MeekBoyz – Our Story

MeekBoyz: From Inspiration to Reality

Most achievements and innovations tend to grow from small beginnings and the humble story of how MeekBoyz came to be is no exception. New Zealanders, Steve and Donna Meek moved to Hong Kong in 2003 as a young couple seeking the adventure of foreign travel and the chance to experience working life as expats.

Hong Kong, famous for its luxury stores and a banking mecca for global companies, also turned out to have a tantalising selection of outdoor sporting activities. The city is built up in the central districts which leaves plenty of landscape available in the countryside for outdoor pursuits including rock climbing, mountain biking, paragliding, sailing and diving. And to top it off, the climate is perfect for these activities all year round! Donna and Steve, both avid mountain bikers bought a bike each to take advantage of the plethora of mountain bikes trails that Hong Kong offers.

It didn’t take them long to appreciate that they had stumbled upon a place of huge opportunity in Hong Kong. As a qualified teacher, Donna started working in international schools and within a year or two Steve and Donna decided to start a family. It was then that sons Toby and Rory arrived. 

The First Steps Towards A New Bike Brand

As the main caregiver to two energetic, bouncing boys, Steve had his hands full! Not content to have his style cramped by two toddlers, Steve set himself the goal of ensuring his were confidently riding two-wheel bikes by the age of two. This early introduction to riding set the boys and Steve on an incredible journey that continues today.

As the boys’ skill levels grew, Steve found it increasingly difficult to find small mountain bikes that did not weigh a tonne. His frustration with being able to source nothing but hugely inadequate kids’ bikes set Steve on a quest for excellence that culminated in the formation of MeekBoyz.

When Toby was four, Steve joined forces with Jeff McLellan, a British engineer and close friend, who Steve used to sail for in the Hong Kong yachting scene. Recognising that no proper functioning small mountain bikes existed, and over quite a few beers, Steve and Jeff put their heads together to modify a sixteen-inch ABD BMX frame from New Zealand. The pair devised a way to add 26” forks with 100mm travel. In Jeff’s workshop they cut the crown of another fork and mounted it underneath so that the fork ended up sitting on top of the head tube. This kept the stand-over height down. The modified forks also meant disc brakes could be added to the front and back. They produced a light-weight mountain bike consisting of an aluminium BMX frame with 100 mm travel, full disc brakes and 16” wheels.

This tiny bike turned out to be quite successful. The BMX frame allowed it to be far more lightweight than the mass market kids’ bikes available in stores. And the forks gave Toby more of a fighting chance for riding control when it came to riding down steeper mountain trails.

It was still a hardtail however, which meant there were limitations as to where Toby could ride with Steve. Finally, as Rory also needed a bike and Toby was outgrowing the capabilities of the modified BMX bike, Steve took the next bold step of sourcing a SM Giant Trance to chop down and create a custom full-suspension bike for Toby.

The process of chopping down an adult frame to fit a child isn’t as simple as it sounds! Steve formulated the best possible combination for shrinking the frame that would allow enough stand-over height for the Toby to fit at age seven.  This first attempt at creating a full-suspension kid’s bike was quite a guessing game, given the obvious limitations of the adult geometry and weight of the frame.

As both boys grew older, Steve became increasingly frustrated with the fact that the modified bikes couldn’t keep up with their rapidly growing abilities. There were limitations to the bikes’ functionality and kid-friendly capabilities to perform effectively on down steep downhill trails. With this factor still nagging away at him, Steve took the plunge to design a proper downhill bike for kids’ weights and body sizes. This was the formal inception of MeekBoyz and high-quality carbon mountain bikes for kids. The ultimate goal being to make the perfect high-performance bike, with no mass market shortcuts.

Simultaneously alongside mountain biking, both boys were racing track BMX from a very young age including racing for New Zealand at multiple world championships across the six continents. Rory has been World Number 3 for his age group twice. The world of high-performance BMX racing for children was already leaps and bounds ahead of the kids’ mountain biking scene and Steve recognised the value of transferring that knowledge to MTB. That internal knowledge of high-performance BMX racing is what has set his bikes apart from all others.

Design and Development

Steve, drawing on his knowledge from the BMX racing world, combined with his life-long passion for mountain biking, set out with one goal in mind: to design the perfect high-performance range of mountain bikes for children. The design criteria for this downhill range centred on considerations of bike performance, weight factors, tailored geometry, and at the centre of everything: a full-functioning suspension system for young riders with capabilities to ride down adult trails.

With a composites background before moving to Hong Kong, Steve chose carbon for the bike frames and rims. It was a no-brainer as carbon is the obvious choice of material for a high-performance ride. It is light, more versatile and has long term integrity.

The process of working with carbon is very labour intensive and requires a spacious work area. Fortunately, being based in Hong Kong enabled Steve to access the epicentre of the carbon bike industry in Taiwan and China. His cultural knowledge and understanding of China after living in the region for fifteen years also gave him valuable insight and respect for the process of setting up his niche, high-end bike company in Asia.

 

Steve researched a number of carbon factories who build high-end carbon bikes for leading international bike companies and went to visit some of these factories. He eventually decided on a medium-sized carbon factory that best suited his goal of working with a family-run, niche bike company. As is tradition in China, Steve was invited to bring his wife, Donna along to meet the new business family. Donna was particularly impressed with the cleanliness and generous work spaces for the staff and after a tour through the different stages of the carbon factory, Donna and Steve, as is Asian tradition, went out with the senior staff and laid the future foundations over lunch. And that was the beginning of a very happy and enduring business partnership.

The Final Product

Once a customer places a bike order, it takes Steve about one week to custom assemble a bike from start to finish. Steve is adamant about only putting the best components on his bikes. From years of experience, he knows only top-quality parts ensure the integrity of a high-performance bike range. The additional high-grade bike components that complete the MeekBoyz bikes are sourced worldwide from the best brands such as Fox, Hope and Sram.

The MeekBoyz downhill bikes are for committed families who are highly invested in providing their children with quality bikes. Many families have similar riding backgrounds and hence recognise and appreciate the difference that quality makes to performance. Due to this fact, many of MeekBoyz’s customers tend to come from the BMX racing scene.

The MeekBoyz carbon bike brand offers today’s young riders access to better bikes that perform equally as well as adult high-performance bikes. Toby and Rory went from strength to strength shifting onto properly designed downhill bikes and their riding skill-levels have grown exponentially. The days of their Frankenstein bikes are long over, yet for Steve, that time tinkering and puzzling how to build a better bike all helped him along the pathway to a founding a successful, high-performance bike brand for kids.

The time for young riders to enter downhill mountain biking has never been more promising, and the pool of talent is growing. This is largely due to the leap in high-performance bike technology now available for young riders and MeekBoyz having perfected full-suspension systems for young riders are clearly pioneers of this giant leap forward. Kids now have the ability and the means to dream big!

Want to know more or find out about ordering your own MeekBoyz bike? Contact us today!