BMX tec - BMX Product Design Blog. Bikes, parts, manufacturing and prototypes

Japanese Porn

2010-07-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

Don't get confused, this blog is still dead.

Strangely, it actually has more followers than when I used to post stuff. And of course it now gets far more Japanese porn comment spam than ever before... so that's a positive.

But you see, I just lost a hundred of my hard-earned on Brazil v Netherlands, so I needed some cheer... And then I saw the latest Fly vid... and it was perfect... and it's in Melbourne.

In fact, it was so perfect that it got me reminiscing about that classic Lotek mini vid. So here's a couple for old times sake:

Taste the Virtual Blood

2010-02-19T03:23:00.000-08:00

You gotta say that Jimmy from Eject / Simple is stepping up his rendering game. That PC stem looked so real you could almost taste the blood and feel the holes where your teeth were as it snapped and you face-butted the concrete.

And this one... the little bit of machining on the body... the touch of rust on the bolts. You just want to save it and upload it straight to your steerer tube.

Anyway... damn fine looking stem is what I mean. You can read the interview with I did with Jimmy here and here, or you can head over to Simple for a couple more flix of the Eject v4 stem.

god natt.

Plastic Death Stem

2010-02-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

Introducing...

New Simple Eject v4 PC stem

"After doing massive material research we came across this High Strength Plastic, with an incredibly high molecular mass. This allows us to make a very light, yet very strong stem without compromising on the durability. We have taken this stem through a lot of testing and abuse to see how it would hold up, and so far it's proved to last very well."

Dropping In

2010-02-17T20:44:00.000-08:00

Are cats still cool?
Anyway, here's mine dropping in on the backyard ramp:

Bhusta gets rad

stoked

No Comment(s)

2010-02-03T13:00:00.000-08:00

That last post felt good. Cleansing. And it got me thinking.

Back when this blog actually existed as a blog - like, with updates and stuff - there was one thing that always shitted me. And that was visiting the Colony site. Being in Australia, I suppose I always felt some vague loyalty to Colony and though I didn't particularly rate them, I bit my tongue and hid behind my 75% positive content policy.

But I was there again today, and enough is enough:

1) Their logo is so fucking rubbish that I almost can't bear it. There is just so many bad things about it. There is the obvious things, like that it rips off the Gucci logo, does a shit job of it, and looks like it's been created by an 11 year old learning to use Illustrator. But there is also a subtle indescribable shitness to it, something that just makes you feel bad:

Out of the darkness a mysterious, bad looking logo appeared

2) Every post on the site says "Yo yo!!" at the end of it. That also makes you feel bad.

3) The comments section of each page, makes me angry:

No Comments: OK, fair enough.
No comments yet: Of course there is not comments yet, cause there's no fucking comments.
RSS feed for the comments on this post. TrackBack URL: Would you like a feed of the comments that aren't allowed on this page? Maybe you'd like to leave a trackback that won't get left in the comments that don't exist?
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time: No fucking shit.

If I could just make one comment, I would suggest that someone spends the 60 seconds that it would probable take to remove all this bullshit.

Sorry kids, that was just so negative, but felt so right. Some stuff just can't stay bottled up.

Guilt and Neglect... Honey

2010-01-21T02:09:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a dream...

Actually, it was probably leaning more towards being a low level nightmare. I was being talked at by one of those guys who hang around in skateparks, on bikes, but with the sole purpose of honing their relentless and uninterruptable, talking-at-you skills. You probably know the dude.

Anyway, the light was fading and I was cornered and this uncontrollably verbal bmx bandit, he was really going for it. He was spitting all over me as he ranted with this mentally imbalanced, manically enthusiastic expression on his face. Wasting the valuable final minutes of my session as he repeated his crazed idea that the Fly not-pivotal seat post was the best bmx part ever created.

When I woke, I was confused. His views where controversial at best. What was all this about? Why had my sub-conscious conjured this impossibly annoying yet almost realistic character? Upon reflection, I decided that it was my inner self's effort to have me face up to the feelings of suppressed guilt and neglect that I've been carrying around with me.

Guilt: that I pretty much shut this blog down a few months ago in more of a fade away, than a burn up kind of way - I'd always thought that was a shitty way to go out. Guilty.

Neglect: of the unposted jpegs of new the Fly Bikes bits that are still hanging around in my inbox. Why had they not been either posted, or deleted? Neglect.

So it seems that the only way to exorcise this imaginary nightmare man talking blindly at me about bmx parts, is for me to. . . . . .

Talk blindly at you about bmx parts. At least this one last time. Sorry.

I couldn't actually tell you for certain, but I'm pretty sure that the last few months would have seen the standard shitload of new parts let loose via internet, stoking the fires of capitalism and exciting teenage males all over the western world to part with their parent's hard earned in the quest to define themselves by the parts they ride.

But I'm not going to sweet talk you with all that, I want to make you feel really special. I'm going to take you to my private place and show you the "things in my inbox".

Pretend like it's the 11th of November and you've never seen this lovely piece of framesmanship before:

Ooohhh... yeah... it's the Luna. And it's purple (or white).

Please don't complain that this is old news - I don't care - this isn't about you. I'm exorcising, and you just happen to be on the other end of the cable. If you're going to get all needy and naggy, you may as well put your pants back on and leave.

You don't need the specs. I don't have time and they're fucking everywhere, including here.

If you do like that kinda thing though, here's an illustration showing the features of Fly's 2010 frames. It is here because I like technical illustrations and it's a particularly fine example. Hats off to whoever at Fly draws that stuff:

Next: 24th of November and and you may recognize this sprocket:

Circulo by name, circulo by nature. All in all a very sprockety sprocket. They do always have good photos though, don't they darling? 2.2 oz.

5th of December now. The Pantera was the second bmx frame I ever owned. This is the Pantera V4, it's covered with investment castings, it's red, and if you click the pic, it's almost like it's real:

Yeah...

So...

That's it. Thanks. And all the best.

Can't See the Hammer for the Trees

2009-10-26T03:14:00.000-07:00

OK, enough hammer, back on the horse:

Tree Bike Co are the legendary little guys of bmx. They only make new shit when it's better than the old shit, they don't advertise much so just rely on the quality of their stuff to sell itself, they don't do gimmicks, and they should be the heros of anyone that rides bmx and has ever laid hands on any lathe or some kind of rudimentary milling set up.

Their most recent bit of machinemanship is to be a stem they've done with the help of Super Rat Machine Works. At the risk of waving a red flag to the nothing-is-new-that-was-done-in-84 crowd, I'm saying that this stem features a new clamping system.

I can't tell you exactly how it works, but I can try to tell you exactly how I think it works. Will that do? I'd say the collar that goes around your fork steerer is slightly larger than the cavity that it sits in, so as the top and bottom pieces of the stem are tightened, the collar finds space by contracting in on itself and clamps your steerer in the process. Of course your bars are also clamped by the two bits of the stem body.

That was a shit description, but it's all I've got. Hopefully you get what I'm talking about, and hopefully what I'm talking about is what actually happens. Do you ever feel like you're wasting your time reading this? You could always go back and watch that MC Hammer clip in my last post.

Anyway, here's some pictures of the Stem With No Name and some captions from Sam Tree himself:

One stem. Three pieces. Four bolts. High Five!

He had some other captions for here, but the first one was better

I once had a hand in designing a stem.
It was shit.

Well... I didn't actually design one, I just made an almost entirely unresolved sketch. And although it may well have turned out to be shit if it was ever made, the shittiness that I'm refering to is that it attempts to solve a problem that I don't really even think really is a problem. You see, I had a friend who had an idea to design a stem that slotted onto your steerer so that your bars were all nice and straight. Of course people have been putting handlebars onto bikes for years and you don't often hear someone complaining that they just can't get their bars straight, but working on the principal that my hunches are very often wrong and just being generally keen to draw some bike stuff, I had a go and came up with this:

It's based around Superstar's Neutral fork which has an internally fluted steerer tube, but is probably too complicate to bother even trying to manufacture, especially when you consider that even 0.1mm slop in any of the fits would probably be amplified to a really noticeable amount of movement in the bars. My friend didn't like it and so together we came up with this:

That one might have been a little more realistic, and could have been done by machining a really slight groove down the sides of the steerer rather than the fluting that I sketched. But really you're probably just complicating things without really adding much other than the possibility that due to some slight error in jig set up or whatever, you'd end up making bars that locked on crooked to the steerer. That said one of the advantages of this idea is that the stem could come with two sets of wedges - with or without tabs - so it would also work without the slotted fork.

Anyway, whay am I posting all this? Well, apart from trying to make things a little more interesting, I'd been thinking that the Shola stem which was around at InterBike might be trying for something similar with what looks like little grub screws on the clamping collar:

And while we're talking stems, I may as well try to make up for some recent slackness by posting up the current incarnation of T1's Cyclops stem that was also around at InterBike. But that's it, I'm all outta stem news:

Here Come the Hammer...

2009-10-26T02:30:00.000-07:00

Hey, long time no blog. How you been?

I admit that a week between blogs is pathetic, but I've been busy man. Take for example the fact that I recently formed a band named Hammer that are poised to set eyebrows on fire all over the globe. Said forming also included the development of a marketing strategy for the band involving popularising new slang uses of the word "hammer" such as "Mirra is all hammer on that special flip", or "Sergio's new tyre looks the hammer":

Truth be told, that whole Hammer thing only required a couple of mis-spent saturday evening hours and that the infrequent blogging thing is probably more about the fact that on this side of the world clocks have gone forward, we get an extra hour of light and after work sessions are back. Anyway tune in to see how that goes, but in the mean time, here come the Hammer:

The Odyssey

2009-10-20T02:41:00.000-07:00

Odyssey have written a novel.

Odyssey actually haven't written a novel, but they have put together an encyclopedic product catalogue with a word count unprecedented by any bmx publication to date. I wonder who they think is going to read all those words? The BMX acedemia? I have a fairly high tolerance for that kind of stuff, but I've got to say, lost heart pretty quickly. That said, it's probably not so suited to an online experience. In hardcopy it'd be sure to be a thing of beauty - there's lots of nice photos and artwork, little tech diagrams and cut-away sections... and words, lots of words.

As said, amongst the words there are some photos of their new stuff:

This is their Chainwheel sprocket. I saw this from the InterBike coverage of their stand, but didn't really know what to say about it. It just kind of looked unfinished and I didn't really understand why they wanted to add a bad looking sprocket that kind of has a milled-in-your-grandads-back-shed feel to it, to their range of really dope sprockets. But the answer to all question are to be found within the pages of the Odyssey encyclopedia. If you make it through the 500 word intro, you'll find that it's actually supposed to look bad. At least it's supposed to look like a chainwheel / spider set up of yesteryear. Fair enough.

Anyway let's offset these negative vibes with some afore mentioned "dope" sprocket imagery:

Awwwww - that's more like it! They've updated the Vermont sprocket and are calling it the Burlington. And that's a 25 tooth, in gold and looking rad. Apparently they've changed the tooth profile on this and the Chainwheel sprockets to something they're calling an Incisor tooth profile. And that's pretty much how it looks.

Pedals. While we're talking pedals it should be noted that you actually would need an encyclopedia to keep up with the number of colourways that you can get Odyssey's PC pedals in. This may, or may not be the newest edition added to that list:

That's also gold in case you didn't catch it. I have no idea how many colour variation these pedals have seen in the couple of years since they've become the pedal of choice for just about everyone, but my guess would be 23. Just sounds about right. I'd also guess that somewhere out there is a Ody PC freaker who has a cupboard full of bagged up mint editions of every colour ever released. Definitely. In fact, if you are that guy, could you please fill me in on the official total?

I suppose you can't count these as straight PCs, but you can definitely count me in for a pair. And of course they're set to open up a whole new world of pedal mixin'n'matchin:

JC PC's. That's a lot of little piec-es.

But Jim, while I've got you here: What's with the crappy 3rd wave tube photos in this flip book? You've managed to focus on just about everything but the fucking tubes!

Anyway, I don't want to get on Jim's bad side, so I'll leave that. But you think there would be a few 3rd wave frames lying around the Sunday offices and it might be worth actually snapping a decent photo - I mean Adam managed alright.

Anyway, in amongst the shoes, tyres, promotional displays and whatnot in focus was what looked like... wait for it... a new PC pedal colourway. Camo, it seems. That is new isn't it? So at least some good came from it.

I think that's more than enough.

Gold Soundz

2009-10-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

It's Saturday.

And I just heard that Pavement are re-forming.
And doing shows in Melbourne.

I know you don't care but...

So drunk in the August sun
And you're the kind of girl I like
Because you're empty
And I'm empty...

Gold soundz.

American Metal

2009-10-15T17:01:00.000-07:00

If you're a machine head, or even just somewhat mechanically inclined, you'll appreciate this:

There's a flipbook up on FBM with all the detail of their new Steadfast trails frame. The frame looks damn nice and has the added bonus of coming with a cast pewter headtube badge. But really I just wanted an excuse to lift that photo and put it here. There's just something about it isn't there? Precision metal, ready for some precision weldsmanship, and just a few hours away from being someone's object of desire. Nice.

And here's another nice one for the mechanically inclined - the making of a Fit DLR stem. Along with the precision metal, this even has the added nicety of couple of bad-asses doing there thing.There's Van Homan disregarding his personal safety and flicking the bars 6 feet up, as well as some anodiser doing the dip and filling his lungs with hydrogen and sulfuric acid fumes all in a self-less quest to feed the colour machine. Enjoy:

Van Homan will save... Fit?

2009-10-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

So Van Homan put out a statement with his word on the whole Fit situation. It was pretty long and he said some things. But what really comes through is that the guy is not only a hard ass, but humble, loyal and smart - that's a combo that you really can't fault and a reminder how the word "pro" is short for professional - not promotional tool.

Anyway, you've got the option for the Defgrip or TheComeUp flavoured version, but it's only the comments that taste different.

Just sticking with the drama for a moment. Then came the news that Sean McKinney, who's been at S&M for ten years, had quit. Apparently to pursue a career being photographed wearing Cult shirts... or something:

Turned out that was bullshit.

Really it's a great little soap opera isn't it - like a little daytime bmx drama. Of course there's more, and there'll be more, and more.
And more.

But what about this guy with the OG Cult set up? It was a good name - he knew it was. So he went ahead and registered Cult-Bmx.com and has been socially-networking like a man possessed. Now finally all that hard work is paying off and the AdSense chickens are coming home to roost.

But really, you can get some valuable information about "BMX bikes" over there at Cult-Bmx.com. Apparently they have the have "exact steering mechanisms to be able to perform tricks and stunts specifically and precisely" - Nice. But beware "they can be adventurous, dangerous and loads of fun as long as the individual uses the proper safety measures". Disclaimer right there.

Anyway, do the dude a favour and click a bunch of ads while you're over there - he might just have a little legal battle on the horizon.

Angry Space Invaders

2009-10-13T03:25:00.000-07:00

100 posts in 6+ months. Blog slackness.

Anyway, no slacking at Odyssey. They've got a new site up. I still can't find anything, but at least I'm getting lost more quickly - if you get what I mean. Death to Flash I say... or whatever god forsaken program created that old site.

So they've also put up some more info on their Quadrant rim and have been good enough to including a good old fashioned section pic:

The Quadrant: 420g of cheapness and cheer

As you can see the Quadrant rim is an innocent and optimistic character just doing his best to keep everyone happy. At 420 grams he's light and being a simple pin jointed fellow, he doesn't have the ego that some of those welded rims have. I mean, just have a look at 'em, giving everyone attitude like a couple of angry space invaders:

The Hazard Lite: 500g, hazardous, light, with a chip on his shoulder

The 7-KA: 453g... 7 and K with an A

If you'd like to read something about these rims that makes sense, you're probably best off going here.

Australiana

2009-10-08T03:58:00.000-07:00

I'm in Australia. Most of you are on the other side of the world. You probably have no idea, and possibly no interest, about what's happening down here. If you have absolutely no interest, now is the time to change the channel, cause I'm going to drop a little Australiana on ya!

First up there's a company that you might, or might not know, called Tempered Bikes. They've got a small but perfectly formed product catalogue at the moment - frames, bars, forks, seats - but there's also a load of 2010 stuff about to turn up and I'll be posting it up when it does.

Then there's Focal Point which is a Melbourne based website, but pretty much covering the whole Australian scene. If you were a somewhat regular reader of TCU you'd probably have come across links to the Focal Point mag that they put out quaterly, as well as edits and trailers for their DVDs .

My mind is continually blown with the amount of work that the dude who runs it puts in. The mag, the site, videos, interviews, reviews - relentless. In the past it was pretty much just a zine that you could pick up for free in bike shops. You can still get it in hardcopy, and still reads like a no-bullshit zine, but the quality of the photos and layout just gets more and more pro all the time. These days they've even gone all Issuu on your ass:

Amongst the truck load of stuff on Focal Point there's a recent Top Fives type-thing with Jimmy Rostlund from who designs for Simple Bikes. It's at the bottom of the page here. If you missed the BMXtec interview that I did with Jimmy, you can check that here.

While we are talking flipbooks and work loads, James Wade out of Adelaide in South Australia is a busy man looking after a forum called Ugzine, a blog by the name of Stay Fresh Yo!, and clothing brand called Dishonour. And he puts out rad photo flips.

A little Dishonourable goodness

To round it off there is Nightfall Bike Co out of Northern Queensland - which if you don't know it, is just about the most Australian part of Australia. If you wanted proof of that you'd only have to check their blog to see them spinning the bars on some weird object that looks like it's in the middle of nowhere, or actually spinning them in the middle of nowhere. Or you could check this post. That's Australiana.

Nightfall's Level frame - hit up their eBay shop

Nightfall's Killuminati sprocket

PC or not PC?

