Monday, July 28, 2008

Territorial Pissings

In light of getting a post up before the crack of dusk, the FAQ has been postponed. Not to mention the way it was working out a lot of it was gonna be about me, and who cares about me? I sure don't. For now, let's talk about this éclat Pivotal/railed adaptor instead:


Most other sites already posted about this thing last week when the mass e-mail went out (which is posted verbatim on their blog anyway), but I wanted to wait. Mainly because I wanted to know just a little bit more about how it works. Not that something that uses one bolt can be really complicated, but hey, I'm old and easily confused. They'd even provided a handy diagram:

But that wasn't enough. Brian Tunney, the éclat TM, was kind enough to pass my questions on to the designer, Andy Cheney. Not that I had many:

Question: Will the post need to be modified? Pivotal posts are threaded, are they not? Wouldn't that threading have to be removed? Or is the bolt just smaller in diameter? (That seems logical).

Answer: No, you’re right – no modification to the post, we use an M8 bolt (I think M8, without going back to check CAD), that bolts up from the underside. Goes straight through the pivotal post thread into a threaded cr-mo cradle nut on top of upper clamp plate.

Question: And I'm guessing you couldn't use this setup on a long, OG-style Pivotal post unless you have a REALLY long allen wrench.

Answer: Yeah in that case you’d need a reeeeally long allen key. Let’s hope we don’t see pivotal snake posts - that could be a headache. At the end of the day there’s a big shift toward slammed pivotals, so everyone’s got tools for that case, and that’s really what this converter’s for. If you are running a 300mm pivotal things ain’t gonna be so easy, but it’s only a bolt. There are alternatives (using a hex head bolt and socket for example) that we’re looking at for production versions, but for the standard 135 and 75mm posts the hex cap screw works fine - check the pic with the converter mounted on a 75mm post.

To be honest, this is what I thought the Fly seatpost was going to be when I first saw pictures. I was disappointed when I found out it wasn't. And with the Gonzo-dicking of Pivotal seats reaching epidemic proportions, maybe railed seats aren't such a bad idea after all. At least the éclat adaptor doesn't require you to cut a big hole in your seat like the S&M one will. (If S&M were smart, which they are, they would offer a pre-cut version of their Thin seat that would a) work with their adaptor straight out of the box, and b) be lighter, OMG.) Hey, anything that offers more options can't be all bad.

There will be complaints, of course—that you can't slam a railed seat as low as a Pivotal, and that the serrated post doesn't let you microadjust your seat angle to the thousandth of an inch. Oh well, we all have to make sacrifices.

••••••••••••••••••••••

I was thinking the other day, how simple can you make your bike? How few bolts can you use to hold the whole thing together? (Excluding the spokes and hubs and stuff.) A wedge Pivotal post would take care of seat and post and clamp with one bolt (not that it's SPRFLS approved, mind you). An Elementary stem would do the same for the front end. That's two. (Whoops, compression bolt. Three.) Four for the wheels, two for the pedals. That's nine. Cranks were where I was unsure. I don't think there's a two-piece crank out there that allows for the use of a spline-drive sprocket. So I'm pretty sure you need two bolts there no matter what. So that's 11. Is that as low as you can go right now? Regardless, pretty impressive, given that a typical stem alone has six bolts. With the right parts, you could take your entire bike apart with a set of allen keys.

(I want to say a company—Bullseye, maybe—once made a hub where the axle was a nut and bolt, so loosening one side would loosen the entire thing. Anyone?)

••••••••••••••••••••••

Someone sent me the link to this photo off a different messageboard. It's the bathroom at Max Fish on Ludlow between Houston and Stanton. I put the sticker up (check the center of the lid), but didn't take the picture. Sums things up quite nicely.



P.S. Carlos Sastre, congrats.

25 comments:

Stephen said...

Wait...you have stickers?

Also, it feels like we are just making the attachment of a seat to a bike as complicated as we fucking can. I really don't know that many people with railed seats that spend any time fucking with them. At all.

I guess I feel the same way about seats as I do about chains...I want the option to have a little give, because if you make it too rigid something is gonna have to give.

Anonymous said...

If the overall idea is one bolt for a railed seat, hasn't that already been done? odyssey intac, shadow umbra, fly.

Anonymous said...

I think the Eclat converter is stupid. If they are expecting the majority of the users to slam their seats anyways, who the fuck cares about fore and aft adjustment? I guess it's nice I can go back to using my old Pentagon seat though.

Anonymous said...

Love the blog. But doesn't this sentence negate your entire raison d'être?

"Hey, anything that offers more options can't be all bad."

(Yes I ride flat, but no I'm not French.)

anon flat rider

Anonymous said...

p.s. dope stickers. where can we get our grubby mitts on em?

AFR

Smitty said...

Yes, the original version of the Bullseye hubs used a bolt running through it, with a nut on one side. I actually ran those hubs on my Kuwahara BITD, and I didn't particularly care for that axle set up, but seeing as it was almost 30 fucking years ago, I cannot remember why.

Anonymous said...

i think this is the dumbest thing ever. the whole idea of the pivotal was to simplify things i believe? now this just makes things more difficult. seems really dumb considering they do make railed seatposts still.

Russ said...

