built him his very own fat bike. i asked what color he wanted and he told me “i want everything gold dad” so i did my best in making an all gold bike without powder coating every little piece and making it look ugly. i had to do some digging to find certain components for the bike seeing how the 20″ fat bike market has yet to become popular. i called specialized (being one of the only people outside of walmart) making these bikes . i purchased through a local dealer the forks, wheels, and cranks. the bike uses standard spacing which is cool! 100mm English BB and 170mm Syntace rear end. This Grizz like the others has a double butted mix of Columbus life and nova cycles 4130 tubing and straight gauge .035″ rear end (which i purchase locally from Factory Steel in Detroit). build kit for this mini Grizz includes the following:

handle bars – raceface turbine

stem – thompson x-4

grips – oury glow in the dark

fork – specialized

wheels – specialized

tires – vee tires

brakes – tektro mechanical

shifter – Sram XO grip shift 9spd

derailluer – Sram X5 9spd

chain – kmc superlite ti nitrate 9spd

seatpost – thompson elite

seat – raceface atlas

cranks – specialized

For me building this bike was super fun, the bike its self had a lot of really good energy into it. i had my son help cut most of the tubes with me (safely cranking handles), with transformers robots in disguise playing in the back ground i got about 30-45 min out of his attention span each time working on his bike. we went and picked up the bike together from powder coat and he patiently hung out in the barn until i meticulously assembled his bike. we got done around dark so i hooked up one of my cygo lite’s to his bars and he rode it until bed time!

a lot of this build yes was geared towards my son’s want for a fat bike, but on the other hand in building this bike i want others to see you can take your young ones out and rip the trail. yes its a heavy price for a 5 year old, but when they can actually ride the trail and the bike isn’t failing as the lil ones are trying to shift and bearings aren;t coming loose its makes the investment worth it. i mean hey most Americans spend 1000’s of dollars on soccer, baseball, and football. why not on a kick ass bike. build as is comes in around $2500. frame only $800.

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