2009-10-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

David at Fly has posted up some more info about the plastic Ruben pedals, so if you've been wondering if Fly were going to bring something new to the PC pedal table, have a listen to what he's got to say:

"We wanted to make a plastic pedal with the same thin shape as the Ruben aluminum ones so we searched for a harder material to achieve that. After some testing we found a new compound out of nylon and fiber glass that we call “graphite” which is harder than the material currently used on other plastic pedals. These new pedals are only 1mm. thicker than the aluminum ones on each side so the feeling is the same as the alumium ones.

Other detail on these pedals are how grippy they are. We used coned 3 x 3mm. Squared pins that are grippier than rounded ones. And since this material is harder, the knurling on the whole pedal surface is sharper. Of course still the aluminum ones are grippier but the difference is not much…The low profile makes them really light as well with a a weight of 360grs. / 12.6 oz. per pair."

How new is that? They're not PC. That is, they're not molded in poly carbonate, they're graphite. Well... they're not actually graphite either, they're glass filled nylon. So what the hell is that? Here's a little something, lifted from somewhere:

"Nylon ® is significantly strengthened by the addition of glass-fibers. The added glass provides stability & rigidity, but reduces the non-lubricated wear properties. 30% glass filled nylon has 200% better strength than general purpose nylon but it is highly abrasive and will abraid or gall mating surfaces."

"Abraid or gall mating surfaces" - Careful, that's your shoe man!

Though if you're counting grams, they will have the additional pull of being the lightest (don't quote me) freestyle pedals on the market and regardless of possible abraiding or galling to the soles of my Orchids, I'll be tossing up between a pair of these and Odyssey's JC PCs. It's that recurring dilema: "superior grip v.s possible shin carnage". It's hard isn't it? Life. Just one big decision after another. Fortunately these wont be dropping till December, so all fretting and obsessing can be postpone till then.

Edit: OK, they're not the lightest. These probably are, but really? As for the titanium thing, can you count pedals with ti spindles as freestyle pedals?

Holy Fit!

2009-09-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

So to not have heard this news already you would have to be living in a non-wi-fi enabled cave or something. That is, the super-team is no more – Fit have split.

Tunney is well and truly on the ball and has already posted up a Fit obituary. Yeah OK, so it’s not really an obituary, since Fit ain’t dead and they’ve still got a legendary team, but it's pretty obvious that it's the new breed riders that keep the new breed dollars rolling in and it seems like all that is going to change. Moeller is going to have to pull a big, gold plated rabbit out of somewhere to keep Fit’s momentum going.

And then there's the rumours of a cult… at least of a new brand headed by Robbie called “Cult”. Really, if that is the name, you’ve got to give it to him for piss-take value, especially since the irony of it would be lost on the majority of kids that flock straight to it. And born-agains are usually pretty quick to renounce their bad old ways, so you gotta wonder what the hell is going to happen to all that old Fit stuff once the kids start worshipping the new Cult? Ebay glut.

Alright, so that was a bit of bullshit, but now for some semi, halfway, tenuously, somewhat related news. Lotek have a look at some new pair of samples up on their page:

Yep, looking nice, and you can also check Rich and Hoder talking the talk on some of the new Lotek stuff here.

BUT, while we're talking shoes, here's a little something from InterBike:

There is a new BMX specific brand of footwear called Almond that's about to drop. It was launched at Interbike and apparently the money behind it is from a "German brand of BMX frames" and the designers behind it are FBDesign who do work for Etnies, Es, Emerica, IPATH and Burton. So the credentials are there, looks like the colourways are there, hopefully there's some quality to match.

Zen Minimalism, Metal and Death

2009-09-28T16:11:00.000-07:00

Well InterBike's out of the way and I managed to get through about 1/100th of stuff that was on show, but you can bet your titanium Ratchet axle that there'll be a flood of re-caps and reviews, reminders and re-launches coming up - so it ain't over yet.

I never did get round to saying anything about the morsels on offer at the Fly booth at InterBike and they've already posted up their re-cap. So you could check that here, or bear with me while I pick out the tasty bits:

So that's basically how it all looked - flat colours on white, simple graphics. Translated, the names of the frames and forks are Moon, Lakes, Mountains, Earth and Water. All very minimal and zen. But then, of course, there's the Pantera, which is more metal and death, but hey, you gotta stick with the classics.

That said, the Pantera forks are no more. And neither are the Tierras. Instead Fly'll only be making the Agua forks - the ones with the investment cast dropouts. And speaking of discontinued models, there was no sign of the Campillo frame on their stand either. I'm not sure whether or not this means my current ride is now officially an antique, but since it was one of the lighter frames going around (4.3 lbs) it'd be interesting in that it would be another manufacturer joining WeThePeople in moving away from lighter weight frames. Yeah, sounds doubtful.

Another fairly doubtful scenario is the mass re-emergence of brakes and that's just not going to happen until Fit's street kids put 'em back on. Regardless, Fly just keep pumping out brake related stuff - which is admirably untrendy:

Just a bunch of brake pads? Yeah, I suppose so, but apparently they're a different compound and are a bit fatter so you've got more rubber on rim, and they use a female bolt system to keep them looking tidy. Also the curved adjustment surfaces are integrated into the bolt and the pad so you've got a couple of less washers to faff about with. Incidentally Odyssey have just posted up some new pads and cables and are saying that the clear pads work the best for painted rims. So there you go.

Rigid straddle cable = less flex and easier set up.

Possibly the most boring photo I have ever posted, but anyway, it's a close up of their Spanish removable mount set up that Sergio explained in a web vid not long ago.

They dropped a new sprocket at InterBike as well - The Circulo. What did I tell you ... Zen.

The red stem pictured is a new topload stem. And like superstar they seem to be suggesting that you should run it upside down. Bottom load stems are officially hot right now.

And lastly, but definitely not least, a chance to have a decent look at the PC Ruben pedals. Fly are pretty much the last to jump on board with PCs, but at least they're not just hijacking a Wellgo and calling it Sliced Bread.

So in homage to the pedal, to the man, to the middle name of my first born, to no-footer to flatty wall rides (@1:11) and to Built to Spill:

That's Low Bro!

2009-09-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

A few days ago Obama became the first US president to chair the UN security council and try to ban the bomb, then Stay Fit premiered and just blew that news out of the water (ahem). Now Diamondback in a selfish attempt to take out the controversial Low Top Tube 2010 award have dropped their own bombshell. They are now mass-producing bmx frames with co-linear top tube / seat stay geometry. That's right, a straight line between the head tube and rear drop out! Do I need to spell out the gravity of this? It's like we're standing on the edge of cliff - one more step and we'll all be riding trials bikes.

So this little rocker is Nicholi Rogatkin, he's 13, he's sponsored by Diamondback and that's his bike. And bro... it's low.

I've got to say that I had never heard of this guy, but something tells me that you're going to have to learn to pronounce his name properly, cause in a few years time he'll be everywhere and you'll have to see stuff like this. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's where he was at when he was 12 (warning: mute it)

Ahh, kids these days and their 360 backflips. I remember when I was a boy we were just happy to hop a curb. Progress eh? I suppose if it's going to help him with his 360 flip-whips he can keep his co-linear, 180 degree, straight line, as-low-as-you-can-go geometry (what would you call that?), just as long as he doesn't start hopping around on stuff.

Edit: This just got posted up today. The kid is definitely not hopping around!

Odyssey / GSport: Get Frugal

2009-09-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah fire engine red everything, but did you see that little flash of the new Odyssey Quadrant rim in there? There is a little more information out about this rim now. Specifically that it's pinned rather than welded, making it an economical alternative to the other Odyssey / GSport models. But, it's a pinned rim with a difference. The name Quadrant comes from the fact that it uses 4 pins rather than the standard 2 that hold most cheap rims together. This means that you wont get that annoying little step in the braking surface caused by the mis-alignment of the outer most edge of the rim wall. Simple ideas are often the best + everyone loves a bargain = winner.

There's also a new Ratchet hubguard that is forged rather than machined, so it's also going to save you some cash as well. It looks like this:

And apparently Odyssey have a new sprocket. They may or not save you money:

S&M WTF... what the fuck?

2009-09-25T05:33:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry to do this to you, but I'm going to embed this. You have my sincere apologies for any skating or skaters that you might see, but this is something:

The S&M WTF. Being over here on the other side of the world I don't have that patriotic little piece of DNA that genetically pre-disposes me to loving everything that S&M do. But I like this. Sure all these ideas aren't going to work. Maybe even none of them will end up as practical, but it's a whole lot of radically different ideas packed into one bike. It'd be cool to ride the thing and see how it feels.

In case you didn't watch the video, here's the run down: The S&M WTF is a complete bike that weighs in at 20lbs without a piece of titanium in sight (and at a guess I'd say without any post-weld heat treatment either). The fork legs are shorter by 1/2". Wtf? To save weight. And the head tube is 5/8" shorter than a standard frame. That's got to really change the geometry of the frame - have they adjusted the BB height and head angle to compensate? Don't know.

Then there's the shorter pitch chain and the sprocket with little miniature teeth to fit the chain! Wtf? Apparently this allows for even smaller drive trains than what's around now. Read: 7 tooth rear driver. It's an interesting idea, but it's going to have to do some serious self-promotion before everyone rushes out for new sprockets, drivers and chains.

Next: The Black hole dropouts on fork and frame. Clearly it'll work on the fork, though I think people will need a little convincing as to the point of it, but on the back end? Wtf? How's that going to work? Really small drive trains with no chain adjustment sounds like chain slap hell to me.

And just for the record, not only does the hub have brass bushings replacing the driver bearings, but there are also little holes drilled in each of the driver teeth. It's all getting very cute.

Sunday @ InterBike

2009-09-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

A closer look at some more of the Sunday stuff with Jim C videos shot by BMX feed.

This one's got the 3rd wave tubing, new removable mounts and cable guide system:

This one takes a pretty good look at the new completes that are looking damn nice:

This is kind of a Sunday product. It's Kink's rip of Sundays hollow drop outs and who better to introduce them than Jim himself with some words taken from his Facebook:

"Here it is! Bootleg hollow dropouts by my own distributor and former sponsor Kink! Wow!"

Animal @ InterBike 09

2009-09-24T23:51:00.000-07:00

Animal were keeping it in the gutter at Interbike with a bit of a street stall:

Though the hardcore would be questioning whether a plastic peg was keeping it street, but really steel pegs? You're living in 2007. Who goes to InterBike in 2009 and drops a steel peg. Not Animal. The new Butcher peg has an aluminium inner and plastic outer sleeve, similar to the Demolition numbers. It's light and it slides good. Oh, and it has approximately 1/100th the lifespan of a steel peg. But don't be too hard on 'em, they've still got the OG 2.0's and Light 2.0's if you like steel. Check 'em here.

They were showing a multi-tool as well:

Go deaf watching the video here.

NOT InterBike 09

2009-09-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

Just so your brain doesn't blow on product news. Clip. Watch it big:

New Profile Hubs

2009-09-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

New hubs from Profile is big news. So here's the big news:

At this stage they're being called "Elite" hubs, which apparently isn't their final name and although these look to be racing specific, there is a 14mm version with a 9t driver. I don't have any details on what's actually inside these hubs, but they do bring up a few questions. The name "Elite" would suggest that these are a step up from Profile Mini cassettes - could bmx hubs really get any more elite / expensive than the Mini? It's either that or Profile are getting all marketing-speak on your ass and calling a cheaper model a more expensive name, but since Madera is locked in as being their affordable product line that seems unlikely. So the question remains - what makes these hubs the elite of the elite?

Anyway, they're looking nice and clean and there is definitely a saving in machine time on the hub shell that might allow them to put in a few more internal features - Different bearings? More pawls? New materials? According to Profile all will be revealed officially some time after InterBike. But for now, that matte green anodising is looking the goods and is definitely a step away from the techni-colour of the current Profile range.

Edit: Check the comments for official news from Christian at Profile.

They've got a new spline drive sprocket (Demolition have actually also gone that road - if you take a good hard look here) that looks interesting:

And they've I suppose you'd say it makes sense for them to do an 7075 aluminium peg. So they have:

InterBike Incidentals

2009-09-24T04:55:00.000-07:00

Just a few Interbike bits and pieces:

Klaus from WTP / Eclat has a vid up on Ride where he talks you through their stuff. You get a look at the Eclat complex seat and post combo that's looking slick in clear with an anodized gold inner sleeve. Vid here (corporate milk warning!). You also get a good look at the fork prototype below that uses investment cast dropouts. :

Demolition have come up with something new in pegs - though I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Now for the first time the grind friendliness of a plastic sleeve has been combined with the strength of 7075 aluminium. Or is that the softness of plastic combined with the softness of aluminium. Judgement reserved: the proof is in the ledge. You can either squint at the picture below or check this vid.

MacNeil have a 22.2mm pivotal post out. The theory being that everyone runs their seat slammed so why bother with a 1 inch post when you can save weight with a 7/8". Kind of makes sense, but really is it worth it? Jay himself doesn't seem too sure in this vid. Anyway, the rest of the MacNeil range is looking really nice and you can definitely see Harrison's hand in the colourways and textures etc. Apparently there's a couple of new stems. A front and top load of similar design:

Thomas Goring from KHE talks you through some of the Shola stuff in this vid (Milk warning). Including a nice looking new stem that looks to use a similar clamp to the KHE Anchor bar / stem combo and he also goes over one of new KHE Shola street completes that seems to have a very slim set of Shola pedals on the bike that the camera is trying to check out, but Thomas doesn't touch.

WeThePeople 2010 Parts

2009-09-24T04:12:00.000-07:00

Yep another flippin' WeThePeople book. This time it's the 2010 parts catalogue:

Probably the most noteworthy bit would be the new cassette - the Supreme Switch. It uses the Q-lite like the old Supreme, but you can switch the pawls around in driver so that like the Ratchet you can run it left or right drive. That's pretty much a win for the shops and distros, but the win for the kid who's going to ride it comes with the fact that there is a total of six bearings in there and 4 in the driver alone and that's got to equal longer bearing life. Doesn't it?. Despite the fact that there's a lot of bearings in a little driver, the weight is still down to a very respectable 16oz.

The Supreme Switch: Six pawls, six bearings, two drive sides, 16 ounces.

So they've got five frames all up and not a single mandatory sub 4.5 lb trend whore in sight. In fact non of them are even sub 4.8 which is admirably modest, but the Elektro has gone full born-again-virgin and covered up with an extra ounce or two. That said all bar the Elektro have a 13.22 rear end - and that is kind of slutty.

There are plenty of investment cast parts welded into the various frames and forks in the form of drop outs, bridges and seat clamps. But with the Mike Brennan / Max Gaertig Warriors frame not only do you get two pros for the price of one, but you get all the tricky bits including those dropouts which you would have seen already:

I'm loving the way the back end of this frame looks. The smooth curve made by the inside of the dropout and the curved bridges gives it a kind of old school looptail look, while at the same time using a technology which is new to bmx and an innovation in frame design.

If you were to say to me:

"This ain't no innovation, just a useless bit of fashion!"

I would probably say to you:

"But bro, they're creating 3D forms that are inherently stronger than a 2D cnc'd or lasercut design and moving the weld away from the stress point at the tip of the rear triangle. What's more they allow for tighter fit between the dropout and stay tubing that allows for a neater and stronger weld. If you'd pull your head out of your ass and you might smell the innovation!"

Then we'd have a punch up.

Klaus from WTP / Eclat actually has different things to say about them and you can listen to them here. But first you'll have to drink a warm glass of corporate milk.

According to a couple of little guys that I've had words with the set up costs for investment casting makes it an option only for the big guys, which is a shame, cause it would be interesting to see what other variations on shape and form would come up. There is definitely a lot of potentially to subtly change the look of a bmx frame by adding in some more interesting "designed" shapes or logo details for people to hate on. But remember... hate is great.

Sunday's Booth and the 3rd Wave

2009-09-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

Sunday have up a flip of their InterBike booth:

Notables include some rad looking completes and a look at their 3rd wave tubing:

Some pics of the 3rd wave were up on TCU a while back and got loads of people commenting, including Jim C. As well as letting everyone know that Adam is a naughty boy, he had some words to say about the the 3rd wave tubing:

"As always Adam is good at leaking info that he shouldn’t. As most of you know, Sunday is always trying new and inventive ways to improve a BMX bike’s performance. Which is why other companies are heat treating frames, copying our hollow dropouts, doing angled brake mounts and using Black Magic rustproof coating on their parts. There’s stuff we do that we can’t even say because it will get copied. We made a few samples of Funday’s and Wave’s with the waved top tube because the wave downtube has been proven so strong. Why not improve the strength of the whole front end by using a stronger top tube? The current Second Wave and Funday frames are easily the toughest frame we’ve done so far. Jake has only been on this frame for a few days now, so there’s many more months of testing to be done with it. The earliest you might see this would be late spring of 2010. As always Sunday will continue to design and make products that will fit the rider’s needs."

There you go straight from the J.C's mouth.

DeGrooted

2009-09-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

Just an update on Chad DeGroot's Deco brand. He's got a nice little interview up on ESPN where he talks about his motivation for getting Deco going. And he's also done the old InterBike video booth check here.

Odyssey @ Interbike

2009-09-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

Interbike is off and running and what better way to kick it off than with an Odyssey booth check:

As colourful as you'd expect. There is a pic of their new quadrant rim in there too. Here's a closer look:

Looks like a rim, but the cross section is where it's at so keen to check that.

There's also a vid with Jim Bauer going through their shit here.

Chad DeGroot is Raw!

2009-09-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

Does it seem to you that bmx gets more and more fragmented all the time? Lots of little boxes to
Either way, bear with me a second: You’ve got your low top tube trendies v. staunch high tt geometry enforcers. There’s your light weight digi-scale obsessors v. back-in-my-day heavy weight protectors or the roasted brakeless street slackers v. the protein shaking gyro gymnasts.