I think I meant more actual options. Like, ability to run any seat on the same post, good. 3,000 "different" seats built on the same base, not so good.

MyComicalGonads said...

Where can we get these stickers?

Seriously it all seems to be getting complicated again. Why would you want to put a railed seat on a pivotal post anyway?

Oh and I second the congrats to Carlos Sastre but Mark Cavendish ruled the sprints!

Anonymous said...

fly is kind of redoing the bullseye hub idea with their upcoming casette hub.


also watching Sastre win just made me want to go ride bmx. weird. also, speaking of the tour, do you think that Jens Voigt's saddle would have broken off if he was using the railed/pivotal set up?

Anonymous said...

I was thinking , if you want to ride a rail seat ,why not take a regular seatpost (an aluminium one of course).
where's the point of making this ,just make a lighter regular seatpost will be as good.
i love your blog Russ
excuse my language i'm french

Anonymous said...

anyone else find it odd how the BMX community so openly embraces other/similar sports yet the reverse seems non existent? it seems like every pro that can see the twilight of his career looming cashes in all the royalty checks he’s gotten for his signature inner tubes & stem hardware, finds a tiny building in his home town and opens up a shop, you know, to “give back to the sport”...but very rarely is it an all BMX shop, it’s more often a skate & BMX shop (with snowboards in the winter)...yet i doubt there has ever-EVER been a skateboarder in that same position to open a shop with even so much as one set of Edwin grips in stock. and now, all of a sudden everyone seems to be jumping on the whole “fixie” wagon, anyone seen any Mercier BMX bikes coming down the line? Volume and FBM to name a couple are even making their own. are we, the aging BMXer too accepting? too open minded? or do we just have such a clear grasp on reality and know that BMX is an over saturated, under funded, get rich never industry...i bring this up in this post after the Tour talk, think any of the guys on “the Tour” discussed even for a few seconds who qualified first in dirt for the Cleveland Dew Tour? maybe i’m wrong..and i’m sure someone will tell me if i am and i sorta hope i am and somewhere, right now as i type this Lance Mountain is selling a little kid a Kink “Launch”.

G.S.GUCCILIFE said...

Looking for SPRFLS stickers.Im a WSM(moustache and greasy hair) Down to pay and play,I have paypal.Will travel.Russ,talk to me/us....

Anonymous said...

Please can you visit this blog and say how bad it is ! Thank You

http://www.ridingaroundhere.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Todd,

Of course BMX vehemently rejects any sport that's remotely similar. How much shit talking on freeride mountain biking or FMX goes on (admittedly more the former than the latter)? I mean, BMX is pretty much directly responsible for both of those sports, but there's a LOT of looking down of the collective nose there. I think a lot of it has to do with, at a certain age you realize that all of the ridiculous cliques are for little kids and that we're all doing the same thing, basically and it would be more helpful if we pool our resources rather than the ceaseless infighting (I mean, hell, spend 30 seconds in The Come Up's comments section and see how many people declare what is and is not real BMX, we can't get along with ourselves, much less skateboarding).

That and BMX has spent so long equating cool with obscure that there's no money in it, duh.

Anonymous said...

On the subject of railed seats; I have been running the same chromoly Primo Rod for a good three years now with out an incident.

Through many seats and height adjustments, the Rod has held up as it should; being made of chormoly that is.

Stop the hate.

Russ said...

But it's so HEAVY!

Anonymous said...

yo Russ. Need stickers. i want a huge one for my frame. What can you do for me?

Russ said...

I need to do a second batch of stickers sometime soon. Working on a new design, i.e. downloading different fonts off the interwebs. Will post more about that soon, and I will make them available to interested parties. Promise.

G.S.GUCCILIFE said...

Hey anonymous(above)i would like some stickers...by the way,you got "their" spelled wrong.Is your name Todd?

Anonymous said...

g.s...very funny. but it's very rare that i get my forms of "there", they're" & "their" confused. a few years ago a guy i know got discharged from the Navy and the first thing he did was get an anti-government/punk rock tattoo that had a big eagle and read "who do they think their kidding" it was still fresh, stopped here on the way home after getting it and i had to break the news to him. i was kinda stoked, too because i didn't really care for him and now i get to tell this story about what a dork he is. oh yeah, he drew the graphic himself. haha

Anonymous said...

BMX needs skewers

G.S.GUCCILIFE said...

Todd

Mispelled tattoos are so hot right now.Mispelling and bad gramatics will take over bmx as you read this.Its goin on in skateboarding(started by Mark Gonzales)Being rude and ignorant,will be one of the next big things in bmx.LEWD TOUR hitting a city near you soon....

smoovebert said...

haaa i saw that sprfls sticker at max fish. imagine that, i was hosed and i only remember it now.

Anonymous said...

yeah dude, they have a front hub out now that you can take off with only one side...the simple flangeless. i have one, so i'm sure. the center 19mm axle is a floating axle, so it isn't attached to the hub at all, so you only have to loosen one side and the whole thing comes off. i don't even use the other side because my peg is on it and i don't want to stick the long end of an allen in there to loosen it. it's actually a really nice hub...but would be more awesome if they made it so the floating axle actually fits snugly with the bearings... there's just a little bit of play...