Design is Useless

Design is pretty much worthless unless you're pushing things a bit. Everyone goes on about "rider owned" companies, but really, what difference does it make who's running the show? Riders can be assholes too you know. In fact there's plenty of riders who are assholes. I'd rather give my money to one of the big "corporate" brands that's actually putting effort and cash into doing new shit, than a rider owned company just pumping out catalogue parts stamped with their brand and lining their own pockets.

As it happens it doesn't look like too many of the bigger companies actually do much product development anyway.


Odyssey's probably one of the biggest that does and as a result they have loads of products that push things in new directions - just think Director Forks, Elementary Stem, now the new PC pedals with pins - They invented the cassette hub no less and now have G-Sport under their roof. Whether you like their products or not is irrelevant. They put in work on product development and as a result they have a huge loyal following and deserve it.

Fly are one of my favourite bike co's. They've always got new stuff on the go. They're pretty slow with it all, but I'd guess that's just cause they're small and like I said before, that's probably a good sign in that they're actually testing stuff and getting it right. I've got no idea how many designers might work for a company like Fly, but I'd guess it'd be very few. 1, 2 or 3 maybe. I Don't know.

Anyway back to Fly. If you're at all interested in the tech side of BMX then the fly site has plenty of nice illustrations showing off the innovations that they've come up with. Things like this:
Along with good photos, like this of their integrated drop outs, which they say they've been testing for 6 months. Pretty slick:
Or this:
I'm really waiting on this and have been since I heard about it maybe 3 years ago.

The Fly cassette hub, which they say is going to weigh in around 12 oz, partly due to a different type of axle that tightens on just one side. A bit like the 2.5 piece cranks I'm guessing. There is a huge thread on BikeGuide.org about it, so rather than listen to me you can go listen to a whole bunch of people speculate on how it's done.

Aside from that you'll just have to wait. They say they've been developing it for 4 years already so don't hold your breath.


The End.