The bond between a father and a son can often be amazingly strong but we think that Gary Tansey has set a new benchmark with his son’s Christmas present this year. In a Top-Gear-esque customisation, he might just have created the best balance bike in the world.

A balance bike is a cross between a bicycle and a scooter and is used to teach young kids and toddlers how to ride a bike before they are big enough to use pedals.

Jack Tansey is going to be one very lucky toddler as his dad has just built him up this custom balance bike and plans to give him it at Christmas. The bike is based around a Specialized Hotwalk balance bike frame but instead Gary has customised it, branded it as an S-Works version and delivered a spec to make most of us adults jealous.

Highlights include: the matte black stealth frame (a normal Hotwalk is read and white); A Hope Pro Evo 2 hub fitted to the rear and humungous-looking accompanying rotor and disk brake, and Jack’s name written on the top tube. There’s also been some clever bodging to get the headset and hubs to fit – top work.

We’ve posted the full spec below and we reckon that the maker could have spent over £500 on this bike if the parts were all new. Considering that a standard Hotwalk costs only £110, that’s quite a significant investment.

We’re pretty sure that Jack won’t quite understand the ins and outs  of his bike, but we reckon he’s going to have one of the best Christmases ever. If you want to see the bike in the flesh, keep an eye out for it at Dalby Forest (Jack’s local trail centre).

“Spec –
Holes cut out of the frame to run an internal brake line, also fork steerer lengthened and rewelded to run threadless headset and a shim needed to clamp the stem on to the 1″ steerer tube. Powder coated satin black with red stickers.

1” M Part threadless headset.
Carbon stack spacers.
Hope 50mm stem.
Specialized carbon cap.
Carbon flat bars 470mm
Octane mushroom grips cut in half and joined.
Hope Race Evo stealth brake with internal routing using orange 5 grommets.
Hope rotor 140mm.
Hope pro Evo2 front hub modded to fit the rear.
Hope mono front hub modded to fit front.
Hope quick release front axles front and rear.
Original rim relaced with cut and rethreaded DT Swiss spokes with red nipples and just put a roval logo on the rims to add the looks and then dice valve caps.
Specialized rhythm lite 12×2.0 tyres. “