The assembly of the seat itself is uncomplicated and hardly encounters any language barriers thanks to the purely illustration-based explanation. The assembly steps are simple. Anyone who has ever mounted an IKEA Billy shelf manages the Thule Yepp Nexxt Mini* with ease.
Whether you can actually feel the 2nm torque specified in the assembly instructions for locking the footrests on the seat with the supplied tool exactly or over-torque by 4nm is written in the stars.
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Mounting the Thule Yepp Nexxt Mini on a mountain bike
The installation manual of the supplied “Slimfit adapter” for “normal and Ahead stems” was minified to only one page of illustrations in the assembly instructions. Looks easy: Just put the two-part adapter with two plastic collars for angle adjustment (A: flat angle, B: not quite so flat angle) around the stem. Then just tighten the two Allen screws with 8nm torque. At that point, you might ask yourself how if you’ve already reached the 8nm with the supplied IKEA style Allen wrench. Good thing I already bought a torque wrench.
DISCLAIMER: Here comes even more technical chit-chat
But I don’t get that far. Because the assembly instructions describe the process only for “normal” stems. If you – like me– own a bike that doesn’t come from the cheapest section of Wal Mart you most probably have an Ahead stem. Bikes with Ahead stems (which should be 80% of bikes from 400 $ up) usually have several spacers at the exact mounting point of the adapter. If you have no spacers between the stem and the headset, you might be out of luck. To match the maximum stem diameter of 28mm specified in the instructions you would have to (see update below: must) remove these and clamp the adapter directly on the steerer tube. Therefore, you would have to unscrew the stem with handlebars. And hope that the plastic of the adapter can cope with the task of the aluminium spacers.
Or you take the plastic half rings for the “angle adjustment” out of the equation. Then the adapter can also be clamped on the outside of the spacers – unless these spacers are super thick. Whether you should do that, is up to you. After mounting the seat to the adapter and testing it with vigorous lateral pressure, I decided that it should be enough for gentle rides over asphalt, gravel, forest trails and gentle single trails. You should avoid extreme terrain with a toddler in the child bike seat anyways.
If that does not work for you and the adapter rotates around the steerer tube with the spacers, you can try to add a squirt of carbon assembly paste (e.g., Muc Off Carbon Gripper*) between spacers and steerer tube, or switch to different spacers.
I have contacted the manufacturer concerning the assembly and I am waiting excitedly for a clarifying answer.
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Update: Reply from Thule
The answer from Thule has now arrived. I was advised to remove the spacers (spacer rings) under the stem and clamp the adapter directly on the steerer tube. This requires the disassembly of the stem. Those who are not familiar with this should definitely go visit your favourite bike shop. If you are, go visit your favourite bike shop anyways.
Conclusion
The installation of the Yepp Nexxt Mini* on the mountain bike is not really smooth. The manual doesn’t say anything about mounting on Ahead stems, although it is explicitly advertised by Thule for this. Unlike its predecessor (Thule Yepp Mini*), the Thule Yepp Nexxt Mini got no dedicated Ahead adapter. Unfortunately, the Ahead adapter of the Yepp Mini is not compatible with the Thule Yepp Nexxt Mini.
Update Conclusion:
We used and loved the seat in everyday life and on tours for about a year – despite the installation hassle. Mainly because the front seats make your toddler your co-pilot and not a passenger. On bikes with a short upper tube and high bottom bracket, however, mounting and dismounting quickly becomes a circus act. A hydraulic seat post with a handlebar remote allows you to get on the bike from behind and eases getting on and off the bike. The same applies to legroom. On my somewhat “old school” KTM Lycan LT 272 Enduro MTB from 2015, you had to fold the knees a bit outwards to avoid bumping the seat when pedalling. More modern bikes usually sport a longer reach and – with the “boost standard”– some extra space for the kneecaps. But as always: you need to try this for yourself, your bike and your legs.
If you’re looking for a simple child seat solution for your mountain bike and want to avoid tinkering, you might rather switch to another seat (e.g., the Yepp Kids Mini*, the Mac Ride or Kids Ride Shotgun) or have the seat mounted in a workshop. The concept of a front-mounted child seat convinced us, the implementation in this case not quite. We later switched to the Mac Ride and the Kids Ride Shotgun. Both are great seats, but require your kids to sit very stable and not randomly fall asleep.