It’s getting harder and harder to choice the hard and soft goods and piece together a fitting bmx persona for yourself. That is what you're doing isn't it? Anyway it’s almost enough to make you want to put your seat post to a comfortable level, put on a front brake, Chicago your bars and do one-footed, x-up kickturns in your driveway.

My point here is acutually that there is a clear new division emerging. The Raw v. The Colour kids. Raw is definitely the mode preferred at my local park and has even been taken to new levels of rawness with the spray bottle of salt water used to create a very even layer of rust over a frame. Sounds dumb, looks good. Probably not great if you value your warranty, but at least you're hard. Here are some of the contenders in this new sub-sub-cultural divide:

Fly are definitely in the colour camp and their 2010 stuff will allow you to match your pedals to your cables, to your brakes, to your brake pads. You may now view a shitty quality image of said stuff right here.

Failure have a new Jerimiah Smith frame called the Flying Lion that is r-r-r-raw:

More shots here.

Mutiny have a new frame called the Lucky Strike that cleverly combines paint job and decals to mess with your eyes:

Bright. Looks like they've also got some new forks on the way.

The graphics on Colony’s Gnarkill frame are obscenely colourful:

But for the pinnacle of rawness. Chad DeGroot’s “brand” Deco Bmx which kind of looks legitimate, despite his website being the least legitimate company website imaginable – it’s an odd mix of porn (how are those two kids in the background not curious as to what's going down on the mini ramp?), new born babies and general freakiness.

But there is even a selection of bmx parts on show that may just be a product line… or they might be some stickered up things he found in someone’s garden shed. Actually the frame is complete with bullet tipped stays and a logo’d lasercut seat-stay bridge and seems very unlikely to be a hoax.

Upon further examination of this rawness, it appears there is a pair of forks with removable 990 mounts that will do their part to create harmony between the front brake and brakeless sub-sets. Despite this gesture, the level of raw product combined with a website unmatched in bmx for it’s raw female content, you've got to say that Chad DeGroot is raw!

Nothing Flashy, Nothing Trashy

2009-09-14T04:40:00.000-07:00

You know Salt? It's a brand that was put together by WeThePeople just so they could spec their completes with something a little more dignified than generic unbranded parts. It actually started out as not much more than generic parts with the Salt logo applied, but WTP have been quietly building it up into a force of it's own and it's now all available after-market.

The "quietly" part probably comes from the fact that the parts are pretty much designed to not stand out or break new ground, but just to be cheap, functional and respectable. I think it's pretty safe to say that ideal is reflected in the flip book that out now - nothing flashy, but nothing trashy:

Coming from dudes that already have a 2 top notch stand alone brands in Eclat and WeThePeople, not to mention all the Fuse protection stuff, it's pretty damn impressive that they've put together such huge catalogue of stuff right down to double-butted spokes and alloy nipples. I'm impressed anyway.

Volume and Demolition 2010

2009-09-13T05:02:00.000-07:00

I knew that Volume / Demolition had dabbled a little in the fixed gear world with their Cutter frame and Fu Manchu fork, but I'd just put that down to a case of fixie-curious, but it may be more serious. Their 2010 flip book that came out recently is all in all a very pro package, but as I was flip bookin' through I realised that I was staring at a page of fixed gear specific handlebars of various rises depending on how much of a barspinner you are. To be honest I thought the whole fixed gear freestyle thing was a phenomenon that would eventually fade away. Apparently it's not, but anyway, here's the book:

There's also a new cassette hub in there called the Rolls, which is a simple male axle set up. It's got a polymer bushing in the driver, is available in 8 and 9 tooth only and compatible with Demolition's screw on hub guard. For the record it's 14.3 oz's light and looks like this:

Demolition is now officially yet another late entry into the 2009/2010 PC pedal spectacular, with a fetching pedal that has been spat from a mold kinda different, but kinda the same as half the other entrants:

Lasty and leasty, let's round up this wrap-up with the newest of photographs of the undisputed yard-stick of bmx creativity:

Charles Chappell / BlueSix Bikes Interview

2009-09-06T03:35:00.000-07:00

I occasionally ride with a guy who’s a machinist and is obsessed by titanium. As you’d expect from a guy of that description, his bike is like a half titanium cyborg of a bmx with all the usual suspects like spindles, axles, pegs, bar ends, bolts, cranks, but also a stem that he’s chopped out of a solid ti block complete with a Transfomer logo milled into the front of it. It’s not lighter than an alloy stem – he just a titanium nut.

My point here is that there’s something about titanium that gets a hold on people. It could be that it’s used in jet engines and spacecraft and just about any self-respecting high performance machinery, or it could be that metallic white freshly machined look that it has raw. I myself have been known to shell out Ebay dollars on off-cuts for future projects that are still in the future and I just like that you’re holding in your hand a piece of metal that looks heavy, but feels light. It’s like magic, although “excellent strength to weight ratio” may be a slightly more accurate technical description.

So if you’re a machine head, chances are you like titanium. Combine that with the fact that if you ride bikes, chances are you’re conscious of the weight of your whip and then it’s clear that there’s a bmx market for the stuff. Of course it’s been played with it before – think RNC, Knight, Brand X – but you’d have to say with limited degrees of success.

Hold on a minute! This ain't the same ol' same ol'. The fact that this BlueSix upgrade decreases the weight of a pair of Odyssey PCs while simultaneously increasing the potential colour combinations, means that it's impossible for anyone to convince me that it wont be a winner.

But the current titanium-man-of-the-moment is Charles Chappell. You’ve probably heard of BlueSix Bikes – he’s the man behind it and is definitely doing things a little differently. The name BlueSix says a lot in that it sums up his idea to simplify and standardise the tools you need to work on your bike by designing hardware upgrades that all use a 6mm allen key. On top of that he’s going outside your standard stem and crank bolts and doing product specific upgrades for parts like the Gsport Ratchet and KHE Geisha freecoaster. They’re all CNC machined from Ti6Al4V titanium alloy, are available in anodised colour variations and look the goods.

Charles was up for answering a few questions about BlueSix and he’s dropping some new product as well, so if you like your bike tight or light, read on:

The Interview:

Jeff: Hey Charles, thanks for being up for saying a few words and showing us some of your new stuff, could you just start us off with a basic run down of how and why you started BlueSix Bikes and the idea behind it?

Well, I've aspired to start a little bike company since I began riding at age twelve. I have always had fun modifying my bike and drawing up new ideas for parts. I guess I felt it was time to fulfil my childhood dream.

The idea behind Bluesix is to make your bike exactly how you want it. What I like about bikes is they are half way between a skateboard and a car. You can ride it and have fun doing tricks, but you can customize it like a car. I just wanted to focus on upgrades and small specialty parts that add the finishing touch.

The official finishing touch

Doing titanium bolts and hardware is pretty specific and at the high end, price-wise, when it comes to bmx parts, but it seems like there’s plenty of people keen to lavish hip pocket love on their bikes.

I don't think the prices are out of reach for most people. I mean, there are plenty of people that buy new frames or parts just to keep their bike fresh. A 20 dollar axle bolt isn't much compared to a 300-400 dollar frame. I just think that people have a hard time justifying a 20 dollar bolt when they usually cost 3 bucks. Bluesix may not be for everyone, but there are people out there that understand how much goes into a Bluesix product and are willing to pay a premium price.

You like? Pay the premium and ratchet your Ratchet up a notch

Generally speaking, how’s business? Can you tell us what kind of volumes you’re pumping out? What’s your big seller and which colours are people most into?

I keep busy. There are some products that collect dust, but some of them are gone as soon as I get them. I work with very small volumes, anywhere from 25-500 units depending on the product. Stem bolts sell the fastest with crank bolts close behind.

As for the colors, Raw Ti is the most popular. I sell quite a bit of Gold, and Stealth Grey would sell a lot if I could recreate it.

I think I’m right in saying that you do all the machining yourself (?), in your apartment (?). Could you tell us a little about your set up – how big / small it is. You’ve obviously got a lathe in there, but any other machines that you fire up of an evening?

I do not do the production work myself. I would go insane if I attempted to manually machine every bolt on my mini lathe haha. I have a few manufacturers that I work with. The titanium stuff is made overseas to keep the stuff affordable and the aluminum stuff like the 7075 washers and Geisha conversion collars are made here in Lawrence Kansas by a local machine shop. I looked into getting the Ti stuff made here in the states, but it would not be possible to offer the current prices or the warranty.

The Geisha conversion kit: I told you this was more than just some fancy titanium shit

Collars made in the US of A, bolts in the PP of C

I have a small room in my apartment that I call “The Lab”. It's not quite big enough to be considered a bedroom, more of a study room. I have a 7 x 12 mini lathe that I use to modify stuff, make prototypes, and small runs of simple stuff like spacers and adapters. I have a lot of fun with that thing and I am always buying new tooling for it. I'm not sure how my neighbors feel about the noise, but I haven't gotten any complaints. I have a milling attachment for it, but I haven't gotten much use out of it so far because it takes so much time to set it up. I have an anodizing station that I set up and one of the cool little machines I have is an ultrasonic cleaner. I was talking to an engineer at work when I first started anodizing and told him about how I had to clean each bolt individually with a rag and acetone. It was time consuming and the colors didn't come out very consistent. He told me about his anodizing experiences and gave me a line on an ultrasonic cleaner that uses ultrasonic soundwaves to thoroughly clean all the microscopic crevices, and I can clean a bunch of bolts at the same time. My life has been much easier since.

Straight out of the lab: Some new stuff from BlueSix. "Clear mouldings + anodized titanium upgrades = positive consumer response" - Jeff 2009

Anodizing titanium – is it exactly the same process as anodizing aluminium?

Titanium anodizing is quite different than aluminum anodizing. Basically the way aluminum anodizing works is colored dyes are absorbed into the small pores in the surface of the metal. Titanium anodizing doesn't use dye at all. The colors are dependant on the thickness of the oxide layer which is determined by the amount of voltage applied. For example, Blue is about 30V, Gold 60V, Purple 75V, Green 100V. You can get a whole spectrum of colors and shades. The way it works is the light is reflected off of the surface and the different wavelengths are perceived as colors through the human eye.

These anodized titanium crank bolts are actually all the same colour. It's just them damn wavelengths fuckin' with your eyes' perception again!

People can get pretty tense and opinionated about light weight parts and although the shouting has (mostly) died down and just about everyone at least considers the weight of their bike, even if they’re not obsessed by it. Do you think people are into BlueSix upgrades more for the way they look and the dialled detail that they bring to your bike or the performance factors like the weight and the 6mm standard?

It depends on the person. Some people have fun with finding ways to see how light they can get their bike, but I think most people are into Bluesix because the stuff makes your bike easier to work on and the stuff looks awesome.

To the standard questions now - well, they’re standard for the one interview I’ve done so far, but anyway… In your opinion, is there something that BMX design needs more of?

I think bmx is evolving in the right direction. I would like to see more focus on standards. We need to decide on one bottom bracket size because I've seen a few of my friends get a new frame and had to wait until they got new bearings to ride it. I guess companies would sell less bottom brackets, but it would be easier on the consumer. Also American companies need to go metric. S&M/Fit knows what's up because they switched their stems to metric so people don't have to use a 1/4” allen key anymore. Now Profile needs to follow and make it easier on everybody. I watched one of my friends search through a tool box trying out each size allen key in his profile cranks. I told him it was a 7/32” and he didn't have the right size so he ended up riding with loose cranks. I hooked him up with Bluesix bolts so he doesn't have to worry about it now.

6mm is the new 7/32”

Something it could use less of?

Holes.

What are some of the other BMX companies, or brands outside of BMX, whose design and / or outlook you appreciate?

My inspirations stem from my favorite companies when I was young; VG made all kinds of little parts that made the bike come together as a whole, and Brand X produced lots of Ti stuff that made people drool.

I look up to Chris King and Thomson for their high standards, Tree for how much thought is put into their products, Fly for being innovative and changing the standards, and G-sport for making strong and reliable designs.

Brands outside of bmx that I find inspiration in are VW, Lamborghini, and BMW.

So it’s all going along smooth and you’ve got some new products in the works. How far do you want to take it? Would you move outside doing only Ti stuff and maybe move on to doing hubs or other parts? What about going outside the bmx market – those roadies seem like they ain’t short of a buck?

The sky is the limit. I didn't plan on starting a bolt company, or making so much titanium stuff, it just happened. I just went with it and people kept requesting different bolts, so I made what they wanted. I've been putting in a lot of time in designing parts like stems and hubs, but it will be a long time before they are ready because I like to take my time and make sure it comes out exactly how I envision it. I want to work with team riders and make stuff they like. My dream product is a freecoaster that doesn't suck. I really want to offer affordable grade 8 steel versions of the bolts. I'm going to interbike this year so hopefully that will open up some doors for me.

As far as venturing outside of bmx, I would like to make stuff for all kinds of bikes since I love riding anything with pedals, but I don't really have any plans for it right now because I have so many ideas for bmx.

In the case that you picked that the Odyssey PC upgrade at the top of the interview was shown without bearings or bushings... That's because it's still in the prototype phase. Charles is currently messing around with needle bearing and plastic bushing combos, but here's the inspiration - a bent stock PC spindle. So he's beefed up the Ti and, of course, it'll come 6mm equipped

Shout outs? Final words of wisdom?

I would like to thank my mom for everything. She would always keep me busy with projects and taught me how to make stuff. My wife Rachel has helped me so much with Bluesix. Without her none of this would be possible. Shout outs to all my homeboys; Na, John, Daniel, Goldfanga, Abe, T-Love, Damon thanks for the solidworks help, Kyle, Dave, My nephew Chris the pigeon man, Dirty Joe, Lucas, Ben, Wiley, Mo, Adam, my team riders Jon Saunders and Big James, Tom from Empire thanks for generating a huge spike of interest, Rayn from Danscomp thanks for the technical help, Brian from Re-cylery thanks for hookin it up, thanks to everyone that has bought a Bluesix product I really appreciate your support, and of course thanks to Jeff for this interview and letting people know what Bluesix is all about.

Final words of wisdom: Life is short so keep it real and do whatever makes you happy.

... you can't fault that, but you can head over to BlueSix if you want open your wallet for any of the stuff above.

Volcanicus Boltious

2009-09-06T02:52:00.000-07:00

Forged from subterraneous erruptions of bolt-manship, they are here:

They work with some hubs:
» G-Sport Marmoset
» G-Sport Monkey
» G-Sport Fat Shaft MkII
» G-Sport Fat Shaft (1995 onwards)
» Odyssey Vandero 2
» Demolition Mary-Kate front
» Shadow Raptor Front
» Colony Clone Front

But not with others:
» G-Sport Fat Shaft (1994 -1995)
» Profile Mini Front
» Madera Pilot Front
» Fly Bikes Front
» Eclat Teck front
» WTP Supreme Front

If you crave more information, you will find it here.

Actually this post is a nice little lead-in to the interview that I'm about to put up. The keywords in this guessing game are: "slick bolts" and "6mm allen key". You with me?

Flippin' Heck

2009-09-02T03:47:00.000-07:00

It's pre-InterBike flip book mania.

Fit have one up with their full 2010 range, including 20 complete bikes with not a brakeless model amongst them. Neither is there an embed code but you can check it here.

The next is another big American - Eastern. They are slacking somewhat with just 19 completes (even a few of them are the dreaded mtb's), but they are right up there matching Fit in the unembeddable flip book challenge. You can check theirs here somewhere.

There is just so many bikes, grips, tyres, pedals, shirts and everything else that it just makes your face hurt looking at it all, let alone reading everything. But even at a skim it's interesting looking at just how different the two brands are. Fit's all quality photos and minimal layout while Eastern just piles as much shit as they can in there with photos that look like they've been taken by your mum and graphics laid out by your dad. That's harsh, but my point is that they do things completely differently, yet both sell a shitload of bmx paraphernalia.

This pretty much sums up the difference:

Absolute chaos...

...v.s Absolute clean

And when it comes to the words, I'd say Eastern has crammed about 2000 into the first few pages, including a detailed analysis of how to identify whether you're a "Beginner, Intermediate, Expert, Pro and Team" rider and a very scientific chart to decide upon your TT length. But there is also a dark side to all this information that no kid will ever read:

Since you still didn't read it, you wouldn't have seen that bit that warned of other brands hiding subpar products behind flashy advertising. Is that code for "read on to find flashy products behind subpar advertising?"

Of course for the sake of cleanliness Fit have put there message more simply with some short but thoughtful quotes:

OK, that's enough about that. I've said more or less nothing, so let's move on and pretend it never happened.

Back to flip-mania. Eclat also have a flip book for you to... flip through:

And just so you're sure that Klaus at WeThePeople is not a lazy man, you can flip the Fuse too:

Cosmic Brake Alignment

2009-08-31T04:05:00.000-07:00

This blog is already bordering on being a Fly fanzine I know, but I put the blame squarely on their stream of simple ideas. And on that note, here's another:

Surprise! It's a new removable brake mount design!

The titanium grub screw market is now officially wide open

Up until a couple of years ago kids were suffering the obscenity of having impotent and demoralised brake mounts de-cooling their life when they rode street. Inexcusable. And frame manufacturers were being forced into producing two versions of every frame just to keep these little pricks (ahem... valued customers) happy. Ying was not yang.

So desperate was this situation that Fly came up with the idea of removeable mounts and, not surprisingly, every frame manufacturer saw the chance to realign their inventory chakras and jumped on board. Fair enough, but you think that one of them could at least have chipped in and done their part in the evolution of the idea. Instead Fly have done the evolving, and now, by undoing a little grub screw in your frame, you can remove the brake bosses with brakes still attached and so avoid fiddling cables, barrels and knarps each time you do it.

That's good, but were I see the major advantage is that when you turn 30, you can just put your brakes back on without having to avoid the temptation to buy a 24" or worse still - a cruiser.

