Yet when you finally get it together and get out into the sun, something still doesn't seem right. It's not that you've hardly ever ridden a BMX bike before and need to build up more strength by riding every day. No, that can't be it. There must be something wrong with the bike. It's still too heavy!
But what else is there? You've already got plastic pedals and plastic barends, a two-inch long slammed seatpost and a stripped and trimmed seat, Kevlar-beaded tires, and enough race parts to get sponsored by the NAACP. Your frame was designed by NASCAR engineers, and your fork was designed by—well, someone who knew what they were doing, hopefully. You've got hollow bolts and ti bolts, ti axle nuts and a hollow-pin, hollow-plate chain. Your gearing is so small that said chain hits your chainstay on the top AND bottom. What else is there?
Here's where the hint comes into play, oh seeker of the unbearable lightness of BMXing. Look at yourself in a mirror (or convenient store window) while sitting on your bike. Do your arms look like this?
If so, maybe start with that four inches of extra metal on the end of your bars.
33 comments:
what?
haha i get it. thats silly.
this is my favorite part:
"The Wedgie" is the best deviced for use in tightening your headset when using a Drive fork. Instaling a Wedgie is simple, and requires simple to find tools. You will need a Ratchet, a 7" ratchet exstension, a 14mm socket, and a 17mm socket."
What?!!! how is that more simple than using 1 allen wrench?
The big bar thing I just do not understand one bit.
BMX goes from one extreme to the other.
Marketing is a hell of a thing.
Surely it should say 'if not' rather than 'if so', hence the 'what?'
Want wide bars, just cut an inch off each grip.
here i was thinging that post was the best thing ever and then some1 types this
"Marketing is a hell of a thing."
together are perfect
big bars give you more control and are loads nicer for spinning and throwing bars.
If any of you salty old fucks could do any tricks you'd probs already know that.
5 years ago I was getting shit on bmxboard for my normal sized bar width. I tried to explain that as a grown man with hair on my nuts my shoulders are wider and it works for me. But I was told (in most disparaging terms, I may add) that mornically narrow bars were better for spinning and throwing bars and that they give you better control.
I knew damn well that it would cycle the other way eventually and that the same little pricks that somehow think buying stuff will make them better riders would argue the reverse. Today it has come full circle.
My setup hasn't changed significantly since 2000, and it won't. At least not because some snotty pre-pubescent thinks I should change it.
When your balls drop you can talk when the men are speaking. Until then run along and be a good little tot.
waesa, you took the words right out of my mouth. Well, spoken, Sir.
Russ....excellent entry. I laughed out loud twice sitting here by myself. I've been asking the kids what the point is to gi-normous bars when they have so much excess sticking out the sides. The well-articulated response? "I just like it that way." Every time.
A couple weeks and you've already become redundant. Old kooks hate change and kids hate old kooks that try to tell them they are wrong? What a revelation.
Actually 'Waesa' I wouldn't comment on anyone else's bars or solicit comments from anyone on my own.
I just happen to know, as a fact, that I can ride much better with slightly cut bezzer's than small T1's with the grips touching the cross bar.
Nobody cares what bars you run, or what anybody on bmxboard thinks, so hobble back to your residential home and wait to die quietly.
Residential home...
I can't believe the kids that leave discouraging comments on this blog. They're either:
-Jealous because they can't do a popular column expressing their own cynicism...
-Trendy, and love their trends, and live by trends, and hate anyone who challenges that(even though nothing is actually being forced on anyone...)
-Brand new to the scene and simply don't grasp the relevance of the posts being made on here.
People, these are good posts that make you think twice about stuff. Yeah, it's a little hard to take if a company you are loyal to is being mentioned, but how often are your views challenged?
Also, this blog can be a good history lesson.
You're only getting something positive from it.
maybe just shut the fuck up and ride? Its only a bike. Get over it. It is what it is.
when i had short bars i had waaaaay more control than my civilian sveltes... i had odyssey skim milks cut to 20 or 21 and they were great for me...time to chop a few inches off the bars i guess...something no riders dare to do.
i like how my security code below is LOL XDX
Good point. I'm pretty tall so it's really easy to embrace the big bar trend, but the first thing I did was cut an inch of both sides. Running them uncut just means you're hunched over more...
yawn.
