PC or not PC?

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?

Volume and Demolition 2010

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:

Living the Technicolour Dream

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.

Superstar Plastic Pedals

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

Trendy Colourways

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

Burning bridges, burning bridges now.

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

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

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

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

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

Here's what Odyssey say about them:

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

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