In terms of exactly how this all happens it's probably easiest if you just watch Sergio:

Since most people either ride brakes or don't, you'd have to say the original idea was a bigger deal than this in that the real advantage was for the frame manufacturers and that race has been run already. But since this design shouldn't cost any more than the current standard, it's hard to see why those manufacturers won't now switch to similar systems - it's like something for nothing. And who doesn't like something for nothing? It's just so much better than nothing for something. Follow?

From Russia with...

2009-08-27T03:50:00.000-07:00

You remember those hubs from the new Russian brand Infect, that I posted a week back. You know, one looked bad and one looked good? I've got to admit that in a glass half empty moment, I more or less disregarded the nice simple looking one and, in my own mind, tarred the Infect brand with the light-weight, loud-mouth brush that was presented by the other.

Well, these cranks made me think again:

They're machined from bits of 7075, that most hard-ass and inflexible of all the aluminium alloys used in bmx bikes. So that's different. And they've also got that nice simple machine aesthetic thing going on. But looks aren't everything right - there does seem to be at least a little weirdness going on. That little plate with the crank bolt is odd, and it does seem weird that the pinch bolt pinches together the thread that accepts the crank bolt. Or is it that the crank bolt plate holds apart the thread that the pinch bolt pinches? Well, it must work and the look of them works for me.

But there is one final Infect mystery that I need an answer to... What the hell does their logo mean?

Bikes are Nice

2009-08-24T02:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a little something from Fly on the new bits that they've got happening at the moment. Ideas are high, resolution is low:

Those investment cast bridges look particularly nice with different style for each of the models, though they do leave me with a little tinge of guilt since months ago I made the mistake of declaring that I was putting together a post about the investment casting technique that Fly and WTP have started using for for fork and frame dropouts. So now they've done a bunch of bridges too and I ain't done shit. Life's hard.

One thing that's distinctly missing from the layout above is the Fly cassette hub. You've got to wonder if it's hit the wall, cause none of their team seem to be riding it. There was that KP bike check the other day he was rocking Profile and Javier Ortega's got a bike check up on Transworld and he's riding a Mini too. I was really looking forward to seeing what angle Fly would bring to cassettes and how the hell they were going to get down to the 12 oz mark that they had put out there. So is it all over, or is it in an unmarked box headed for InterBike. Either way Javier's always got a nice looking bike for those that remain unoffended by the simple functionality of a brake:

Speaking of nice looking, when it comes to manufacturing precision machine porn, the Germans are going to win every time. They're just not that good at making cheap rubbish. You've only got to take a look at Svevo Bikes to confirm that. No new fangled T.I.G welded frames there. They've gone the full craftsman route and fillet braze their frames, which means that you end up with pretty much no visible weld bead:

Clean. But is this cleanliness enough for you to shell out US$850 (just a little over A$1000) for a frame? If it were, you would have to go full Bauhaus, let the beauty of the construction shine through and adorn it with nothing more than clear coat over the stone cold craftsmanship - wouldn't you? The Svevo frames hit the scales at 2180 precisely calibrated German grams. That's 4.8 lbs to you.

Final frame news for the day is that Colony have a few shots up of their new models for 2010. Whacky paint jobs are officially in:

If you would like to see a pic of all four pro models for 2010 you can search amongst the Flash web death here.

Infectious Hub Love

2009-08-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

Infect BMX is a new company coming out of Russia (that is without website) and distributed by Underground and these photos of their hubs that have been getting a bit of attention recently:

The X-tra LITE front hub

The Transformer front hub

Those photos are nice but there are some digi scale ones that shed the light on why they've been getting the attention that they have. The X-tra LITE (see how they got creative there and dropped the "E" from extra, added a dash, spelt "light" lite and put it all in capitals - you know there's something special going on there) weighs 5.3 oz (150 g) and the Transformer hub is a bloated 6.4 oz (181 g). Personally, if I were looking to get infected I'd sacrifice the 31 gram difference, go for the Transformer and run a nice simple looking hub, rather than one that obnoxiously shouts "LITE!"

There's also the question of why they've used the titanium sleeve in the hub body - Titanium is heavier than alloy so...?

Anyway now they've clarified details of the hubs by posting up some blurred photos.

Seats are pretty much the T-shirts of bmx. They're all more or less the same, but you can try and choose one that broadcasts a reflection of your personality to the world. They're sometimes rad, sometimes bad. These ones are new from UGP and I'll leave the rad/bad catagorisation up to you:

UGP pivotals

There's also some new stuff from UGP themselves, the like sprockets and bar ends, up on their site and you can check them here.

AusBike Round Two

2009-08-19T04:43:00.000-07:00

So I mentioned that I had a bit more stuff to post from AusBike. Well there actually isn't much, but I'll try and string it out a little - no killer, just filler.

I had seen a black version of the SE X DC track bike a while back and thought it was pretty average, probably cause the only shots you ever saw were of the badge. And as it turns out the badge is pretty much all that DC seemed to have done for the project :

The bike's nice though and for mine the looptail looks better on this sized frame than it ever did on a bmx. And if you do actually have some remote interest in fixies, singlespeeds or whatever, the spec is pretty good. Velocity rims on a Sugino hubset, Oury grips and the rest is pretty much all SE. Except the badge.

You probably haven't had a look at the SE website lately for fear of seeing something like this. But let me just tell you, they have a shit load of bikes - I didn't count them, but I'd say there's maybe 40 in total.

And on the Kickass stand I got to have a look at that new Superstar stem that I posted a pic of along with their new hubs a couple of weeks back. It's a pretty standard top load with plenty of negative space. Looks nice:

But I'll leave you with true innovations. Kids, if your friends are hating cause you ain't got no manual - solution. And if you want to keep your head together without losing your street credibility - covered.

How long till InterBike?

Flying

2009-08-19T04:23:00.000-07:00

Kevin Porter bike check off Vinyl with a closer look at the prototype plastic Ruben pedals and their new removable brake mounts that you can take on and off without having to adjust your brakes. Nice. And the riding... very nice.

In the interests of promoting Australian music to the world, I would like to note that the song in that clip was incorrectly labeled. I would post the incorrectly labeled clip, but this is better:

Cheese, Wine and Meth

2009-08-16T04:13:00.000-07:00

Melbourne just had a weekend of wind and rain and general anti-bike-riding weather that leaves you back to work on Monday feeling unsatisfied. But it does make for good AusBike weather. AusBike is like Australia's little version of what I imagine InterBike to be, but since there was some BMX stuff on show so I dutifully attened.

Along with the Australian distros like Triplesix, Kick Ass BMX and Elite Cycle Imports, Colony also had a stand showing off all their 2010 stuff like the Descendent completes and the new Phantom frame all built up and looking fine.

The Phantom is Liam Fahy-Hampton's new signature frame and I'll tell you something about him that you wouldn't know unless you've done the same exhaustive research that I have, unturned every stone and even read his team page on the Colony site. And that is that he enjoys fine wine and cheeses. That's a 100kg street ape that drinks shiraz and manipulates cheese with one of those upturned fork-knife things. That's cool, I like cheese. I wonder if Mike Hoder likes cheese? I always thought of him as more of a Meth kind of guy, but maybe he's just a Merlot man. Either way check this edit and you'll have to agree that he is in some way altered.

So back to Colony... Here's a few photos of new stuff and modified stuff for 2010:

Pivotals that look like... pivotals. Nuts.

New graphics everywhere and a little extra machining on their hub shells. Why? Why not?

Colony cranks now have an extra little hole on the crank bolt boss. Interesting eh?

Pretty sure the rest is business as usual. Like I said, AusBike is pretty small but I'll post up a couple more photos in the next day or two. Until then, just sit back and try to keep your excitment in check.

BMX Habitat

2009-08-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

This is not bmx and it's probably already been Defgripped eons ago, but it does involve transitions and if you just shift your focus to the word "Design" in my title tag, we're even safely on topic...

It's a house in Athens that is designed to be fully skateable. It's by some architects called Archivirus and if you were to upsize it all x3 in some warehouse space or just apply the same principal inside the hellish shell of an Australian McMansion you might even be able to ride a bike in there.

Nice.

Turtle Power

2009-08-11T04:22:00.000-07:00

At the risk of alienating the small but perfectly formed readership that come here exclusively craving bmx product content, I'm going to post this thing:

Aaahhhh! Cover your eyes, it's a mountain bike stem!

That's true, but it is intriguing. Not least because the only information that I can find is in German and as a result I can't really work out what the fuck is going on and where the big innovation is. It's called the Strata btw and it's made by a company called Kodex.

My trusty German translator-ette, who turns out to be less trusty than required when it comes to technical bicycle terminology, leads me to believe that it's a three piece "sandwich" design that "almost completely encloses the handlebars" (hmmm... that's fine, but we are going to need a little bit sticking out at the sides to hold on to) and that "the screw torque is reduced", thus "decreasing the load at the clamp". Don't worry, I've already sacked her.

I see it like this:
It's an alien robot turtle head with lots of small screws in it, that despite being for mountain bikes would be very popular with kids should a bmx version be produced as the three part design allows for maximum mix'n'match colour coding combinations points and it weighs in at just 188 grams or 6.6 oz.

If you take a close look at the pic above you'll see that there does seems to be something going on with the compression cap being extended down into the stem where a flange on it is then sandwiched between the upper and lower parts of the stem. This innovation makes the *flangelessness* of regular stems seem blunt and pre-historic by comparison.

But seriously, if you actually do speak German could you do me a favour and have a quick read of this, this or this and let me know what the hell is going with this thing?

Jimmy Röstlund / Eject BMX Interview: Part 2

2009-08-07T05:26:00.000-07:00

If your thinking "What's this? Who the hell is Jimmy Röstlund?" then you obviously haven't read part 1, and you should check it here. Otherwise, please read on... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had seen a few pics of the hub in mags and what-not and it looked pretty slick, but I was in a bike shop one day, just having a look around, and the guy behind the counter said “check this thing out” and started taking apart your hub. The tolerances between the cones, bearings, shell was all so precise it was like it was part of some kind of high tech machine part – maybe like a piece of a helicopter or something. And it turns out that you used to work as a “helicopter component technician” (not as rad as it sounds apparently) amongst loads of other stuff. Do you think that kind of work has had an influence on your design work, or the kind of stuff you want to design? Outside of bmx what other stuff influences you design work?

I've never really tried to pinpoint where my "design style" comes from. I've just always had this tendency to like things that are no-frills, straight forward and functional and of course - well made. I've always been rather meticulous about that I do and I want everything to be as close to perfect as possible and to meet my high standards. I can't stand doing shit half-assed. There has been times when some parts or prototypes have not met my expectations and when that happens it really brings me down, but at the same time that pushes me to step it up and make sure it works out better next time. Unfortunately I'm not always the person in control.

As for influences... I don't really feel influenced by anything in particular, right now I can't think of any real influences at all. I often see stuff that sparks ideas, even if the thing I see is something completely different from the idea it sparked. Not a perfect example of that statement is the original idea for the front hub that I got when I saw the Brunn straight pull hub, which looks and works rather different from what I ended up with.

Talking about the tolerances in the hub. You got the initial production run machined in Sweden, but now that they’re being made by Simple, I’m assuming they’re done in Taiwan. Were there any issues with getting the same level of control over production once it was moved halfway across the world? What’s the set-up like over there?

With the hubs that were made in Sweden I actually got to assemble every single one myself, so if any of the tolerances were out I would notice it right away. Since I also drilled and countersunk every single spoke hole on the entire batch by hand, which meant that I physically held every hub shell in my hands and could identify flaws that way. It’s obviously not going to be like that when you step it up and take your business to Taiwan. So yeah... there have been some issues. Mainly in the first batch where the tube spacer preventing bearing bind was slightly too long and caused a wobble in some hubs. I was so frustrated about that whole deal and it almost made me want to give up.

The communication with the factories is definitely the biggest issue that I’ve noticed. You really have to deal with a good agent that can translate and communicate the specifics of what is asked of them. Sometimes this does not work exactly as it should and there have been a few occasions where samples are made from the wrong set of drawings for example. Or the time when we wanted a prototype frame with no brake lugs and the dudes in the factory just assumed they were missing from the drawing and welded them on there anyway.

I’ve still not been over there, so I have no first hand experience of what the set-up is like. I’ve seen photos and I’m sure a few people would be surprised at the fact that it’s not this super high tech place with a spotless machine shop floor. From what I've seen it's more like an Asian food market style setup, but somehow they manage their stuff quite well.

Some of the most respected BMX brands still have their manufacturing done in the US while some of the most innovative have it all done in Asia. What do you make of the whole USA v.s Taiwan thing?

I honestly think that as long as you source a good vendor and agent, then the manufacturing quality is on par with US made products most of the time. Sometimes it can probably even be better because they do have excellent techniques and capabilities over there. But the prestige of having a “Made in USA” stamp on a product will probably never wear off. Although the price/quality ratio won’t compare to Taiwan made products.

Alright, multiple choice: There’s a couple of hubs from Éclat and KHE, that came out a bit after the Eject hub. Was that: a) Something you were involved in b) Something else

b) Something else. The official statement from both KHE and Éclat is that prototyping was under way in parallel to my hub being released by Simple and that the design similarities are a coincidence.

Shit's getting flangeless round here...

Did you patent the design and did you approach any other companies with it? And is that the way you want to keep working. Designing stuff on your own and then licensing the designs out to other brands? What would be your ideal work / life set up?

I never did any patenting. Looked into it a little bit but soon realized that it was going to take too much time and effort for something that might not be fruitful in the end. It's been pointed out by many people on BMX forums and whatnot that the “flangeless” design has been around for a long time. It’s been seen on wheelchairs and road bikes before, although that was something I was not aware of at the time when I started working on the design. That means the flangelessness would not have been a patentable aspect. Neither would any of the other features on their own, since none of it was new technology. But the concept of the hub with a replaceable guard might have been.

(edit: I challenge anyone to use the word flangelessness in a conversation that is not about the Eject hub)

The "licensing" thing with Simple only just came about since I was helping out with their other drawings and designs anyway. Then I had the hub thing on my own, but it just made sense to team up and get it all made at the same place. Helped me out a lot for sure, since all the production and distribution channels were already in place.

I'm not the kind of person that will be happy just working in an office environment or just work in a manufacturing environment. I want the best of both worlds. I love working with my hands and actually make stuff myself, but I also love the office part of it as well, coming up with the designs, graphics and so on. For a long time I've been dreaming about having my own prototype / small run machine shop. That way I could earn my living making prototypes and small production runs of stuff (not necessarily for just BMX companies). All the while having the chance to make my own parts and whatnot. But I don't know how a business setup like that would work in real life.

Just about every new part that comes out has it’s fair share of loud online critics. Like there is some kind of in-built progress-phobia in people. Maybe it’s just a bit of healthy caution – I don’t know. But especially if something has a low weight, or a low top tube, then people really get stuck in to it. Good design generally is supposed to make life easier, but a lot of people don’t want the design of a frame or part to make a trick easier. What do you think about that? Is that something that a part design should take into account?

I think that the parts you put on your bike should serve one purpose: To enable you to ride the way you want. If the way you ride, or want to ride, requires you to have a top tube that touches your bottom bracket, then that's just fine by me. Personally I don't really agree with the look of the extremely low top tubes and I have a hard time seeing why it would make tricks easier, so you probably won't see me design or be overly eager to draw a frame like that. But to each their own.

In my personal opinion a part should not restrict your riding, only enhance it, so designing a part that's only good for certain tricks doesn't make much sense to me. The big bar trend has gone a bit too far, which I would assume most riders agree with. I can see why the bigger bars came in the first place - it makes sense to have a comfortable placing of your hands, right around the width of your shoulders, and to not be extremely hunched over. For a time there they were just too narrow and low! But when they become so wide that even the bigger guys have a problem reaching the grips, then something's not completely right. Same deal as usual with the riders pushing a trend too far.

As a reality check, just compare it with doing push-ups... if your hands are placed too far apart or too close it makes it harder and it restricts movement. With the hands just a little wider than your shoulders that's when you have the most freedom of movement and strength. Common sense to me. But then again.. there are many young little kids out there that can hardly reach their grips who shred way better than me, so who am I to talk? Imagine what they could do with a bar their size though...

In your opinion, is there something that BMX design needs more of?

As for good design many bases are covered I'd say, but I still think there is still plenty of room for improvement. I just like to see when companies really take the specifics of how we ride and how our bikes and parts are put through stress and incorporate that in their design/engineering. A BMX is not like any other bike, what works for a mountain bike for example, might not work so good for a BMX. At least not without some adaptation.

Something that you think it could do with less of?

What we don't need more of is the philosophy that just cutting another hole somewhere constitutes "new innovative design". I'm not pointing fingers here, there are plenty of companies guilty of that. In my opinion there's more to it than just removing material "in places where it is not needed". I also don't think we need plastic in more parts of the bike.

Simple's V1 System stem - the CAD model then the finished product. Not often you see holes being removed from a product during it's development

Other than Simple are there other BMX companies, or brands outside of BMX, who’s design and / or outlook you appreciate?

Within BMX there are a few companies that you really have to look up to. I can't get away without mentioning Odyssey, they have had their fair share of freaky products in the past, but they've really been on the forefront of materials and design development in the past few years. That along with their excellent idea of quality and standing behind their product. That's just something you have to respect.

I also admire Fly Bikes for trying different things and thinking outside of the box. They have had some products that didn't work out, but all in all they've pushed BMX in a better direction. In general, I like the smaller companies that do things their own way, putting their heart and soul into it and not just trying to play on the latest trend. Tree Bike Co. is cool as well and we should all be eternally grateful to Standard Bykes and S&M for pushing frame design in the right way back in the day.

Outside of BMX I think it's not a big surprise that I like Apple Computers and most of things they do, the quality and their well thought out design in both hardware and software, I just can't help being impressed.

