Trendy Colourways

I thought I'd put a little effort into demonstrating my rant from the last post. ie the difference between a company that takes a gamble and puts in work and ones that don't... much. Sorry. Between leading and following, I suppose you could say - or innovating and imitating, or even designing and copying, if you were being bold.

Burning bridges, burning bridges now.

Anyway, despite the risk of becoming the official Odyssey fan club, here you go:

Some plastic pedals, nothing too exciting going on here. OK there's some colours, a few different radiuses (yes, yes look it up, it's radii) some logos here and there, but all in all they're looking pretty much the same, it's business as usual, nothing to write home about etc.

Basically everyone's just gone, "Hold on Odyssey's selling a shitload of those PC pedals, we better get some out! Fuck!". And they did. I guess you can't blame them really, we've all got to eat. It's just that it's kind of boring. There's probably more latecomers than this kicking around, but that's not my point.

Now I actually reckon that there's some good things about pc pedals - cheap, light, shin friendly, and the give in the material means that they seem to stay tight even when they're getting knocked around, which the ali loose bearing pedals don't (so with the PCs you don't really need sealed bearings). But there is one major drawback - I don't care what anyone says, they are just not as grippy. They may be fine for you, but that still don't make 'em as grippy as pedals with pins.

But Odyssey were the only ones that bothered to think too m and now they'll soon release the pc version of the JC pedal. And next year everyone else will bring out their versions. In some trendy colourways of course:

Here's what Odyssey say about them:

Instead of shooting plastic into the JC mold, the JC PC was designed from the ground up, with many new ideas and only the JC shape in mind. The pledals have an ingenious way of attaching the body to the spindle. There is no spindle bolt hole. The pedal splits down the center, where the two mating sides sandwich around the spindle. Joining the two sides is achieved by the pins that thread into the mating side with replaceable steel nuts. This style of build creates an ultralight plastic pedal with the durability of an alloy pedal. In addition to weight savings, the grind options are multiplied compared to the metal version.

They're not suffering from low self confidence in labelling their own idea as "ingenious", but anyway... I'm still impressed.

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.

More plastic stuff to sit on

When do you sit on your seat. Almost never. So you don't need padding. OK agreed.

Everyone runs their seat at the same angle and the same height. Yes? Yes.

So a seat and post in one, what's the problem? They were around in the old days and now they're back and smelling suspiciously of trendiness.

Fly have been working on theirs for at least a couple of years, but still isn't available. Nothing wrong with that, you'd hope that they'd be testing it, redesigning and testing again. That's pretty much how Fly, IMHO, have so many good and innovative bits.

They say they've been testing polymers for the seat, getting the mix right so it's rigid without being brittle. They also added the aluminium sleeve to the inside of the post to stop the post crushing when you tighten the clamp. I don't have a weight for the seat, but I guess it's light, cause otherwise you'd just have an aluminium post wouldn't you?

KHE banged this one out a year or so ago - plastic seat on a ali post. The whole baseball thing? I don't know. Just... why? And I've had a couple of bad experiences with KHE parts that just seemed like they weren't thought through 100%. But I'm sure this seat is perfect - go on buy it.

When eclat came along with their hundred or so products all at once last year, one of them was their "complex" seat/post combo. Looks ALOT like the KHE seat, especially the underside, and it's also plastic with an aluminium post. Taiwan is a small island you know. Which came first? Who cares.

KHE Loyal Seat / Post Combo: Weight 190g / 6.7oz

Eclat Complex Seat / Post Combo: Weight: 179g / 6.3oz

Or you could just go one of these. Beautiful isn't it? There's even some a fake carbon fibre stickers for that extra bit of race cred. Fuck these things are fast.
Uni Race Seat / Post Combo: 147g / 5.2 oz

A post about seats - and posts

Might as well start here.

Here's a pic of eclats new pivotal post and seat - still just a prototype, but looking pretty nice. Apart from the fact that it's clear, it kind of looks like all the other pivotals, but apparently it's made of nylon and has a bit of extra ribbing in the nose to make it a bit stiffer. They were probably trying to avoid that droopy look that the original macneil pivotals (and all the other rebrandings of that design) get after a while - when the nose gets bent down. You still see it alot and it looks pretty bad if you ask me, but...


I reckon plastic seats are the way to go. Why bother with padding, it just gets ripped and shitty. It's also a couple of less steps in production so it should be cheaper (?)

Odyssey have finally put out some pivotals as well. They're calling it the Senior 2 and there's a padded and a non padded version. Don't know if it's the same size and shape as the Senior or what, but it seems longer. Maybe it's just the photos but you got to say the odyssey looks bad:
Yep rails are out and it's all plastic and pivotal.

Thought I'd better chuck in some fit for the popularity stakes:

Here's all the specs for the seats above:

Eclat Pivotal (Proto): Weight: 180g / 6.3 oz. (without cover), 250g / 8.8 oz. (with cover)

Odyssey Senior 2 Pivotal: Weight: 177g / 6.2 oz (without cover), 272g / 9.6oz (with cover)

Fit Low Bolt Pivotal: Weight: 253g / 8.9 oz

Enjoy

I'm an industrial designer and I ride bmx.
I'm going to post stuff about parts.
I've got a friend - he calls himself a graphic designer.
He "designed" the header.
He wont be posting anything.
Enjoy.