Photo: Light Wolf Studio/Facebook
When your dad is the owner of a custom bike shop that is renowned for its dream builds, you’re more likely to get into cycling. Why? Because you can learn to keep your balance on a cool-looking two-wheeler made just for you, like this rugged carbon racer that might be the lightest bike in the world.
Light-Wolf is a German shop in Dresden, which specializes in building premium, one-of-a-kind bicycles that fit the exact taste and needs of its customers. The studio calls its creations dream builds and it normally addresses an adult clientele.
But with business being slower and less motivating during the cold season, Light-Wolf's owner decided to spice things up and keep himself busy. So he came up with a fun family project that would get his toddler son into cycling. Felix Wolf bought a Chinese-made carbon balance bike on AliExpress and decided to give it an extreme make-over.
Granted, at 2.13 kg (4.7 lb), the bike was impressively light out of the box, because it is a carbon balance bike after all. But after Light-Wolf’s complete rebuild, which eliminated a lot of heavy hardware, it dropped to just 1.8 kg (3.9 lb). We’d have to waste a lot of time to dig the entire internet, but most such kids’ bicycles we’ve seen are heavier than four pounds, so this might just be the world’s lightest balance bike.
The idea was to get rid of the unnecessary heavy hardware and correct all quality control issues of the original wheeler, as explained by Light-Wolf and reported by Bike Rumor.
One notable tweak was to change the original aluminum seat post, which was too big and not that eye-appealing next to the carbon frame of the bike. It was replaced with a 22.2 mm Beast Components carbon one that was improvised from a mountain bike handlebar.
The carbon bar was also cut down to just half of Wolf's son's height, 40 cm (15.7”), to be more precise. The wheels were also key components that were made lighter by scrapping the glossy clearcoat, replacing the brass nipples with alloy ones, the heavy plastic rim tape with Tesa tape, and getting Schwalbe 1A tubes.
All in all, the so-called carbon racer for kids now looks like it means business, not to mention it is lighter and easier to control. Moreover, the young rider can actually carry the bike if he gets tired.
Unfortunately though, Light-Wolf says this was a one-off project and the balance bike is not for sale.
But with business being slower and less motivating during the cold season, Light-Wolf's owner decided to spice things up and keep himself busy. So he came up with a fun family project that would get his toddler son into cycling. Felix Wolf bought a Chinese-made carbon balance bike on AliExpress and decided to give it an extreme make-over.
Granted, at 2.13 kg (4.7 lb), the bike was impressively light out of the box, because it is a carbon balance bike after all. But after Light-Wolf’s complete rebuild, which eliminated a lot of heavy hardware, it dropped to just 1.8 kg (3.9 lb). We’d have to waste a lot of time to dig the entire internet, but most such kids’ bicycles we’ve seen are heavier than four pounds, so this might just be the world’s lightest balance bike.
The idea was to get rid of the unnecessary heavy hardware and correct all quality control issues of the original wheeler, as explained by Light-Wolf and reported by Bike Rumor.
One notable tweak was to change the original aluminum seat post, which was too big and not that eye-appealing next to the carbon frame of the bike. It was replaced with a 22.2 mm Beast Components carbon one that was improvised from a mountain bike handlebar.
The carbon bar was also cut down to just half of Wolf's son's height, 40 cm (15.7”), to be more precise. The wheels were also key components that were made lighter by scrapping the glossy clearcoat, replacing the brass nipples with alloy ones, the heavy plastic rim tape with Tesa tape, and getting Schwalbe 1A tubes.
All in all, the so-called carbon racer for kids now looks like it means business, not to mention it is lighter and easier to control. Moreover, the young rider can actually carry the bike if he gets tired.
Unfortunately though, Light-Wolf says this was a one-off project and the balance bike is not for sale.
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