Where do you want to take Eject in the future? Are you keen to keep collaborating with companies like Simple or would you one day like to make it a stand-alone parts company? Any plans to branch out and design stuff outside of bmx?

For the future my only plan is to keep doing what I do and hopefully make it grow. Taking it in the direction of a stand-alone parts company is definitely somewhere I'd like to see it go later on and hope I will be able to take it there. It's not going to happen overnight, that's for sure. Right now I do all of this outside of my normal full-time job and it takes up a lot of my spare time and takes time away from the people around me.

CAD of the Tempered Bikes stem that Jimmy helped out with. Check their site and some pics of it here

I do quite enjoy working with different companies as I have done now the past year where I've been able to offer my help to a couple of Australian bike companies, namely the not-so-unknown Tempered Bikes and a small company from Cairns named Nightfall Bike Co. I've helped these guys out with the CAD stuff making some drawings and 3D models, not so much with the actual design work - I've just interpreted some napkin drawings basically.

I can't imagine my passion moving too far away from BMX, but if the opportunity arises I'd be happy to do design or drafting / 3D modelling for other types of products and businesses as well. I don't see the reason for limiting myself to just one thing.

Ahhh... and you were wondering if there would ever be a cassette version the Eject hub. Time will tell

Shout outs? Final words of wisdom?

Big thanks go out to my good old friends in Sweden for helping me out when I first started Eject. If it wasn't for them I would not have been able to afford making the initial prototypes (it was really tight with the money back then). I miss you guys, come over here and visit me, the flight is not that bad!

I also have to thank the guys who bought the hubs from the first, Swedish made, batch and who spread the word and gave me input about them. Greatly appreciated! Then of course I have to say thanks to Niels and Simple Bikes for the opportunity to be part of the company and getting my work out there, it's been a great ride so far and I hope it'll go on for a long time.

Moving overseas has been largely a great experience for me and I'm very happy to have made so many friends here in Melbourne. Many of whom are extremely dedicated to the well being of the BMX scene and are passionate about their endeavours and doing great things within the industry. Cooper, Flagz & Jay, who were instant friends to me from he start. All of the Focalpoint crew and also the other locals who have all really made me feel right at home here - it means a lot. Cheers guys!

And of course thanks to you Jeff for thinking of doing this interview.

The End
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Question: When a bike company owner has a kid, what does his design guy get him for a present
Answer: This...

Niels at Simple had a baby recently and Jimmy has used CAD trickery to create a virtual present. Of course you'll notice that the new generation don't run seats... and I think I recognize that hub.

Congrats Niels!

Negative Space

2009-08-05T05:03:00.000-07:00

New 2010 bits and pieces are coming thick and fast:

Superstar have put up some new shots of their Overdrive cassette hub that has a female 3/8 axle system and uses the Q-lite system, which basically means the pawls are mounted in the hub shell and the "teeth" are on the driver. The first photos I saw had it looking a bit agricultural, but the new colours and the matte finish seem to make a big difference. And maybe the shape makes more sense when you see it with the front hub.

If you look at that photo at it's full size and take a look at the stems in the background you'll see that Superstar are also doing what looks like a heavily re-worked version of their Elect stem from 2008. Of course with extra and improved negative space (read: bigger fuckin' holes), plus bigger chamfers all over for 2010 credibility.

Shola also have a seat and post combo out, which looks pretty similar to the Deluxe one, which looks similar the the Gusset one, which looks similar to the KHE one. Can you see the picture that I am subtly painting for you?

And Animal have finalised their entry for the most adjectives required to describe a bmx product with their wedge, stump, pivotal, seat post. Now they just need to do a "lite" version like their pegs and it's in the bag.

Jimmy Röstlund / Eject BMX Interview: Part 1

2009-08-02T23:07:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago I decided that rather than posting up my opinions based on absolutely no bike industry experience whatsoever, I'd try and get some people who actually know what they're talking about to say some words that I could put on this thing and enlighten you.

Around the same time I was thinking about interviews, I made a post about Simple Bike Co and specifically mentioned that I liked the fact that they don’t do loads of colour variations. A few hours after I published it the Defgrip stamp of approval was given to the Eject BMX blog, I followed the link and, predictably, discovered that Simple were set to release a range of new colours. But, I also discovered that Jimmy Röstlund, who basically is Eject BMX, also does design work for Simple and is currently living in my home town of Melbourne.

Still, it took me a while to put two and two together. I was a fan of the Eject hub and of Simple's design style, and Jimmy is obviously right into the design side of bmx and knows how to string some words together - so I should hit him up for an interview. So I did, he was keen, I wrote some stuff, he wrote some more, and now you can read it. Oh yeah, and it's really long so you'll get the second half later in the week.

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Jimmy Röstlund Interview: Part 1

Despite spending my $20,000 for a design degree, I’ve always thought that Universities were a bit over-rated. True, they’re a good excuse to drink and talk to girls, but they’re probably not the most effective way of learning to do something. Often the best way is just to do it. Like when a skatepark kid asks how to learn some trick – the best answer is usually just to have a go at it – not to go home and watch 20 how-to-videos.

What I’m getting at here is that Jimmy doesn’t have any formal design training – he’s just doing it. He does his thing under the name of Eject BMX and responsible for the Eject front hub, which is now made by Simple. He also helps out with design for Simple and since coming to Australia, has done bits and pieces for a couple of companies over here, namely Nightfall Bike Co and Tempered Bikes. So… to the questions:

BMXtec: How did you get started with designing things and how much work have you put in over the years to make it all happen?

Jimmy: It's not very easy to answer the question about how I started, at least not to pinpoint it exactly. I've always been the kind of person who would modify things to work better or work in the way I liked them to work. This goes back to when I was a kid, building cars and crazy things out of Lego. I used to love that stuff and I did not hesitate to make my own Lego pieces to make a construction work better.

As for BMX parts I guess the first thing I designed was a rear hub, a pretty massive thing, that was going to work as a left side drive hub via an adapter piece that could make use of a right hand drive freewheel. This was before the age of LHD freewheels and quite a few years before cassette hubs made their debut in the freestyle world. That hub never even made it to the prototype stages, mainly because I did not have the money or the contacts to get it made. I think I was 16 or 17 at that time. After that I made some small bits for my own bike such as a bolt on front hub guard "fork spork" thing and home made knarps that could be used inside an existing gyro/oryg splitter housing. So you could get any brake cable and make it into a gyro cable.
By now I've done many hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of work in my spare time outside of my regular job and I've almost got a whole bike of "my own" parts in my CAD folder on the laptop.

What’s your basic design philosophy? To design fancy shit and get famous? That was pretty much the attitude of most when I was at Uni. Obviously that’s not what you’re about, but what are you about?

My basic design philosophy would be to keep it simple, no pun intended, however corny that would sound. I've never been a fan of stuff that looks like they're out of some space ship or have come straight off some Mountain bike full of parts from a CNC masturbator's wildest wet dreams. I've never had it as a goal to become a famous designer in any way, to be honest I've never even really considered it even being a possibility. That a considerable number of people know me from the work I've done so far is really something that I never imagined that it would happen and I'm stunned. I really just want to try to make my own little whims and ideas work in theory, first in the CAD program on the computer and then possibly become reality in the form of at least prototypes. Production is always a bonus. By that I'm not saying that my brain is overflowing with ideas all the time, but when I do get an idea I do have a hard time letting it go until I've worked it out.

The CAD model and the final version of the Eject top load stem - A few small changes

And what about your design process? Do you have some kind of standard procedure you follow when you sit down to work on something?

Since I suck at sketching by hand, which I know is the preferred "visualize-and-get-shit-on-paper" procedure for "real" designers, I usually just try to work it all out in my head first and then go straight to CAD. Sometimes I make some rudimentary sketches, but it's really not something that anyone else would be able to read or figure out. Which could be good for secrecy reasons I guess. Sometimes I make notes to highlight any special details that need to go into the design.

After all the first drafts and their revisions I generally push to get a prototype sorted as soon as possible. It really depends on the part how many revisions are needed to do before getting prototypes. It has happened that the first drawing, without amendments, goes straight to prototyping. But it has also happened that we've done 10-15 big or small revisions and it still hasn't reached the prototype stage. It can be a long and tiresome process for sure!

I'm sure you've seen this before. But have you ever pulled one apart? Quality they are

The Eject hub is a really simple idea nicely executed. But I’m sure it wasn’t as simple to execute as it was to think of – if you know what I mean? I’d say just about everyone who rides has thought of some little improvement they could make to a part on their bike, but for most people the design ends there. Just so all those people don’t feel like they’ve missed out, could you talk us through the blood sweat and tears of what is involved in making an idea into a reality?

The first thing I try to do before even starting to design a part is if it's necessary to make and get on the market. If it adds any functionality or improvement other than just looking different. This goes for the parts that I've done as Eject projects, which in reality only is the Eject hub and the stem available through Simple. When I work together with other people or companies, then of course I can't apply my own personal philosophy to everything we do. Because in all honesty if we did, then a lot of parts would probably never have left the drawing board. So instead, when working with Simple for example, I try to make the product look unique but still not go overboard so it becomes a gimmick. And if there's a way for me to push it in the direction I'd prefer to see, that's what I do.

I've never been a fan of "clone" parts, but I do also see why it's easy to work that way as a parts company - to just pick something out of a catalogue and put a logo on it. I take pride in having at least done significant changes to the design and look of the Simple parts that are based on already existing products. For example the newly released Simple cassette hub is based on the same internals and axle as the Proper & Colony hubs, but the shape of it has been completely redesigned and I've tried to add my touch to it so it works better visually together with the front hub.

So to go back to the original question...
Let's just use my front hub as an easy example.
It all started because I saw a need for front hub guards as opposed to thick flanges that would "hold up to grinding", which is quite dumb really - especially if you've paid $130 for the hub. I just wanted to make something that was more integrated into the design instead of having to strap things onto your wheel or bolt something to the dropout, or demolish the flanges of an expensive hub.

The actual designing started on the computer and it probably went through something like 5 significant "morphs" before I came up with the design that became the first prototype. A friend at my workplace at that time had access to a machine shop and he made me 6 prototypes that I, due to lack of funding, was able to sell at cost price to some friends of mine to try out. After they had been ridden for a while I decided on the changes that needed to be made. Mainly aesthetic ones, but also one or two changes that affected the function and usability.

Here's just a few of the incarnations of the hub on it's way to the final version. What you can't see is all the little changes to the internals

Later I managed to source another, bigger, machine shop that could do the first production run. For the second production run I teamed up with Simple and production moved to Taiwan and for this run I only did some minor tweaks. Now we're at version 3 and for every new version we get at least a couple of prototypes to test.

Is there some part of the process that you find really frustrating, tiresome – not fun? And what’s the best bit? That’s got to be getting the final prototypes delivered?

Ok, let's start with the boring parts... there are some things that can be very repetitive. For example when you've drafted a new sprocket design and the manufacturing drawings needs to be made for every single size. On to the frustrating bits. I guess here's where the downside of not having the formal training to do this stuff comes to play - sometimes I have an image in my mind but I can't get it to work in the program, basically just because I don't know how to accomplish it. But some of my trademarked stubbornness usually takes care of that. Then comes the hassle with manufacturers, they can be extremely closed minded about what parts they can (read: want) to make and the communication can be a huge problem. Sometimes you have to send a drawing back and forth up to 4, 5, 6... 10 times to make sure we're all on the same page.

It's all worth it in the end though, after you've worked on something for a really long time and only seen it on the computer screen for hours on end, twisting and turning it, making changes and tweaks. Finally getting that prototype delivered and, if all goes well, see it in the shops. It's such a great sense of accomplishment! The extra bonus on top of that is when you see some rider running the parts or if someone actually approaches you to say they're happy with the product.

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Right. You got sore eyes yet? That's it for now. Stay tuned for Part 2 some time around the end of the week.

Americana

2009-07-29T17:26:00.000-07:00

Pics of FBMs full range of 2010 completes are up. Specless as yet, but looking mighty fine. And... some of them even have stoppers.

Here’s a video check of two of the 2010 fit completes. Specs are at the end.

Odyssey are now doing their Vermont sprocket in 25 tooth. That’s not exactly big news, but I’ve always thought that was a fine looking piece of sprocket – maybe doesn’t translate as well to 25t, but what d'ya do?

On the Light v.s Heavy, Old v.s New front, In the Gnar have weighed in with some sensible words on the new T-1 GB frame. This is very un-American of me, but since I’m not American… I think it’d be cool to see T1 move more of their production offshore so they could put out a bit of post-weld heat treated trickery with a T1 flavour. But you see Australian manufacturing died years ago so we don’t get patriotic about that shit.

Salty Females

2009-07-29T13:51:00.001-07:00

There was just a little unfinished business from my WeThePros post the other day about the 2010 WeThePeople completes.

Klaus, who takes care of design for the WTP, Eclat, Salt and Fuse brands and obviously has plenty of more important things to do than email me, was good enough to clear things up. The spec on the Trust and the Zodiac included an "engineered polymer bb". That's actually a machined PVC cone spacer on the cranks, that apparantly works perfectly and has the added bonus of being a touch lighter than aluminium. And then there was the "sealed bearing / polymer bearing" on the rear hub of the Envy, which turns out to be a pretty much a Salt version of the Eclat Teck Cassette hub that uses both a sealed bearing and a polymer bushing.

Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to identify the polymer bushing

Just as a little bonus round, here's some pics of some of the 2010 Salt components that comes on their completes, but are also available aftermarket. They're new and improved for 2010, designed in-house by WeThePeople and are one of the things that really lift their completes above those that use generic catalogue parts:

The Salt 9t cassette is depressed. He trys his best and by normal standards does really well, but it's hard living in the shadow of an older and more talented brother

Let's face it, not everyone gets to have a first rate female. Some are just lucky to have one

Designing your own rubber is officially putting in work

And finally, here is the man that has played a big hand in bringing all this bmx style to your screens. Don't blame me it's Tunney's fault:

Once Was New Shit

2009-07-24T23:34:00.000-07:00

Verde are taking the style points with their 2010 completes. They've put out photos of the full range - on Defgrip of course - and they are looking damn fancy. Fancy good that is. Chrome, fats front and rear, tan-walls, built in pivotals, minimal decals and flangeless grips. No spec yet:

Colony have also put up a couple of preview shots of their two completes for 2010 - The Endeavour and The Decsendent. The Decsendent is built around the low, low slung Hell Stallion frame and will, as a result, make people raise their voices and talk angrily about scooters. Or they may raise their voices in lively debate about whether or not Colony have deliberately used Australian/English spelling for both of their completes so as to confuse their American market. Either way, no spec yet:

United have their four completes and two logos for 2010. They are nice enought to tell you how much hi-ten steel and/or how much CrMo you're getting on your complete, but they have not made it clear which logo they would like you to primarily recognise them by:

And just to keep things confusing, as all the 2010 bikes start appearing Lotek have posted up a 2009 "back to school" range:

They look nice, but there's been talk that the quality of the last batch of Loteks was pretty average, with the soles requiring very little persuasion to separate themselves from the uppers and seek a happier life on their own. But on the other hand, the Lotek team do have a lot of tattoos... so you should probably just buy some anyway. And if you do, you can be safe in the knowledge that there is now a Lotek warranty policy - if your shoes fuck up, you can pay $20 to get another pair - if you live in the US. If you don't, you could always just put your $20 towards a new pair of Orchids.

I don't think I should say too much about the MacNeil 2010 stuff. They've put their "Cruiser" bike and frame right at the top of their product menu and the bitter taste of negativity it's left in my mouth is just going to get all over any other words that come out.

Maybe it's just a personal hang-up and maybe it's just the label "cruiser", but I can only see them are the drunk uncles of bicycles - loud and obnoxious, styleless and bloated. The MacNeil incarnation is actually one of the less lame examples that you'll see. It doesn't, for example, have any flame decals and it will probably never be ridden by Paris Hilton. But really, couldn't they have just done a fixed gear like everyone else?

Last but not least is some Fly prototype spotting. See I notice, that Pijin notices, that Bike Guide notices these things.

We Have a Winner

2009-07-23T04:11:00.000-07:00

Hold on a fucking minute! I hadn't seen this thing, and if I'm not mistaken, it's the gold medalist in the 2009 Most Expensive Bmx Part by Weight final. And that's with not a bit of titanium in sight, nor even an invisible titanium coating!

The 16 tooth St Martin's English sprocket weighs just 15 grams and will set you back about US$40. That's an impressive $2.67 per gram. When you consider that it's 4mm thick and 7075-t6 aluminium, 15 grams is nothing and it really makes you wonder "how did they do it, where has all the weight gone?" ....oh, I see.

Anyway... the podium is as follows:

St Martin's English Sprocket: $2.67 / g
BlueSix Titanium Brake Bolts: $1.75 / g
Kink Ceramic Headset: $1.67 / g

Well done. Very impressive. Now the first person to run them all on one bike wins.

WeThePros

2009-07-21T04:35:00.000-07:00

It's a cut-throat business the re-posting of bmx product news. It's the quick and the dead. You snooze, you lose. Post something up 12 hours after it drops and you're nothing. Nothing!

The WeThePeople 2010 completes have already been levitating in cyberspace for days, but now there is this nicely re-packaged official release that allows me to keep my dignity:

What can you say other than that WeThePeople are the rulers of completes. Even the most salty of critics would struggle to come up with legitimate complaints about the above flip-book and bikes in it. Maybe it isn't exactly your flavour, but the package as a whole is pro. The bikes, the spec, the artwork, the photos, the info, the presentation. Pro.

They've broken the range up into series, which start with "Novice", and then in true marketer-speak jump straight to "Expert" and then mangage to find 3 more levels above that. So it's: Novice, Expert, Pro, Master and Elite.

