Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Getting Back In Gear

Well, good to see I'm still an idiot.

As if the name ("Iron Man") and the lack of a steel insert for the splines and the weight and THE FACT THAT IT SAYS 4130 RIGHT IN THE DESCRIPTION weren't enough, somehow I still assumed the S&M Iron Man sprocket was made of aluminum. And we all know what happens when you assume. So, apologies for that. Still not sure how I feel about the individually drilled teeth (and the fact that they're 3/32"), but I'd be totally down to run a chromoly sprocket. I can't at the moment since I run Twombolts, but I suppose we'll see how this all works out. (For the record, I'm totally in favor of eliminating the sprocket bolt -- not for weight savings, but in the interests of spreading stress evenly and cleaner design.)

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I just looked up "BMX" on Google Image Search and this was the first result. Maybe next time I should turn "Safe Search" on?

6 comments:

Maxime Rousseau said...

Splines are the new bolts. I love the idea of eliminating fasteners.

What I really want to see is splined steerers that eliminate the need for the pinch bolts on stems. It`s not like anybody needs lateral stem slip anyways, right? I guess you can`t really do better than one bolt on a stem, but hey, just for the hell of it, it`d be cool.

Anonymous said...

Maxime - go talk to Ron Wilkerson.

Unknown said...

Twombolts or bust. Odyssey's Flatware sprocket drive looks good, wonder when they'll start making a regular sized version.

Milkster said...

@ Maxime:

If you've ever (or are likely at some point to) crash/ditch the bike in such a way that the bars have moved out of line with the front wheel, you want that give/slip in the stem-fork junction, otherwise things are gonna bend/snap.
See also complaints of profiles (steel) developing permanent wobble, and pretend it's a sift, chewy aluminium stem instead. Ooh, I spose the stem could have a steel insert like the spline drive sprockets (except that s&m one, HA), but then that's added weight, and my first point still stands!

Milkster said...

Grr, "sift" = "soft"

Curtis Chorizali said...

OMG its a mountain bicycle! the end is near?