Jeff Parker

Dave,
For what it's worth, we had 24" jake that my son rode for a season. Last year I ended up selling that and putting a rigid carbon fork on my sons 13" frame 26" wheel mountain bike. There are a couple of disadvantages to the little 24" wheel cross bikes. They are quite heavy and hard to lift and the little wheels don't roll that well on soft surfaces. I put the Schwalbe 1.5" cross tires on his mtb and with the carbon fork (a Trigon for a little less than $200 on ebay) and it's significantly lighter than the Jake 24. Not to mention better brakes (disc) and much easier to shift (with the Jake, he'd have to reach over across the bars with his right hand to swing the front shifter far enough). I also took the big ring off and replaced it with a plastic bash guard and also put a chain catcher on it. So now that it's mtb season I just have to put the suspension fork back on and change the tires.
As always, your mileage may vary, but for us this turned out to be a better and less expensive setup and my son was considerably faster on it.

Jeff