They also give a pretty good rundown of what you actually get from the frames at each different level. For example if you buy a Novice Series bike you know that at least your down tube is Chromoly. On an Expert Series you get CrMo downtube and chainstays, on a Masters you can the top tube to the CrMo list, until you work your way up the range to full heat treated CrMo of the Envy. On top of that you can check the spec tables at the back of the book to see at which stage the bars step up from hi-tensile to CrMo, or whether the dropouts on your forks are heat-treated or not.

It seems like a pretty obvious thing to do - to give people all the information so they can make the choice of what they want to buy for their money, but it just doesn't usually get laid out like that - in fact the more suspicious conspiracy theorists amongst you might even believe that manufacturers were trying to hide exactly what their completes are made of. (?)

So there is a lot of information about the bikes. That's good. But there is also some nice details: Some integrated pivotal posts that you can lop off if you're not into them, plenty of integrated seat clamps of course, bikes with front and rear specific rims, seat / post combos, removable brake mounts, 8.2" rise bars and female front hubs. Plus loads of nice eclat spec, especially at the top end.

A couple of interesting details are the "Salt Mid sized BB sealed bearing (polymer bb)" on the Zodiac and the polymer bearing in the "Salt Cassette 9t sealed bearing / polymer bearing" on the Envy. What's going on here? I don't know, I'm going to bed, so I'll just leave you to speculate on that with some firey and informed banter in the comments. Ha..... ha.... ha.

Some Things:

2009-07-18T04:36:00.000-07:00

Federal's design guy, Chris Harrison has answered some questions on the Dig site where he's outlined his long term plan to get out of the bmx industry and make some real money. The short term plan is simpler: "I think I’ll most likely just work in the mornings, ride in the afternoon, do more work after that and then have the evenings for chilling." Sounds pretty good to me. Check the rest here.

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Steve Buddendeck and Cory Muth are apparently the guys behind that clean website and two bike range at Verde and are in on Duo together with Chris Doyle. Now they're doing wheels as well under the name of Cinema Wheel Co. They were having trouble finding rims that they thought fitted the Verde image so they decided to do their own. I suppose by doing stuff under a bunch of different names you open up the possibility for brands in direct competition with your own line of completes to still spec your grips or rims on their bikes. Not stupid. But you wonder how many names they'll end up operating under ...maybe they just like designing logos.

Mark Noble on does some really interesting industry articles and interview over on the ESPN blog. If you have any kind of interest in bmx product design and you haven't been over there, you're missing out. He did a great two part interview with the guy behind Fly Bikes - David Quesada and now David has answered a few more straight forward questions on FAT FAVs.

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And then there is this. Last, but definitely not least. Though I myself fall into the "started riding after '98" category, this is gold:

Edit: Seems like the vid was just too damn controversial and has been liquidated by the fun police. If you missed it, just imagine yourself a very upset Hitler slagging off just about every bmx company around. Hopefully it makes a reappearance somewhere.

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Or do you just like dogs? Maybe you should cheer yourself up from all this negativity with some happy little canine pics and download some dog vector graphics. I don't know, just an idea.

Impure Animals

2009-07-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

There has been a Russ Bengtson sighting!

You might have heard of Russ, he runs a little site called SPRFLS. I always assumed he was some kind of bmx troll with a permanent half scowl, half snigger expression - turns out he's just a regular guy. Ben Ward snapped a pic in Odyssey's offices and has posted it up on his blog. There is a distinct absence of a scowl on Russ' face and, in fact, he has kind an optomistic look about him. Must have seen some nice stuff on Ody's drawing boards.

He obviously hadn't been surfing the Impurity Bike Co's website, cause the scowl would have been in full effect.

Impurity is a new company that is half based in Australia and half in

Singapore

and has a self-stated dedication to lightweight bmx components.

They've got a post-weld heat treated frame called the WTF! V2. (The V1 kind of snuck under the radar) It's light. Not the lightest going around, but pretty close at 1.8 kgs (4 lbs) and it's got a steep head, a short back end so it's ticking the whats-hot-right-now boxes. I don't know if riding like "a mouse on crack" is hot or not, but that's how they've described it. It might be accurate, but it's an unfortunate description in that crack smoking mice tend to be unpredictable, un-nervingly twitchy and prone to snapping without warning. Personally I prefer frames that ride like sloths on smack, but I'm gen-X and we're pretty much irrelevant anyway.

It's not an easy thing to start up a bike company and I imagine that it's even harder to build a name, build confidence and make a dollar. I haven't done it, but these guys have started, so good luck to them. And I suppose you never know, in 20 years time they might be the next Odyssey.

But for now they’re unknown brand, with an unknown product and their website is their only shot at building confidence. And lets face it, when you’re flogging light weight variants on products that could potentially split your face open, confidence is kind of important. I don’t mean to be a prick, but outside of their logo and header, their website ain’t cutting it.

But, on to the actual bits…

They’ve got a stem called the Ridiculite, which does exactly what it says on the box and weighs in at a160 grams or 5.6 oz. Just to put that in perspective, the next lightest freestyle stem that I can think of is Colony’s Official stem that is 245 grams or 8.64oz. So how do you drop a further 3 oz off what everyone else has managed so far? I think the pics the Ridiculite speak for themselves:

They’ve got some plain, no-nonsense bars and again they’ve gone in heavy with the drug references and come up with the name Twist ‘em Bars. Sounds like another unfortunate tag to me, but… you know… gen-X.

On top of that they’ve got a bunch of Ti nuts and bolts, a couple of pairs of forks, a beefy Ti peg concept and some fruity descriptions on their About Us page. So don’t just sit there like a tortoise on acid… hit them up.

And a shout out to Jimmy from Eject for the heads up on Impurity

Breaking News

2009-07-14T04:51:00.000-07:00

Yes this is some news. About broken frames... and I'm sorry about that title.

Anyway, it comes via Pijin and basically it is that three frames have broken in comps over the weekend. One at the Masters in Cologne, one (@8:15) at NASS in the UK, then another at NASS. All three have just sheared off at the head tube. Nasty.

I'd heard a few stories of frames collapsing in exactly this way. But stories are one thing, to have three "on record" incidents, makes it all the more real. Not to mention making you wonder how many other frames bit-the-big-one in a less public way over the weekend.

I suppose when frames weights drop and drop like they have, you could say that this looks to be like the official bottoming out... ahem. The difficulty is that all the frames going around use a wide range of different technology and processes that means comparing by weight alone won't give you an accurate measure of strength. Heat treated tube sets v.s front triangle only v.s full post-weld, internally butted tubing v.s gussets v.s internally gusseted tubing, machined this, shaved that - a frame is not a frame is not a frame. Throw into the mix the possibility of poor welding and/or quality control and you're well and truly fucked!

Sunday's Ian Schwartz frame: keeping gussets alive and hearts out of mouths, 4.95 lbs

So you've got to be an engineer just to get your head around which frame to buy, but the information is out there. And you can be safe in assuming that if a manufacturer's description of a frame doesn't mention something, it ain't on there. Think of the description as their sales pitch - they're not going to leave out features that they've spent time and money putting into the frame.

I think the way Federal are doing things goes a step towards making life a little easier and is definitely something worth supporting. Apparently their 2010 frames will be coming out with three tiers of heat treatment options: Standard, Front triangle or Full Post-weld. That's on top of a butted and internally gusseted tubes - You know exactly what's going on and can choose the option that suits your riding... or the dollars in your pocket.

Federal's Notorious HT: Full post-weld heating, a bunch of other features, a respectable 4.6 lbs

In regards to these three breaks over the weekend: I'll leave the detective work on all the details of the frames to you, but it must definitely have some people feeling a little shaky. If you do happen to be aboard one of these frames, or if the whole thing is just getting you down, here's some light entertainment... pun intended.

Chris Kink

2009-07-12T03:19:00.000-07:00

While I'm talking about Kink, I might as well post this thing:

It looks like a normal headset, but it's actually a super headset. What's so super about it? It's got ceramic ball bearings and titanium coated races which may, or may not, make it smoother and more durable than your current headset. Super!

But, if you are thinking of buying this headset you should first ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. Is this the most pointless and expensive upgrade I can think of?
2. Should they have called this the Chris Kink headset in homage to the original overpriced headset?
3. Is it worth paying $1.67 / gram for each of the 59.5 grams that this thing weighs, or should I just buy 10 sets of these.

Food for thought.

Viridian is the New Black

2009-07-10T05:03:00.000-07:00

Tony Hamlin bike check up on the Transworld site and Kink have snuck a few prototype bits on his ride.

There's a little black pivotal, which is, of course, a must have item for any bmxer about town. Run it high or run it low, they're just so versatile! So it's black. And kind of textured. And looks like it's covered with the same stuff as this one. It could just be me, but it might also be a little smaller than a stock standard "slim" pivotal moulding. At least that would mean that it's actually worth mentioning and these six lines that I've typed hadn't been wasted.

Looks like Kink now have female front hub. And if you look at the pic you'll see that it seems to be called Viridian, which is the name of a greeny-blue-type colour that my grandmother uses in her water colour paintings, but obviously Tony prefers black:

And now for the interesting part - well relatively speaking. There's a proto stem called the Bold. (sorry, couldn't resist that) It's not revolutionary in that it's a run-of-the-mill front load with the sides machined out, but the shape and proportions of the cut looks pretty good. And if you want proof of that, you've only got to compare it to the recent Subrosa prototype. Although you'll still need to be an above average hacksaw technician to ensure that the steerer on your fork is cut to precisely the right length. Oh yeah... and it comes in this lovely shade of really, really, really dark grey:

A Woman Walks Into a Bar...

2009-07-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

2010 bikes have well and truly started to appear.

Subrosa are having an honest tilt at the "more is more" crown, with a humble tally of 17 bikes. But it's not won yet - Mongoose are yet to run.

Colony Descendant bike is having a fair crack at taking the "how low can you go" title from Blackeye's Killorado complete . It's a race to the bottom. But wait, this guy is already polishing his trophy, if you know what I mean, with his custom Solid from last year.

On that note, a joke:
A woman walks into a bar and asks the barman for a double entendre.
So he gives her one.

Anyway... I can't tell you much more than that other than the Kinks 2010's are out and they've kept it to a round number. That GT are doing a brakeless street complete that I can't find a picture of, and Verde are doing two completes that both look nice.

Over and out.

You be the judge...

Insane Manual Feathering

2009-07-04T05:31:00.000-07:00

Do you think that brakes might be making a comeback?

Not two of them obviously - that's a far too high brake to bike ratio. But one on the back end can be a revolution in opening up new worlds of variable speed riding, insane manual feathering and sudden stopping. Sure brakeless completes were novel at first, but now they're just passe. Their cleaness crying out for some cable and caliper clutter.

Anyway, maybe in Spain brakes were never "out", cause Fly have pumped an unfashionable amount of time and effort into improving them and have just released the final piece in their forged, cnc'd and anodised braking puzzle:

Fly brake lever: 66 grams / 2.3 oz

I've grown very fond of my Primo J Lever over it's five years of faultless service, but since reading up on Fly's new offering the wobble it's developed over the course of it's life seems a little worse. They've addressed this by using a larger diameter brass bushing that is apprarently also of a harder material. Sounds good.

Everyone want's less for their dollar these days, so I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that you can now also have less for your lever-dollar. Working on the principal that all frames now come with a barrel adjuster, they've not included one on the lever and in the process have been able to further reduce the size of the lever body.

You'll also get a little bag of hardware that allows you the choice between the 4 set ups above, depending on how complicated or clean you want it. The "internal coned piece" is one of those options and seems like a good, simple idea that acts to open up the end of the cable casing to reduce friction on the cable. It's probably not going to make a huge difference to your braking performance, but every little bit helps and it ain't going to hurt.

Besides, you don't even run brakes.

It is Done

2009-07-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update on the No.1 post I made a few days ago.
Jimmy at Eject has stepped up and given me a keyworded link and the No.1 spot is a done deal. In the process he's bumped himself into the no.2 spot and put those... ladies... in their place.

Cheers Jimmy.

Rad Wrench

2009-07-01T04:38:00.000-07:00

This wrench is like... so... totally random. Hey, hold on a minute - it's actually really specific. Bmx specific to be precise. In fact it's so specific that it has just about every bit that you'll need to work on your bike while out pedaling. And it hasn't just been thrown together. The V2 of DK's Random Wrench has had a lot of thought and effort put into the design. You don't believe me? Read this.

The original version was a good idea, simply executed that became a bit of a classic. But the V2 makes the original look like a stone age pick axe by comparison. It features a slimmed down machined main body with some nice graphics so you won't need to faff around trying to work out how all the bits fit back inside and it even has it's own logo. Only special wrenches get their own logo.

Here's what you get for your US$32.99: a 15mm pedal wrench, 5 and 6mm allen sockets, 15 and 17mm sockets, a socket extension, and a spoke key.

So don't just sit around, get out there and grab yourself a Randy Wench.

The progression from stone age axe to the mordern form of the DK Random Wrench is clear and undeniable.

No.1

2009-06-29T02:55:00.001-07:00

Every month I get a couple of visitors to this site that find it after googling the words "bmx sluts". There's some optomistic kids out there - at least you really hope they're kids.

But seriously, BMXtec actually comes up in the no.2 spot for a Google search on the words "bmx sluts". Sorry, just a little harmless keyword repitition there. You've got to put in... bmx sluts... work if you want to... bmx sluts... pull that elusive no. 1 spot.

Actually the no.1 spot is going to be a pretty tall order - they really look quite slutty.

Now do it Properly!

2009-06-27T05:03:00.000-07:00

You hear a fair bit of old school reminiscing online. You know: That today's frames are too light, top tubes too low, spokes too few. But it's always struck me as backward - like you want your riding to progress, your life to progress and the world to progress, but for your bike to stay the same? It's kind of like your grandfather complaining that the internet is ruining the world and stubbornly writing letters to anyone that'll listen. That horse has bolted.

Heat treated frames, butted tubing, low top tubes, small drive trains, 36 spoke wheels ,small bb's, integrated headsets, cnc'd bridges, micro dropouts, 14 oz cassettes, offset machining, slammed pivotals and integrated seat clamps - There are loads of companies pushing design and new technology to make bikes lighter and easier to handle. Big stuff is still getting thrown down and they're not blowing up left, right and centre.

Anyway, if you still really want a 35 lb bike, 48 spoke wheels, a 44 tooth sprocket and a big padded seat, just go out and treat yourself to a Diamondback Joker - they're cheap too.

Out with the old and in with the new I say.

Proper Bike Co have been around for a few years now. They don't have a massive range of parts, but it's all designed in-house and they've got their own style going - kind of plain, no frills, but with a tech machined look that doesn't go overboard. And lots of colour of course to feed the machine.

They've also got a team of new school high flyers like Mike Miller and Max Wood who know how to tuck and spin their way round just about anything and I'm sure ain't complaining that their set ups are too light.

Proper's hubs in particular are crazy light. They've got a 369 gram (13 oz) rear cassette that's available with regular or female axle set up. I think it was the original version of this hub that had some problems with the bearings in the driver, but they've solved that by using a ceramic bushing instead. Which, correct me if I'm wrong, I think is a first for bmx. You know that I know that you know what a bushing is, but in case you don't - it's basically just a porous cylinder that's impregnated with a lubricant and so offers a smooth bearing surface. There's more friction than when using ball bearings, but no moving parts and for this reason Proper are saying that for this application it all but eliminates the possibility of failure.

They've got just one frame at the moment, the TTL which is Miller's sig frame and another street prototype on the way. The TTL weighs in at a respectable 4 lbs 7 oz and features most of the details of a modern all purpose frame that seem to get those internet lurkers fired up - butted tubing, removable brake mounts, integrated seat clamp, some cut outs here and there. But if you check this Miller clip out you'll see that there doesn't seems to be any problems with a quick three down a ten set - maybe it's just that he's got about 5kg less jeans than he would have had riding in the 90s.

Their most recent product release is the Microlite stem, which is a particularly nice bit of kit. It's machined out of 6061 t6 aluminium, has a 52mm reach and weighs in at 249 grams (8.8 oz). A range of little details contribute to an original, light weight take on a classic six bolt stem without having it looking like a space ship. I'll let Dave Lombard from Proper do the talking. This is lifted from an ESPN interview with him:

I think it would be a stretch to say that this stem is particularly unique. We tried all sort of unique ideas with pistons and ultimately decided that unique doesn't always equate to better. We ended up with a traditional 6 bolt front load stem with 52mm reach and all the features we liked. It's smaller than most stems, so we increased the clamping area a little with virtually no additional weight. There is a vertical shaft down the centre. We've seen a lot of stems with horizontal shafts in a similar area but we found the vertical option to be stronger. It has a recessed area around the fork compression bolt that allows the top cap to fit flush with all modern forks. It's much lighter than most stems without looking (or being) particularly crazy.

So there you go - Proper Bike Co - Not reinventing the wheel, but keeping it rolling.

...and BMXtec - Keeping closing sentences corny.

This Week In Colour

2009-06-24T04:48:00.000-07:00

Those colourful characters at Odyssey have had a big week.

Checking their Daily Word it can sometimes seem as though they drop a new colour kit daily. But in the last week there's actually only been six new-colour-posts. Well, six in the last eight days to be precise. OK, the Chameleon stuff was a repost. And the brake pads? That's not technically a colour, definitely not a kit, but you get the idea. Fourteen colours in total.

Those Taiwanese powder-coaters must just shake their heads imagining what kind of bikes these American kids ride. And they'd be right.

I was planning on giving a fully Odyssey colour tally, but I only got halfway though the trans PCs before I ran out of juice. So instead, here's this week in colour:

Off Topic

2009-06-23T17:33:00.000-07:00

Words not required.
See the rest of the pics here

Military Style

2009-06-22T01:09:00.000-07:00

Coalition are back!

Hey that's great news. Although I've got to admit, I never knew they were gone. But apparently they were almost out of business for some shadowy reason that is not revealed here.

