Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Shawn Bradley

If there's anything you can count on in the world of BMX, it's that everyone's striving to make their frames lighter and their bars taller. Lighter and taller, taller and lighter. Hence the title.

(It's funny, because back when heavy bikes were the thing, taller and wider bars would have been a big help, no? Weight didn't matter, and it would have been a lot easier to get your 45-pound monstrosity off the ground with uncut 8x28s than it was using Castillo bars cut down so narrow that the grips touched the crossbar. Ah, the folly of youth. And stupidity. And Freddy Chulo. I fear the legacy of late-'90s BMX will eventually just be Van Homan and back problems.)

Anyway, just two things:

1) How can I not love Proper? First the "lighter than a roadbike hub" front hub, and now "taller than tall bars because we're making a frontload stem and we want our riders to run them (the stems, that is) even though we actually decided to do a topload too, so this idea is wholly unnecessary." BMX: Making things overly complicated since 1974.

2) Not exactly sure how I wound up on Derek Betcher's site (searching for "shimano dxr" I think) and I definitely had never heard of him before, but I found it funny that his prototype aluminum race frame weighs more than his prototype chromoly trails frame. Now I think the new Garrett's a bad idea because it's obviously far too heavy.

••••••••

You've probably seen it already (it was posted on Hypebeast, for God's sake), but the new Mutiny video looks terrific:


Mutiny Bikes "Let's Get Mystical" Trailer! from Mutiny Bikes on Vimeo.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

a 3.3 pound frame is heavier than a 3.11 pound frame? awesome.

todd from albe's said...

the Mutiny trailer does in deed look very good, can't wait to see it. with so many edits, webvids and local scene DVDs every day a lot of them sorta become a blur and leave me underwhelmed. same quality, same tricks, same music and same "don't risk TCU ridicule" formula. just from the sample this one seems to have a little more going for it. i guess you could even say that i'm stoked on being pumped for it's release

bobbyp said...

"don't risk TCU ridicule"

haha. this is why todd rules at life.

Anonymous said...

Yes, a 3.30 lb frame does 'weigh' more than a 3.11 lb frame, but I'm not sure 'heavier' should be used to differentiate the two.

Word verification was hanadu, an "X" away from being awesome.

I'm A-live!

Unknown said...

I think he means 3 lb 3 oz, 3 lb 11oz

The tipster said...

Dig = no love for you!

http://digbmx.com/product/federal1

Anonymous said...

I cant decide if that dude is a total douche bag or not.
What I do know is a 3lb frame is scary.

traskVT said...

i too, must chime into to saying that I'll definitely be buying the Mutiny video. Joe Simon doesn't fuck around. I don't care if it's supposedly "biting" the style of some skate videos, because who the fuck cares!?! It looks sick and really makes me wanna ride. I've watched that shit at least a dozen times already and haven't gotten sick of it. As far as the tall and wide bars go, I just dunno. I remember putting on a pair of slams after using some Castillo's and it was just too crazy for me, but maybe now is the time to break em back out of storage to get an updated opinion. The day I got my T1 bars I was super happy with the feel, so I just never left, but hey, maybe bigger is better? that's what all the girls say at least.

Mike said...

Brandon Hoerres!!!!
And Randy Taylor!!!!

brian said...

i was going to type something up about aluminum frames needing a little bit more weight to keep the stiffness and maybe something about gate starts but i'm not that knowledgeable about metallurgy and welding. fuck it.

my current street bike weighs less than my last chromoly race bike (that was 10 years ago but whatever). i'm okay with that. that bike also had s&m challenger bars which i'm sure all the weight watching tweens today would have loved to had.

i'm just stoked that i have a bike that feels comfortable and stable without being a tank.

Anonymous said...

Tipster,
you mean Tunney has no love for Russ; I think he still writes some stuff for Dig.

Anonymous said...

he works for ESPN full time.

Anonymous said...

wait, didn't freddy chulo run uncut slams on a challenger frame?