Worx JA26

You might not see as many Worx bikes on the road (and off it) as, say, Islabikes or Frog Bikes, but if the success of a brand can be based on the sheer hard work and attention to detail lavished upon its products, including this excellent Juniorworx JA26, then Worx is set to challenge for top honours in the youth road bike market.

We tested the slightly smaller JA24 last year and loved it. All of it, from the short head tube to the cold forged dropouts and everything in between. It was a bike that was more than the sum of its parts. Sharp, smooth, sexy and speedy. No wonder our pint-sized peloton fell in love with it.

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Kids grow though. It's an expensive fact of life. Luckily Worx, like many of the new kids' bike brands on the scene, produces a raft of size options. Unlike adult bikes where you get a choice of frame sizes, kids' bikes use wheel size to ensure John or Jane are getting the right size bike. So for this test we switched up to the JA26, which uses 26-inch (650C) wheels, to see if the magic carpet ride given by the JA24 would continue. There is also a 700C kid's version, should their legs have sprouted like wild weeds. That's for another time.

Worx, Hoy, IslaBikes, Scott, Forme and a few others are winning friends in the youth market, not just for building light bikes that fit and have great kit on them, but also because they're taking kids' road cycling seriously. These brands aren't making road-bike-shaped toys, but real, race-worthy road bikes.

The frame

When the JA26 was unboxed there was a sharp intake of breath. The matt-black paint with strong white and Team Sky-esque light blue livery detailing just looks awesome. I'd be happy having any of my bikes painted in the same scheme.

Worx makes its JA24, JA26 and JA700 as versatile racing workhorses, with cantilever brakes and enough clearance for cyclo-cross tyres and the associated mud they bring. This means your young riders can, with a switch of tyres or, if they're keen, a switch of wheels, get a ride in on the dirt or the tarmac at a moment's notice. Really handy if, like us, you're an on-road/off-road sort of family.

The frame is made of 6061 T6 alloy, with the bespoke drawn tubes featuring lots of shaping and manipulation to ensure stiffness, forgiveness and, as already mentioned, being a bike with dirt in its core DNA, plenty of tyre clearance. The welds are neat and wouldn't look out of place on a luxury adult frame. The more you look over the JA26 frame, the more the relatively high price (for a child's bike) seems to make sense.

Child-friendly

Another small but, in the eyes of our tester, significant feature of the Worx range is the addition of the secondary 'cross-top' two-finger brake levers. Set on the tops of the shallow-drop bar, close in to the stem, these allow greater control of braking from the tops, helping young riders to stay safe when arm/hand/finger reach and control to the regular brakes is limited.

Helping the fit of the JA26 match the needs of young riders is a beautiful compact, shallow-drop bar. As well as being narrow at 34cm, the bar features an incredibly tight bend to bring the lower horizontal sections of the 'hooks' up higher. This enables young riders to use the classic aero drop bar tuck with less over-reaching and without hurting themselves. Not only does this help them look and feel like proper roadies, it helps build their confidence to ride this way as standard, rather than just on the brake hoods. Matched with a short 50mm flip/flop aheadstem, the cockpit of the JA26 is both user-friendly and adaptable.

>> Check out our guide to the best kids' bikes here

The bike's running gear is a compilation of 'best-of' junior sized components. Worx believes young riders should concentrate on spinning relatively low gears. To achieve this it eschews front shifting, fitting the JA26 with a single 36-tooth front chainring (complete with guard) to its forged alloy 145mm-long black anodised cranks. Microshift provides the 9-speed integrated rear shift/brake lever and the front, brake-only, lever. Both levers are sized for smaller hands and shorter, less strong fingers. The brake levers operate Tektro Oryx cantilevers, which are small and very effective, with a positive feel through both levers – once the pads and shiny machined alloy brake surfaces on the Worx-branded rims bed together.

The gear shifter fires the smart looking silver chain across the 9-speed 11-34t SRAM cassette cleanly and efficiently. If you've never heard of Microshift, worry not, the components are accurate, robust and nice to use.

Finishing kit and wheels

The stem and seatpost are in-house Worx-branded alloy items, well sized, impeccably finished and neither gave any cause for concern or comment. The saddle is also a Worx-branded model, and not only does it fit the junior posterior like some sort of badly designed glove, it's comfortable too.

To the wheels. Worx places a lot of emphasis on the importance of good wheels (and we have to agree). To this end, the company takes the matter literally into its own hands, speccing its own WheelWorx wheels. At the heart of the package are WRT (Wide Rim Technology) rims; at 23mm – internal diameter – they're wider than the normal 19-21mm size of other 'standard' rims. The benefits of wider rims are said to be better presentation of the tyre to the road for enhanced grip, and improved aerodynamics. Whatever, they certainly don't hold up our testers as they tore up whatever road or trail was presented. Laced with 32 double-butted spokes to WRT sealed cartridge bearing hubs, they're butter smooth.

Tyres are 23mm lightweight, hardwearing and actually quite grippy Kenda Kontenders (Maxxis cross tyres can be specified at point of sale). Impressive final touches extend to the quick release levers, which are nicer-than-they-need-to-be items, complete with polished silver D-ring ends to the nuts. The devil, as they say, is in the detail.

Overall

So that's the sum of the parts, but does the Worx JA26 amount to more than that? Really special bike always do. The proof is in the ride and, as with the JA24, the JA26 was almost permanently clocking up miles with a steady rota of 'interested' young riders offering to test it. That most tried not to come back with it speaks volumes... Some of them felt they wanted a double chainset, one wasn't sure he wanted to ever ride cyclo-cross and would have like callipers over the cantilevers, but apart from that the feedback was unanimous in its high praise for the Worx JA26.

Some thought the lack of second chainring helped them to set a steady cadence, and those who rode it on grass in 'cross mode liked the 34-tooth large sprocket for cresting the steep pitches. To be honest it's useful to have on the road, too, for the inevitable blow-up at the end of a long ride. Kids' energy batteries can crash in a flash, and while they recover quickly too, when they've blown they need a bailout – the 34t sprocket is it.

Individually these tiny spec details might not make a difference, but together they all mount up. They make the difference between this bike just being a nice bike and one that exceeds expectations.

What would we change about the Worx JA26? Nothing. We would, in time, fit a lighter cassette, as the budget SRAM one is a bit of a lump, but that's it. It's a work of cycling art.

Verdict

As riders grow, Worx makes race-ready bikes to fit, and this 650C model is a blinder