Anyway, I'm still excited to have them back. They've even brought some new/updated parts and colours back with them. Like this new fangled pivotal technology:

I don't really go in for the graphics option when it comes to part finishes - It's so hit or miss and it means you've got to like the artwork to like the seat. But it's at least a point of difference, and on another stock standard pivotal seat that's sorely needed.

Next up, their hard anodised aluminium pegs. The full details of the finish are given as "uses mil-a-8625 type 3 hard coating per military specs". That sounds like some hard shit. But you've got to wonder, military specification for what? It could be butter knives. I'm sure the peg is hard and all, but the military thing is just not really saying much - a bit of harmless hype I suppose. Good for the gun nuts.

I like the idea of aluminium pegs, in that you can save a bit of weight over steel, but with much better durability than plastic. And this peg is actually just a little different to the other aluminium pegs on the market in that it has about 2 oz extra material. Sounds like that'd increase the lifespan, but these are machined from 6061 rather than the harder 7075-T6. So they're a softer alloy, but with a thicker wall section, hard anodised rather than 7075, but a few dollars cheaper than other ali pegs - the verdict's all yours.

There's also a V2 of their Povah Stem, which looks tight with some extra internal machining and a new knee-saving rounded rear body. All those revisions have shaved off a couple of ounces and it's down to 9.5 oz. While they had the cnc running they've also had a go at their 7075 sprockets - added some cutouts, subtracted some grams.

If you're into handlebars with holes in them (maybe you prefer slots?), then you've come to the right place. Coalition are the purveyors of the original and the finest holy handlebar - the Holy Cross bars. What's strange is that they come with a sticker that wraps completely around said holes so you can hide your shameful light weight tendencies. Just think of it as a 0.1mm layer of polypropylene that protects your manliness.

So there you go Coalition are back and if you're feeling them, please don't be shy. There's no better way to give a warm welcome back than by reaching into your pocket and showing them a bit of light weight love - military style.

Bite on my Pivotal

2009-06-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

Fit's got a lookbook up to highlight some of their remarkably un-innovative new parts. I don't know if they've struck some kind of a deal with odyssey or if their PCP pivotal seat is just a ruthlessly shameless bite on the Odyssey Senior 2 pivotal or what but...

If Nuno from Odyssey's tweets are anything to go by, it's a bite.

If you compare the ribbing on the underside of the two seats you'll see that there actually are some differences. And the molding around the pivotal bolt is slightly different. I think that legally, to avoid a law suit, you have to make seven changes to the design of something for it to not be considered a copy. It's something like that. But basically, it's damn difficult and too expensive to enforce anyway.

But back to Fit. There is also their new PCP pedals. Yep plastic pedals that are the love child of Animal Hamiltons and Odyssey JCs. Apparently they were "Developed from team rider input", but you can't really imagine any of their team specifying reflector mounts on their pedals.

Makes you wonder what a that product designer that Fit was advertising for a while back is going to do there. He'll be sitting in a room with a bunch of catalouges.

Anyway, enough negativity and cynicism. Let this be a lesson: If you want the dirty street kids to buy your dirty street stuff, give it a dirty street name. Them PCPs is dope.

Hard Anodised Sprockets?

2009-06-17T17:22:00.000-07:00

If you ride motos then you probably know the name Renthal. You might even know that they used to make some bmx parts, at least bars, back in the 80's.

Well they must have got some new management in that have decided to "diversify their market" or something, cause now they're back having a nibble at the bmx and mtb side of things. I guess you could see it as a natural progression for a company that are already making similar parts and already have the production set up for said parts, or you could take the "stick to what you know" approach.

But "outsiders" could potentially bring new idea and production processes into bmx. Take Renthal's new bmx specific sprocket for example, it's 7075 t6 cnc'd aluminium just like 80% of bmx sprockets around, but it features a hard anodised finish that they use on their road and road racing chainwheels to increase durability. It also creates a unique burnt grey type of colour. As far as I know, this technology hasn't been used on bmx sprockets yet and if it increases the life of the sprocket, then it's only good.

19mm spindles only. Sizes: 25, 27, 28, 30, 34, 36, 38, 40T

They've got a real hard machined moto look to them too. And since plenty of bmxers also ride motos and vice versa, there might just be a ready bunch of riders that already know and rate the brand, like the way they look and are prepared to part with their cash. So it's an effort to diversify (read: cash in) that might actually have a chance.

I don't know about this thing though:

It's a downhill stem, so don't get too offended yet, but don't get complacant either - remain alert, there could be a bmx version around the corner waiting to take your money.

Crash Test - Enjoy Your Dinner

2009-06-15T04:38:00.000-07:00

There used to be a cool old site called BMX Test that looked like shit, but was really useful. It was basically a database of loads of parts, their specs and reviews by people that had ridden them. Even if there still is an optimistic listing in the links on BikeGuide's homepage, BMX Test is long dead.

But it's still a good idea, so someone had to come along and pick it up... and they have.

There's a newish site called CrashTest BMX where you can read and write reviews of parts on a site that even looks good. The guy that runs it - Ronaldo - has also added in a whole bunch of other stuff too. Here's what he's got to say about the site:

"CrashTest BMX was created for riders to have a place to give their thoughts about the bike parts that they have ridden. Pictures can be submitted along with their personal experience with certain parts, rating it based how long the part lasted with their riding style. They can also submit their experience with local skateparks and provide basic information such as the parks location, price, and if bikes are allowed.

There is also a "How-To's" where any special instructions can be given on basic bike maintenance or custom work can be submitted. CrashTest BMX also has a message board for users to discuss anything within the BMX community. With the hope of growth of the site in the near future, hopefully we can get some video reviews up soon.

Check out the site and let me know if you have any feedback. Thanks guys."

There you go. Like I said it's pretty new, so if you like it, support it.

You could for example put up a review of Wellgo magnesium pedals.

You could tell everyone out there that in an attempt to save around 100 grams of pedals you ran a pair until one of them unexplainedly shattered as you dropped in one day and ended up reducing the weight of your kneecap by about 10 grams. You know, an unbiased review, let them make their own minds up, maybe add a pic.

Enjoy you dinner.

Get Excited!

2009-06-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

Hit upon this the other day. It's kind of corny - maybe it's an old school thing, maybe it's a racer thing.
That said, the Comp IIIs that are around now are only rated at max 40 psi - a kevlar bead, higher pressure version could actually be alright.

They've also got this up on their site - another "confidential" scoop. A pivotal version of one of the ugliest seats that you're ever likely to see:

Get excited! It's a fake shit-stained grainy polaroid of a pivotal version of an old seat - The D-Spyder. Sick!

On the up side, at least it ain't the original:

Living the Technicolour Dream

2009-06-11T20:01:00.000-07:00

Ben Ward is a product designer at Odyssey and according to them he's "one of the main dudes behind our R&D". If you take a look at his blog you'll see that he's not only working his dream job like a maniac, but he also lives and breathes bmx.

Anyway, he's got a bike check up on the Odyssey site. Of course you'd expect no less than a top shelf Odyssey / GSport / Sunday decked out whip - and that's exactly what you get.

There's a whole bunch of new shit - gold Ribcages, spokes and nipples, the new Four:four bars, a prototype 9t driver and titanium hardware for the Ratchet hub. And the JC PCs in half black, half white.

I'm really waiting on those pedals. Without having actually ridden them, they seem to combine all the good things about plastics with the grip of a pinned ali pedal. And the black/white combos adds another little function in that you can run pins one side, pedal grind the other side and know which is which at a glance.

I'm wondering how they'll be available. They'll be coming as a full set only ie. four pieces fully assembled, but will you also be able to buy a full set of mouldings only ie. no spindles, or even individual mouldings?

Either way there'll be more colour combos than a pile of clothes at a clown orgy. Definitely not a bad sales ploy when you consider how many kids will be buying two or four sets at once to in order to be living the technicolour dream.

I've said before that I'm an Odyssey fan and it's not because they have endless variants of fruity colourways, but because they keep raising the bar and making improvements to the parts that we put on our bikes. Simple concept, hard to do.

Transit Interface

2009-06-11T04:51:00.000-07:00

Came across a nice site a while back called Transit Interface that's worth checking out.
It's run by a guy named Eric out of Illinois. He's a designer and rides bmx and fixies. So as you can imagine there's a whole bunch of bike madness mixed up with a load of design stuff - some nice industrial design, fonts, photos etc. Plenty of good stuff.

Stuff like this:

I would like to add that myself or Eric to not condone the above behaviour.

On that fixie note though: Superstar's umbrella company, BMX Groupement, recently release a couple of fixed gears under the brand name Focale 44. And they are damn slick looking. I can't find the specs anywhere, but from memory they're representing their bmx roots with their choice of pedals - no toe clips just good 'ol Odyssey PCs.

Nice.

S&M: Seats, Guts, Forks 'n Frames

2009-06-10T05:08:00.000-07:00

S&M have got some new product shots out to coincide with all those rumours flying around, but I'll stick to the bits:

A very un-S&M looking plastic seat, the P-Rail. Well, it's unlike current S&M stuff anyway. They've hinted at it's 80's roots so I suppose they're ticking some style boxes there. If you can't handle the techni-colour there'll be a padded version too and I'm sure black will make the cut.

Then there is this little adapter they're calling the P-Guts, that'll let you run a railed seat on a pivotal post. It's not a bad idea and really simple, kind of makes you wonder why, or if, someone hasn't done it before. It'll probably cost almost as much as a new seat post, but at least you'll be able to run your seat right back and out of the way with a pivotal post - if you're that way inclined.

Pitchfork XLT Prototypes: Tapered legs and integrated race. Better late than never. In production at the end of July.

Last but not least, the re-issue of the Holmes frame and forks. The head tube and bb shell look pretty slick in their raw machined metal glory and apparently the dropouts pictured are going to be "doubled up". BUT, original geometry?

Spanish Soap Opera

2009-06-08T03:49:00.000-07:00

Darcy Saccucci is an admirer of small bottom brackets. And those undervalued bits of tube have been at the centre of untold amounts of net chatter and drama recently as a result.

Darcy is the product designer at MacNeil and the man responsible for the pivotal seat post - one of the biggest design innovations made by a bmx company. There's actually a nice Brian Tunney interveiw with Darcy on the Dig website where he talks about designing the pivotal and the general ins and outs of being a bmx product designer if you're interested. But either way, he's got credentials.

^^ I've been looking for an excuse to use that drawing ^^

Back to the drama: It all kicked off when Darcy made a blog post a while back titled Spanish BBs are the Shit. He just laid out a few arguments for MacNeil sticking with the Spanish set up over the Mid.

Basically he put it down to saving some grams, about a hundred or so when you include the smaller bearings and bb shell, as well as what I suppose you could call "style issues":

"I think it looks way better. With all of the frame tubing diameters getting smaller in the last couple of years the Mid BB looks a little big and bulky."

I mean, I just don't think anyone else really gives much thought to how their bottom bracket shell looks in proportion to the rest of the frame. But I suppose when you spend hundreds of hours zoomed in modelling all the little CAD details of a bunch of frames it begins to get important. Anyway people went to town on this little piece of MacNeil propaganda. There was a SPRFLS post about it and Darcy got savaged in the comments there as well as on the MacNeil blog. Then Darcy made a retaliation post, then another on SPRFLS etc.

It was like a little bottom bracket soap opera. Those humble little machined pieces of tube that work so hard for so little thanks really got their five minutes in the sun.

And despite some comments from industry types like GSport George and JPR from FBM, and a whole range of anonymous and semi-anonymous people geting opinionated, nothing was really resolved and we still have two bottom bracket sizes. Which, as someone somewhere pointed out, is a damn site fewer than road bikes and similar sub-cultures of bicycle enthusiasts.

Can't really blame Darcy though, he was just towing the company line and all. How much say do designers even get? In my experience they just get orders - mostly to do with "cheaper alternatives". Of course I'm sure that bmx is a selfless industry that prioritises quality product over profits with the good of the brotherhood a in mind.

I run a Spanish and have never really had any problems with it. Mind you I also run a 19mm spindle and in my opinion that's probably a more worthy debate to be having - What's the point of 22mm spindles? Aren't they just a left over from the days where heavier was better? If we stick to a single sized spindle the bb stuff should just work itself out.

People were a little lighter on Darcy for the weight saving stuff. I guess like it or not there is no questions that light weight parts sell.

WeThePeople are even putting out a little adapter kit so that you can run Spanish BBs in their Mid shells to save some weight. Here's what they've got to say about that:

"ah yeah and we're also gonna do a new BB version So we can use a Mid BB shell, Alloy out casing and the Spanish bearings - means you can keep the standard BB, but lighten it up if you prefer or are not so hard on bearings"

Weird. It's all about the bb's.

Same, same - 3 New Frames

2009-06-06T05:11:00.000-07:00

Three fresh frames to have a look at. Take your pick.

1. MacNeil: Whitton III - Raw is the new black.

Top Tube - 20.75″, 21″
Rear Triangle - 13.65″
Head-tube angle - 74.5°
Seat-tube angle - 71°
BB height - 11.75″
Stand over height - 8.4
Weight - 4.55 lbs

2. Volume: Rob's Zombie

Top Tube - 20.5" & 21"
Rear Triangle - 13.75"
Head-tube angle - 75°
Seat-tube angle - 71°
BB height - 11.7"
Stand over height - 8"
Weight - 4 lbs. 8 oz

No surprises on either of them, specs are pretty standard. In fact not much difference between the two at all - 0.05" here, 0.4" there. Spanish on the Macneil, Mid on the Volume.

The WTP Warriors is a little more interesting:

It's Max Gaertig and Mike Brennan's new frame. It's not actually out yet and I ain't got the specs, but I can tell you that it comes with 21.3 tt option. And, just like Fly's new forks and their integrated dropouts, the Warriors' dropouts are investment cast. Which looks slick, but in terms of functionality, it moves the welds a little further away from the stress points in the dropouts. If you check the pics you'll see that the welds are much smaller than a regular weld. This is because of the tighter fit you can get between the casting and the seat / chain stays when compared to a regular cnc'd dropout. And a smaller weld = less chance of impurities in the weld = stronger weld = nice.

Superstar Plastic Pedals

2009-06-04T21:36:00.000-07:00

Told you designers like plastic!
I think I'm right in saying that these things are pretty new, at least these are the 2009 colours:

Superstar's take on plastic pedals. Of course no self respecting bmx company would dare be seen this season without a plastic pedal. I'm still waiting on Odyssey's JC PCs myself.

That said Superstar do have a version of their pedals that has rows of removable steel pins and, like all their products, they've kept packaging to a minimum to reduce waste and environmental impact. So just think of these pedals as PC +.

molded pins = 360 grams / 12.8 oz
removable steel pins = 410 grams / 14.6 oz
2009 translucent colors :
black, clear, orange, green, blue

Designers Like Plastic

2009-06-03T23:20:00.000-07:00

Not bmx, but it is plastic - and that's definitely topical. And apparently it's quite light, so it's checking boxes there. Regardless, it's interesting - in a kind of freak show way:

This thing proves how much designers love plastic and that they will attempt to make everything and anything from it.

The guy responsible for this is an industrial designer named Matt Clark. His idea was to make a bike that uses mass production techniques rather than the laborious techniques of notching, aligning and welding tubes of aluminium, steel or whatever. And to combine that with a cheap material such as polypropylene so you end up with a super cheap bike frame that you could pump out in the hundreds of thousands. Theoretically.

An internal ribbing structure of thermoformed polypropylene is heat welded into each half of the frame, then along with a reinforce polypropylene insert in the chainstays, the two halves are fused together to create a cheap and rigid (?) ride.

Definitely no bmx application and possibly no real application at all, but there you go - designers like plastic.

And thanks to Errol at Everyone for the link.

New Fly Fork with Integrated Dropout

2009-06-01T03:11:00.000-07:00

I was just sitting here and writing a post about Fly Bikes when this appeared in the feed reader:

A new fork from fly. I don't know if they had put out any info about it during development, but apparently they've been testing it for a few months and it's set to go into production.

No weights or specs yet, but the most notable feature of the fork is the dropouts. Like the integrated rear dropouts that Fly have been working on for a while, they are investment cast. I plan on doing a post on investment casting soon, so I won't go into detail about that, but have a look for yourself:

They haven't done anything particularly fancy, but kept a nice simple shape that looks similar to a regular cnc'd dropout, but used the more three dimensional properties of a casting to have extra material at the point where the dropout meets the fork leg - just where you want it. All in all a nice, simple, under-the-radar improvement.

So that's a new fork from Fly due for sale in September. And two new blog posts from me that I'll hopefully finish some time before then. Good night and good luck.

IPATH wants your soul

2009-05-31T03:25:00.000-07:00

IPATH, the skate company who make clothes and shoes like this non-offensive looking black number have now got a bmx team. If you want to know team details etc you can check them here.

Just like when any outsider comes into bmx, the "rape our women, steal our children" mentality is afoot and they've been accused of wanting to bleed the sport dry. It's kind of like a mini version of when Nike came on the scene. If you haven't seen it already, there's a really good feature on a blog called 20 negative about Nike entering bmx (yes, physically and metaphorically) They got characters of the calibre of Joe Rich, Nuno from Odyssey and John Povah (Etnies TM) plus a few to give their opinions on the matter. It makes for interesting reading and is pretty relevant to the whole IPATH thing.

Nike and IPATH aside, I don't really see the need for a company to "put back into bmx", so long as they've got a good product. If a brand chooses as part of their marketing to put on events and support loads of riders then good luck to them, but in the end, it's the investment in making a better product, that'll win me over.

One thing that I see as a real positive about IPATH is that they have a green angle on the materials and manufacturing of their stuff - that's something that so far we don't have much of. Bmx might have it's share of environmentally minded, anti-consumerism, build-trails-on-a-farm-and-grow-your-own-food types, but there aren't so many companies that are willing to take the risk and put these kind of values out there. Maybe it'd be too unpopular, maybe they don't care, maybe it'd cost too much - who knows?

