The smallest English….

The smallest English….

This project was a collaboration with Bike Friday. Bike Friday produce custom folding bikes, and have a model called the Bantam which is designed especially for riders with dwarfism. However, when they were asked to build a bike for a 5 year old little person, the standard bike was still far too big. So English Cycles was called in to make a custom one-off extra tiny bicycle. The regular Bantam has 16″ wheels – for this bike I went down to 14″ (the 305 size being the smallest available with high quality tires). To make the crank length proportional we made custom 90mm crank arms – this enabled the BB to be dropped and thus to have enough standover clearance. Lightweight hubs were used to keep the weight down, with a single sprocket out back (a tensioner was used to allow the chain to clear the rear brake, and to be swapped out for a derailleur when it is time to add gears). There is room for growth with the seatpost and handlebar being adjustable – the bar is a custom one-piece bar/stem that has extra narrow grip sections for small hands. Look out for this bike on ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ in the next few weeks!

6 Comments

  1. Beautiful ride, again.

  2. Great bike, my 6yr old son would love it!! Currently trying to find a bicycle suitable for him as he has achondroplasia like myself. So if you fancy a project in Scotland, please give me a shout! All the best for future projects and competitions!

  3. i have a son of 11 years who is suffering by achondroplasia, i want to purchase a bike for him.

    • hello – I should be able to design and build a bike for your son; please contact me via email through the contact link and we can discuss.
      thanks, Rob.

      • I would also be interested in finding out more information about having a custom bike built for my three-year-old son with achondroplasia.

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