NER Says:
"Too many companies making similar products and trying to cut an awfully small pie into an awful lot of pieces."
"Although as BMX gets bigger, that's only natural."
Is it big or small? Please enlighten us with your vast experience, knowledge and reliable information you have about the industry.
Boston George what the fuck are you talking about? I still see loads of kids round here with massively cut down small bars.
Um, BMX has gotten bigger, but it's still an awfully small pie for so many companies to be trying to share. Is it that hard to understand? Is there really a market for 25 companies to be making near-identical 8x28 two-piece bars?
"big bars give you more control and are loads nicer for spinning and throwing bars."
You are wrong, not just "I don't agree with you," but you basically just stated that the sun orbits the earth. The wider your bars, the slower they spin for a given throw in comparison to smaller bars. That's conservation of momentum. That's a law of the physical universe. It's why ice skaters pull their arms in when they spin and why guys doing 1080s all pull their bikes almost completely vertical.
It's something that I learned in Physics in 12 grade. I went to public school in Alabama, this is not a great secret.
Also, wider bars don't give you more control if you have to lock your elbows to ride them.
Tall, wide bars are great for tall people. That said, I'm six feet tall and ride bars that are 25x7.75". I refuse to believe that EVERYONE running uncut Slams or Slam clones is doing so because they're so much better. Big bars are "in" now, so nearly everyone runs them and most companies make them.
I think you probably do have more control with bigger bars, but not if you're a 90-pound, 5-4 13-year-old kid.
Whoa! I got my very own internet hate substratum!
And 'anonymous'? The men are still talking. There's Sunny-D in the kitchen.
they are so much nicer for throwing it's untrue, i could never catch them before they hit the floor till i got bezzers.
i feel like i get more leverage on them, but maybe it's because they spin slower and it's easier for me to catch either way definitely better.
Please provide factual information, such as sales numbers proving that BMX is bigger now, than say in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Give us the numbers of completes sold in these decades as well as aftermarket frames and hardgoods. Maybe the World has gotten smaller with internet communication and BMX being televised semi-regularly makes BMX APPEAR to bigger than ever, is that hard to understand? Maybe you could actually research your topics like a good little journalist?
Sales numbers wouldn't really come close to telling the whole story anyway. I'll leave stuff like that to the BMX Economist blog.
hey russ... You suck your opinions are so one sided, just stop bitching you sound like my girlfriend when she's on the rag... Go get laid or somethin. you care way too much about the current state of our industry.. Here's a question, what would you do to change it? Mr knowitall.
Um, ALL opinions are one-sided. That's what makes them opinions.
And figuring solutions isn't my job. I'm just here to raise questions and provide a different perspective. No one's forcing you to read it.
I would love to meet the guy who writes this blog and see what and how he rides. Its almost like he looked at my bike and just wrote this post but i am 16 and i dont care what he think about what a bike should and should not have on it i mean its the way you ride thats gets you credit or fun not writing some stupid blog spot with about a total of 15 people reading it from probably your parents basement .
I would love to meet the guy who writes this blog and see what and how he rides. Its almost like he looked at my bike and just wrote this post but i am 16 and i dont care what he think about what a bike should and should not have on it i mean its the way you ride thats gets you credit or fun not writing some stupid blog spot with about a total of 15 people reading it from probably your parents basement .
^clearly, you do care.
Ha...I like it that Russ hit a nerve (or is that Nirve) here.
I feel compelled to say words in his defense though he surely doesn't need me.
Anonymous 1 - I'm sure you know as well as anybody that no one in the BMX industry shares sales figures. To to fault him for not having hard data that even doesn't exist is ridiculous.
Anonymous 16 year old: he didn't have to look at your bike to write this post - your bike looks like every other kid's bike - color notwithstanding.
I think the point of this blog is to get us all thinking about what we put on a bike. Run whatever you want - just think about it first.
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