FBM etc do their veggie oil bus trips and Superstar have a "Nature Blog", but no one is really putting it out there as a feature of their products, so that's at least one positive to come out of an evil skate brand coming to steal your cash. Now I'm off to ride my bamboo bike.

The New Simple

2009-05-28T04:01:00.000-07:00

A while back I posted up some stuff about Simple Bike Co. I put my appreciation on the record for their minimalist approach to the design of bmx parts. Well now they've got a new site up and they've used that same approach in the design of the site, keeping it... basic.

To go with the new site there's a few new products and new colours for the older stuff.

There are no less than two new rim designs with a bit of an old school feel to them and a bit of pun trickery going on with the names:

Apparently the Keypit is the more tech of the two - which I assume means lighter, while the Plainan takes some inspiration from the old Peregrine HP48 but, like the Keypit, is drilled offset for cross lacing. They both are available in 36 hole only and come in the same colours as the seatclamps below.

In those same colours they've now got cassettes, wheelsets, a few stems and pivotal seat posts... loads of stuff.

Capitalist Pegs

2009-05-26T04:54:00.000-07:00

Don't be fooled by the picture - This is serious mum!

In the last few years pegs, those simple, humble metal tubes have been designed to within an inch of their lives and are now fully fledged tools of capitalism.

You pay more for them than ever (yes, yes, Plegs excluded) and their lifespans are shorter than ever. They've become semi disposable. Of course really they are just keeping up with the state of things. You change your computer every couple of years, you change your phone yearly and you buy new pegs every six month. Hooray for capitalism - everyone wins. People love to have new things and companies love to sell the stuff. Perfect. There are a few down sides but lets not talk about them...

But this new wave of capitalist pegs must be ticking boxes. The amount of new light weight (read: short lifespan) pegs available growing, it seems that most people are willing to pay the money to save the weight.

Not Plegs, I hear you say. Plegs are cheap. Yeah, but even if you divide the dollars spent by the lifespan of the peg?

On that topic: The bitter battle of the Plegs continues to be waged on the SPRFLS site. And George from G-Sport has made a pretty long and interesting reply that's worth reading. He talks a bit about the curse of the colourway - basically to make a dollar in bmx you've got to keep up with demand for endless colour variations.

Plegs are now ticking that box.
In fact they are kind of like the perfect storm of modern bmx parts - they combine 3 of the things that people get really upset about: they're plastic, they're light, and they come in a bunch of candy coloured variations. If they had a low slung top tube and wore tight jeans, people would be burning effigies of them at skateparks all over the world. As they are they just tend to bring out spite and slander from people who have never even ridden them.

Maybe pegs fire people up like this because it's such an obvious change. In the space of 6 or 7 years pegs have gone from being 300g (3/4 lb) lumps of steel that you'd bash on things for years to 100g (3.8oz) pink translucent plastic sleeves that you update to match you hair colour.

It must have hurt G-Sport's sales when just around the time that Plegs were about to drop that 7075 aluminium pegs started poping up. I think it was Tree that started the ball rolling with their Trick Sticks. (?) The aluminium pegs are the same weight as the plastic pegs, but in my experience last a lot longer.

Tree Trick Sticks. Weight: 1.5” dia. = 108g/ 3.9oz each, 1.375” dia = 97g/ 3.5oz each
I think everyone had just always assumed that since you couldn't really grind an aluminium rail, that aluminium pegs would be useless. This is off the Tree website:

These aluminum pegs grind faster than titanium on steel. Just to clear any confusion, aluminum is not inherently a high friction material. Everyone has had there experience of aluminum railing being very slow, but aluminum railing is made of a very soft corrosion resistant grade. Like all metals, the higher quality grades are harder and have a lower friction coefficient. Skateboard trucks have always been made of aluminum.

So aluminium is OK, but what about this one way shit?

One way shit:
Colony One Way: 110 g / 3.88 oz
Fly Alloy: 89 g / 3.1 oz
Eastern Slit: 119 g / 4.2 oz

In my book this is one of the less useful ideas going around.

A peg that shaves some grams by having less material on the top - so in effect rather than being able to rotate your peg 10+ times, you have just one spot to grind on it. That equals one tenth the life - or at best one fifth, if you take into account some extra thickness on the bottom of the peg. So you save a bit of weight and lose a lot of life. And they're expensive. Weirdly enough, Colony came out with the idea and companies just copied them.

So spend some money, take your pick, save some weight, style it up - capitalist pegs. They're all the rage.

Straight to the Source

2009-05-24T04:38:00.000-07:00

There's no secret about the fact that just about everything on your bike originated in Taiwan, so why not buy it direct from Taiwan? Cut out the middle man so to speak?

You'd get exactly the same pivotal stump post, or whatever, but without paying for the image points accrued from your particular brand loyalty. And as we all know riding's got absolutely nothing to do with buying an image so what's the problem?

You want brand with a decent reputation for quality - "a name you can trust", a "rider owned" company, or one that "gives back to bmx". Maybe all those things actually are worthy of consideration, but throwing in a couple of generic, straight from the source Taiwanese options might keep the rest of them honest. Personally I wouldn't go buying forks or frames from them, or more tech parts like a cassette, but a plain, black, unbranded 7075 sprocket or stump post I might consider.

In fact, someone should start up a company, call it Black Bikes and make one generic, black version of everything - one size fits all, any colour so long as it's black, no team, no videos, no stickers, no softgoods, no frills, 40% cheaper than everything else. Would that work? It kind of bucks the trend of a new colour every five minutes, a new web edit every five minutes and parts you change every five minutes, but surely there's got to be some people out there that are sick of the hype.

Anyway, these guys are far from the imaginary Black Bikes, they are Messiah Bike Co, but they are definitely straight out of Taiwan. Here's the description off their site of the rim tape they do:

"Candy Tape
Hey! It's funnnny. Normally, we could not find any special package for rim tape.
Therefore,we came out a idea that is candy.
We want to make it not only a rim tape.
It will be jucy and taste good also with fuuny.
So we designed 4 kinds of cover to choose"

That one got lost in translation. But the rest of their parts are simple, colourful, light and I'm guessing cheap. So there's no reason for people not to like them. They include a stem, a fork, a sprocket, bars, pivotal seat and post. And don't forget the rim tape.

No idea if or where you can get them, but they look like this:

Chameleon?

2009-05-23T04:38:00.000-07:00

The bitter battle of the Plegs continues to be waged on SPRFLS. People hate 'em, people love 'em. And George from G-Sport has defended them. He made a long and interesting comment that's worth reading and he also talks a bit about the curse of the colourway - saying that basically to make a dollar in bmx you've got to keep up with demand for endless colour variations.

I would have said that making parts that change colour in sunlight would be taking it too far, but...

The Rising of the Plegs

2009-05-21T05:12:00.000-07:00

I made a disparaging post about Plegs not long ago. It wasn't the Plegs' fault - I was angry. Hold on a minute... it was the Plegs' fault - those things are just too damn soft. A peg that you have to rotate every other time you ride is too soft.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a G-Sport enthusiast. I own a Ratchet and it's a thing of beauty - solid, unbreakable, functional beauty. But can the same be said for Plegs? I'm still unconvinced.

BUT WAIT, just when you thought it was all over - Let the convincing begin:

I know it's old news. But a whole 2 days old and 74,000 tweets later, it's still worth a mention.

Not least because apparently this new incarnation uses a variation of the original plastic compound that according to GSport and Odyssey, and this guy Will (?), is a lot harder than the originals:

They’re really hard wearing. I genuinely think they’d last me about 2 years of continuous use on the front… I basically haven’t been rotating my front pleg much just to see how durable they really are. They have worn down loads (see picture) and still haven’t failed. My general riding involves a lot of tricks that are hard on the front peg and I’ve been going out of my way to give it extra abuse when the opportunity arises. I’m pretty sure had I worn down an old style pleg in this way, it would have cracked and failed by now, but that’s just from a subjective point of view I guess.

So there you go. Will likes 'em.

And you just know that as I type this there are at least 1000 kids who don't give a shit about how hard they, are or how long they last, sitting at their computers planning *crazy* translucent Pleg and Twisted PC Pedal combos - it's like bmx is 10 years behind the apple mac.

All that aside, the thing that really got me about riding with Plegs was the sound they make - or the lack of sound. Grinding in eerie silence is... eerie.

Eastern's cockroach tubing

2009-05-19T04:21:00.000-07:00

Now this is tech.

This is like engineer pornography - a new type of tubing that'll be going on Eastern's 2010 aftermarket frames and a few of their completes. It's called, wait for it... XHeliX. I don't want to bring you down, but this amazing new word is pronounced, quite simply - Cross Helix.

I could just leave you with this quote I lifted from the comments on Eastern's post for the tubing: Phantom: "I don`t know much of this, but it seems so good", but I'll try and shed a little more light on it.

Of course, it's all about the weight. As you can see there are little ridges that run in opposing spirals down the inside of the tube. So the idea, i guess, is that you can have a thinner walled tube of an equal strength due to the reinforcement provided by ridges. The fact that they spiral along the length of the tube would also give a good torsional strength.

It'll be interesting to find out whether you can also get butted tubes of this design. That is: have a greater wall thickness at the end of the tubes where the welds are. Without butting you'd have less material at the weld point. But Eastern are going to put up some more info later in the week, so...

Just in case you didn't already feel like you're back at school, don't fall asleep yet. Cast your mind back to science class and take a look at the comparison below with the inside surface of an insect's exoskeleton. Pretty much the same principal. If it's good enough for cockroaches, it's good enough for me.

Positive - Negative

2009-05-17T02:33:00.000-07:00

This blog had some hate poured over it the other day - in the comments on this page.

I've taken this criticism onboard and I am determined to make BMXtec a bettter blog.
The post I made that inspired this negativity, was in itself at least 50% negative. It seems this level of negativity may inspire negativity in others. From here on in I will be adopting a blog-wide content policy that enforces a minimum level of 75% positive content. Enjoy your day :)

Bye bye Bruce

2009-05-15T05:28:00.000-07:00

Bruce Crisman, the fakie extrodinaire silver medal holder (Schwartz), is leaving Federal and making his way over to KHE. Not only to ride on their team, but to continue designing parts for them as well.

He's already put in work on two of their Freecoasters - the Reverse and the Astern - and now he's going to get himself a signature frame called the "Shola". Wonder if there'll be some whacky backwards specific geometry going on? You just never know with KHE, they defintely aren't shy when it comes to trying something new - bar/stem combo anyone?

The frame is named after Bruce's own brand - Shola, that has a new website up (with some nice vids too), but it's also set to release a few parts - Grips, Forks, Stem, Bars, and Seats apparently.

Then all the stuff above will be mixed together in various configurations to make up three KHE completes - Beginner, Intermediate and Pro.

Here you can reminisce and say goodbye to the old Federal Bruce God bless 'im:

Solidified Helium and Carbon Fibre

2009-05-15T04:08:00.000-07:00

I'd bet that in the offices of KHE, somewhere in Germany, in a room of it's own there is a shrine. Purpose built from carbon fibre and solidified helium, adorned with flowers and levitating in a cloud of Bratwurst incense, it houses a set of German made digital scales accurate to 0.001 of a microgram.

KHE are totally and utterly obsessed by weight.

Anyway... I'm not going to throw too many stones (I too have been known to use the "sort by weight" feature on Dan's Comp), I'm just saying those guys really push the limit of light weight bmx parts. And they get a lot of shit for doing so. But when you think about it, someone has to push that limit - even go over that limit. How else do you find what that limit is?

So long as that limit is pushed and broken in the testing and prototyping of parts, no one has anything to complain about. And that what, according to KHE, this bike represents - "We wanted to see how far we could push the limits."

Mind you this bike is for sale. A bargain at just 1.995,- Euro (US$2,670 or A$3,580)
But before you part with your cash, I've got just a few words for you:

Flexie, Un-nerving,Fragile and Showpiece...

... After all, when KHE say "The result is almost too precious to be ridden" are they hinting that you might be better off having it on your wall rather than having it underneath you? At least the frame - the parts themselves would be worth a bomb.

Green, Blue, Gold.

2009-05-13T04:17:00.000-07:00

DK have a slideshow of their "Summer 2009 Product Line" on the Transworld site.

I would embed the whole thing here but it's probably just as easy to create your own mental slideshow. Just conjure in your mind's eye their regular product line and think: "green, green, blue, blue, gold, gold, gold.

A few new colours maketh not a product line.

Although they did add this thing. I've seen valve cap spoke wrenches before and thought they were a good idea. For all I know they've been around forever, but I still think they're a good idea. Although a regular, average quality steel spoke wrench tends to round off on tight spokes, so an aluminium one... ?

Edit: Hey, see the question mark? That means I don't know.

For better or for worse

2009-05-11T03:41:00.000-07:00

Proper's female front hub is officially out. That is, IMG distro got them today.
For better or for worst Proper has pretty much held the "light weight bmx hub crown" for the last few years, but the weight of these things - ridiculous.

184 grams apparently.

To put that in perspective, a Shimano 6500 Ultegra front road bike hub weighs in at an obese 198 grams. If you think about it a pair of lycra bike pants must weigh at least a couple of hundred grams less than a pair of jeans - you see where I'm going with this?

An Odyssey Rim Prototype, Mike Ardelean and Light Street

2009-05-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

Mike Ardelean bike check on Odyssey:

Nice bike, nice photos, nice couch.

I don't usually give a lot of time to the full spec, but this got my attention:

"REAR RIM: Odyssey Quadrant prototype"

So that's a new rim from Odyssey on the way. You'd have to say they've already got a fair stable, especially if you include GSport in the mix, so why another? And why's it called Quadrant? Don't even bother squinting at the bike check you wont get nothin'.

I know they've got more than that but I'm going with the quadrant theme

You'd have to be betting on the "quadrant" being a lighter design - all their current rims are 17 oz's plus and they must be losing a bit of business while all the weight watchers are out there shopping up Primo Balances and Rhynolites (15.4 oz each) to save some grams.

Anyway, making a heavy rim in the dawning days of light street - you might as well give your money away.

Speaking of light street, Ardelean's wheels are built up with those butted Odyssey race spokes, and he's a street only. So for now, to stop the outrage and confusion - Mike Ardelean = Light Street.

Federal make good edits

2009-05-06T05:17:00.000-07:00

I'd decided not to post videos, but this was just too good.

Anyway.. here's a good interview with Chris Harrison who's the product designer for Federal. Along with plenty of words he says some pretty interesting things about the heat treating of frames - or more specifically the half-heat-treating of frames.

Soft like butter

2009-05-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

I had a GSport Pleg kicking around - brand new.
So I put it up on ebay.
Was I unlucky?
Or does every man and his dog know these pegs are softer than butter?

Selling Price: $0.01

This is getting Complexicated

2009-05-06T04:29:00.000-07:00

Seat / post combos are the new low top tube.

These CAD drawings of the next version of Eclat's Complex seat/post combo have been floating around.

They're planning to add an internal aluminium sleeve to the post section of the molding.
For you technically ingtrigued people: it looks like they'll mold an extruded aluminium section with some ribbing on it into the PVC molding. To do this the extrusion is first placed in the injection tooling and the plastic gets squirted around it. So it's locked in there and, according to Eclat, you have a "one piece seat and post" - one piece with another piece molded into it.

I guess they were having the same problems as Fly were having with the plastic post getting crushed when the seat post clamp was tightened and they've come up with a similar solution.

In fact all these seat and post combos are starting to look pretty similar - mind you the Eclat one does have a 3 degree or so difference in angle when compared to the KHE Exhibit seat below. And it looks a little more like a mushroom...

Complications have arisen.

2009-05-03T03:05:00.000-07:00

Simple is good. Simple things are good. Simplicity is great.
Think: simple life... simple man... simple pleasures. There's something going on there.

Complicated things sometimes have a charm of their own, but now I’m going to talk about simple things.

A bike with no brakes – looks simple, looks good.
But no stretch of the imagination or contorted explanation is going to convince me that a bike with no brakes functions better than one with brakes - even for street.

But that’s kind of my point. “Improving” things often makes them more complicated. And sometimes the result just isn’t worth it.

After all, a bike is a simple thing and a bmx is a particularly simple example of a bike. Improvements will nearly always be minor. Near optimal designs for all the basic bmx building blocks were reached years ago and I'm afraid from here on in it’s all marginal improvements, trends, corporate branding and shaving grams.

So why bother? Why not just make parts that don't try to be anything that they're not, that don't try to shout above the noise of the newest colourways and anodized parts and don't compromise their basic function by trying to make some questionable improvement.

I think I'd be right in saying that's what Simple Bike Co is about.

They've got a small product catalogue and the colour selection is limited - most of their stuff only comes only in black, grey or white - but there is an attention to detail that has a lot of their stuff looking like the stereotypical bmx part. I think that's a good thing.

But for a simple design to be a good design there's got to be attention to detail.
Take a look at this illustration below. Each circle is the top of the seat tube of each of the 3 Simple frames. They're all just a little different - I couldn't tell you why, but someone has obviously put thought in to it.

It's the same with the rest of the geometry of their 3 frames. Small differences throughout - it's not revolutionary, but it's more than a lot of other companies bother with.

And decals - these win my vote for best graphics in bmx. You can't beat black, white and grey. The end.

More machine trickery

2009-04-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

I've already made my enthusiasm for Tree sprockets public so this is just a little follow up.

This is a video of the making of the Tree splined sprocket at that hub of bicycle machining known as Super Rat Machine Works. If you haven't looked at the Super Rat site before, take a look. It's full of raw metal machined bicycle porn.

But anyway... here you can marvel at how a square bit of 7075 billet, with the help of seven different machining tools and some extra trickery, is transformed into the best sprocket on the market.

Sprocket Making Video from andy chapman on Vimeo.