Cleary Owl: A pretty good 20" kid's bike!

[ofcounsel]

I just picked up one a Cleary Owl 20" bike for my 5 year old son. I'm pretty impressed! It's a steel framed bike, but weighs in at only 19 lbs. Most 20" kids bikes weigh almost twice as much. It has pretty decent Tektro V brakes with levers sized appropriately for the little ones. The bars are also appropriately narrow. Another nice aspect of the bike is the 32/19 gearing, which keeps climbing up small hills from being a big challenge. The 3 piece cranks and square taper bottom bracket are also nice. The stem is a threadless 1 1/8 and uses 25.4mm diameter bars, so the bike can grow with the kid.

If you guys are looking for a good bike for a young one, I'd recommend it.

One item I did change was I replaced the seatpost to a zero setback model (25.4mm diameter), which seemed to be a better fit for my son.

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s81/ofcounsel/Colin1_zpsc1b36022.jpg (http://s150.photobucket.com/user/ofcounsel/media/Colin1_zpsc1b36022.jpg.html)

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s81/ofcounsel/Colin2_zps573cbdbe.jpg (http://s150.photobucket.com/user/ofcounsel/media/Colin2_zps573cbdbe.jpg.html)

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s81/ofcounsel/Colin4_zpsf54a4187.jpg (http://s150.photobucket.com/user/ofcounsel/media/Colin4_zpsf54a4187.jpg.html)

[vqdriver]

That's nice. I gotta remember that for when mine move on from 16"

[alessandro]

So cute! :banana:
Also, nice bike.

[Keith A]

Very nice...make sure you spend plenty of time riding with him, they grow up so fast!

[buck-50]

1: wish I'd known about Cleary before I bought my daughter's bike.
1A: wish it came in Pink, as my daughter is obsessed with pink. Or Purple.
Basically, any girl color would be nice.

2: wish it ran 130 rear spacing and had a removable derailleur hanger so it could grow with a child a little more- figure a lot of us have a ton of spare parts and the idea of being able to convert a nice, light bike from a singlespeed to a 1x(whatever) would be really great.

This is a really cool idea.

[sandyrs]

Same gearing as my SS 29er. :banana:

[ofcounsel]

Thanks guys! I took him for his first "night ride" last night. Cal State University, Fullerton is about 4 miles from my house, so I drove there, and then we rode all around campus. He put a good 5 miles in and loved it! It puts him in a good riding position, and had no trouble climbing small knolls and hills around campus. The main thing is he looks confident riding it, and got used to riding with hand brakes really quick (I was concerned that he might have a hard time grasping them, coming from a coaster brake bike).

He told me he wanted to do the same thing tonight! Funny!

It costs a bit more than the typical 20" bike from target or wal mart, but if it helps instill a life-long love of bike riding, then I'm all for spending the extra cash.

1: wish I'd known about Cleary before I bought my daughter's bike.
1A: wish it came in Pink, as my daughter is obsessed with pink. Or Purple.
Basically, any girl color would be nice.


My buddy just bought the flat grey color frame for his 6 year old girl. I'm gonna help him "pink" it up by getting a few cheap pink annodized parts (steering stem cap, seatpost clamp), pink refletive spoke beads, pink handlebar grips and a pink "handlebar purse". It's gonna look way girly, but in a cool way :)

[bobswire]

Very cool, kid looks stoked. I checked their website to see if they have a geared version. Didn't find one. http://clearybikes.com/collections/bikes

[msl819]

Ofcounsel... That's is awesome. Thanks for sharing. I have been looking for something like that for my sons birthday in February. Did the $325 include shipping or did you buy local?

[ofcounsel]

Very cool, kid looks stoked. I checked their website to see if they have a geared version. Didn't find one. http://clearybikes.com/collections/bikes

They don't have a geared 20" version. But Spawn Cycles, a small batch manufacturer has some really well thought out geared 20" bikes with disc brakes too. They're really light weight and seem to be really capable.

http://spawncycles.com/shop/spawn-cycles-savage-1-0/

http://spawncycles.com/shop/spawn-cycles-savage-2-0/

Another nice geared bike that's very lightweight and reasonably priced is the Islabike Beinn.

http://www.islabikes.com/us/bike_pages/beinn20.html

I considered these, but after thinking long and hard about it I thought the addition of gears might be too complex for my 5 year old. Going from coaster brakes to handbrakes, and having a freewheel hub was enough for him at this point. The Clearly was about the only one I could find as a single speed without a coaster brake. If he's ready for gears in another year or two, I'll reconsider then.


I know Clearly Bikes is working on a 24" 1x9 version for kids slightly older than mine, however.

Ofcounsel... That's is awesome. Thanks for sharing. I have been looking for something like that for my sons birthday in February. Did the $325 include shipping or did you buy local?

I bought directly from Clearly bikes. They have no dealers in Southern California yet. Shipping was $20.00. I ordered on Monday, and it was at my house on Wednesday.

[christian]

I thought about getting my son a Savage 1.0 which is a great bike. In the end I put him on a Trek Superfly 20.

[ofcounsel]

I thought about getting my son a Savage 1.0 which is a great bike. In the end I put him on a Trek Superfly 20.

Nice! That's another light bike, and the price is good too! What do you think of it overall?

On a side note, I read a little article about a guy hacking one, re-lacing the rear hubs with Shimano Dura ace hubs, and then running a Dura Ace Di2 set up! He movifed a Pinarello battery mount to attach the battery just above the bottom bracket! Very cool set up!

Edit: Here's the article! http://www.bikeradar.com/us/gear/article/di2-on-a-kids-bike-diy-upgrade-to-a-trek-superfly-20in-40968/