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10 comments
Hi, it’s not clear from your post but I am having the issue where my stem is thicker that the 28mm. It fits on if I remove the plastic inserts with arrows pointing to A/B, but i am not sure how necessary those are for stability or rotation of the seat. Did thule say it was okay to use the mount without the two halfround inserts?
Also seeking the answer to this question
hi Arthur, hi Clare,
I mounted the seat without the A/B angle adjustment spacers directly onto the aluminum spacers, which worked for me, but I cannot advice you to do that, because Thule specifically adviced me to remove the spacers from the fork’s steerer tube – and use the A/B adjustment spacers.
If you have a 1,5 Inch straight steerer tube or a Cannondale Lefty not a tapered one (1 1/8″ – 1,5″), I guess you have to remove the A/B adjustment spacers of the Thule Yepp Nexxt Minis mount.
Unfortunately I cannot test it myself, as I sold the seat about 4 years ago.
If you are unsure if what you are doing is correct, please consider contacting a bike mechanic and/or Thule’s customer service.
If you stumble across any new information, we would feel delighted if you shared it with us in the comments below.
Cheers and good luck 🤞
Hi, we just bought a yepp mini and had same issues, here, temporarily i installed without the brackets, I was not happy about that since the Thule instructions clearly specify not to do that. Following Thule answer to You on the update I will put the plastic brackets back in and remove the spacers. Thanks for your article, it did help! 🙂
Thanks for this, I was stuck and found no help on the Thule websites or their customer service. I did as you wrote and can now ride with my little one in her Yepp mini!
Hi Marleen, this is great!!
After many try and misses I finaly found the solution. Even guys in a bike store did not know how to properly do that. Not to mention the official thule manual which is useless with mountain bike 28.6mm head tube:
1. Ensure you have your fork tube not shortened too much for the adapter to fit in. On my wife’s bike it was just not possible to fit in. I had to mount it on my other bike and after playing with spacers and stem it was just so so.
2. Remove A/B plastic halfrings from the adapter completely. Notice that the circle grooves with approximately 2mm height appear on both sides of the adapter. This is important. The ring spacers are going to fit in these grooves and the adapter will be attached directly on the fork tube, not the spacers!
3. Because my tube was quite short, I had to remove all spacers at first and buy the thinnest possible. So between the bike frame head and adapter I put the 3mm ring spacer(anthing above 2mm would actually work, depends only how much space you have on your fork tube). But one thing is very important. The spacers need to have the outer diameter of maximum 34mm to properly fit in the grooves on both sides of the adapter. Nobody tells you that there are really different spacers that fit on 28.6mm tube. Some are more loose on tube, some have thicker walls, which results in different outer diameter. I had spacers with 36mm outer diameter and had to replace them with 34mm spacers. Even the sellers and bike mechanics were confused and looked like they did not know what I am talking about. The thing is, that even the 36mm spacers fit in the adapter, but the problem appears when trying to tighten adapter on tube. These thicker spacers prevent the adapter to be tightened properly on fork tube.
4. Put another spacer with 34mm outer diameter inside the top groove of the adapter. Then you are ready to attach the stem. Now the adapter is attached directly to fork tube and the force when tightening the stem on tube is distributing through top spacer, adapter and bottom spacer on the frame head.
Fuh I apologize for my english but this technical terminology is really difficult. I hope that after reading it ten times you will understand 🙂
All of this aplies to Thule Yepp 2 mini next.
And I need to correct one missinformation of mine. The outer diameter of the ring spacers can be up to 35mm and not only 34mm as I wrote in my comment above. So anything less than 36mm.
Hello, I too have jsut been caught out buying a Yepp next mini for a mountain bike. I have installed it by removing the steerer tube spacers but using the A and B angle adjusters. Because of the angle of my stem, it slightly bends the adapter as shown in your second photo captioned:”The “slim fit adapter” needs at least 21mm of space between the headset and the stem. Interesting definition of slim.” Has this slight bend been an issue for you?
hi, thanks for clearing out some hesitations I had (indeed the manual is not very talkative!).
I have removed the spacers in order to fit it (keeeping the plastic thule spacers in equation) – somehow felt like the right thing to do.
then i tighten it up, then added stem and tightened the cap and voila – not working, as something it’s banging in the headtube and it feels loose.
I then remembered some advice about headsets – loosened the Thule adapter, then tighten the stem-cap screw and only after screwed in adapter it seems that did the trick!
question is indeed if it’s good enough replacement of function of the alloy spacers, what is your experience?