Cute Little Buggers

I finally figured it out.

The real problem I have with a lot of current BMX parts.

It's not that they're too light.

It's that they're too CUTE.

A BMX bike is supposed to look mean, like a rabid charging rhino that's been equipped with machine guns and then set afire. There's supposed to be all sorts of huge chunks of metal and pointy bits and rust and scars and tears all haphazardly covered in black spray paint. Like a beast straight out of Revelation.

This, of course, is difficult when a lot of current parts look like this:



You can try and fool people with those super-wide bars and fat tires, but all that does is make it worse, emphasizing the parts that are small even more. So a lot of modern bikes wind up looking like this:



Instead of this:



Here's just a few examples of parts that are simply too cute, some of which have been seen here before in a different context.


1. DRIVE STEM
This roly-poly little fellow shouldn't be on a bike, he should be in Hollywood looking for a Pixar movie to star in. Can't you just see it? He could get lost, befriend a mean Redneck and a tipsy Bottleneck, and embark on a series of goofy adventures before successfully joining a pair of Lumberjack Bars with a Race Fork.



2. Snafu Shorty Hex Pegs


I can't decide what these look like more—hi-tech salt and pepper shakers, or exhaust tips for a pimped-out go-kart. BRAAAAAP!


3. Odyssey Junior Lumberjack


The Odyssey Junior saddle is strange, as it resembles the adult version exactly, just on a smaller scale. Kind of like an Olsen twin. That said, I think they blew it by doing the Lumberjack plaid. What they should have done is use a green plaid and called it the Catholic School Girl. Would have sold out in seconds.



4. Federal Slammed Pivotal Post

The only way they could make a cuter seatpost would be to make it out of pink plastic with helicoiled steel threads. Which is probably in the works. Or maybe they could put little faces on them and sell them with birth certificates. Come to think of it, it wouldn't take much to make a li'l Pivotal look like Beaker:





5. Profile Nano-Drive Imperial Sprocket



Poker chips? Some sort of new-fangled Asian coinage? Old rotary phone dials? Something out of Kanye West's jewelry box? Regardless, they look like something you'd find in a gumball machine or an Easter basket, as opposed to classic sprockets which looked like something you'd find in a medieval armory. Parts that appeal to 16-year olds are fine. I get that. But when they start appealing to five-year olds is when I start to get worried.

(I'm not even going to get into Cory Jarman's bike, which is a set of tassels and a white basket away from being marketed directly to the Strawberry Shortcake set.)