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:
Showing posts with label prototype. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prototype. Show all posts
Impure Animals
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 inAustralia and half in Singapore
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.
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
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
Viridian is the New Black
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:
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:
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.
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.
New Fly Fork with Integrated Dropout
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.
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.
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