Blue Falcon, Orange Cranks, and Green Clovers

Working on something longer for tomorrow (here's a hint), so just some quick hits today, I fear.

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The latest entry for "What Does A Real Bike Look Like?," courtesy of the Blue Falcon:

I particularly like the inverted frontload drop stem with high-rise bars and a spacer underneath. Time for a new Fit topload stem? Also please note the visible seatpost, big dirt front tire, metal pedals and dress-unfriendly standover height. BFF!

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Hey look, a new Profile color. No way!


Still somewhat surprised that Profile keeps banging out new colors of the Race Cranks without trying a bigger, hollow spindle or a two-piece design or something. While I do respect the "if it ain't (that) broke, don't fix it" mentality, I also think there would be a huge market for a Profile crank that's stronger than the Race but not quite as massively overbuilt as the SS/DJ. American-made, 22mm, 48-spline chromoly cranks? How could they miss?

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If you ever wanted to knock off your own Pivotal setup, here's your chance. Or at least you can see how many patents are involved. From an interview Tunney did with Darcy at Macneil. (I would love to know how much revenue the Pivotal patents bring in annually—not that anyone will ever tell me. Bastards.)

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Ben Ward at Odyssey sent me this along with my monthly check (kidding!)—that's a gen-you-wine SPRFLS sticker on the bike rack in front of the PDX's own Goods. Holla. (I'm gonna get more made soon, promise.)

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Finally, how could something right be so wrong? Don't get me wrong, it's totally awesome that Vans gave Tobias Wicke a signature shoe, especially since they seem to be hard to come by these days (signature shoes for BMXers, not Vans).


But a full-length visible airbag on a pair of Vans? For serious? It's like Ian MacKaye rocking a fauxhawk or a vintage Ferrari with spinners or Metallica...well, doing pretty much everything they did after 1990. Come on Vans, you're better than that! Leave the gimmicky nonsense for companies like DC, please.

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One-Sided Arguments

Well.

Apologies for the disappearance. Spent much of last week and the weekend watching the X Games—odd parts, too, not just the BMX. Nope. Since I didn't exactly keep track of what was on when, I just took what came: Jake Brown's return to Megaramp (and the ensuing multiple crashes of a drawn-looking Danny Way), the BMX Street final jam session (which seemed rather difficult to judge), a few minutes of FMX Best Trick (whose competitors seem about as culturally relevant as Mudvayne and Slipknot—and equally well-dressed).

I don't know, the X Games just seem to get increasingly stranger and more removed from real life every year. Pro skater Rune Glifberg bitches about the "Super Park" course enough to have an L.A. Times story written about it—then wins the event. Podium regulars Travis Pastrana and Dave Mirra both medal—in rally cars. Rally cars? Why not a demolition derby or monster trucks?

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Someone please explain to me the appeal of one-sided pegs? You know, ones like the Eastern Slit pegs, which have a bunch of undoubtedly NASCAR-approved slits cut in them, or the off-center machined Macneil Fashionably Lights or Colony One-Ways (which are aluminum, to boot). Or, of course, the new EXTERNALLY machined Fly pegs.



They're lighter, sure. Which is the whole point, I guess. But the fact that you can't rotate them—when you grind through one side, they're done—seems to be a steep price to pay. And on the internally machined ones you'll want to be careful not to grind on the wrong side by accident. (Of course they're all advertised as "park pegs" or for "light street," but whoever pays attention to that sort of thing?) What they are, more or less, are pegs that are pre-worn. If I'd known something like this would become popular, I would have kept all my old ground-down Kinks.

I'm also curious how the off-centered machining affects the strength of the peg as a whole. What if you hit one of the "thin" parts against an upright? What if you bail and the bike lands square on the end? Like a lot of parts these days, I understand the appeal of these if your sponsor is sending them to you. Otherwise? Not so much.

Tiding The Stem

Couple new stems popped up in the last few weeks. I can barely contain my excitement.

First there's the new Fly, which, best I can tell, is the old stem simply shrunk by 10-15 percent (it's lower, shorter, and the bolts are smaller) and machined to within an inch of your life. Who designed it, Rick Moranis? But it's also two ounces lighter than the Potencia stem, so you should totally buy one.

Then there's this one from Macneil. I guess toploads are back. It looks like an old Standard stem that got pushed nose-first into a router. Honestly, I've never really been a fan of the split top cap (reminds me too much of this), and splitting the bottom as well just seems a lot excessive. But hey, every ounce counts when you're trying to get to sub-20.


At least topload stems make some degree of sense. Nothing better than seeing someone with tall bars and a drop frontload with spacers underneath. (And if you're going to run a drop stem with no spacers and tall bars, why not just get lower bars and a topload? I guess that would make too much sense.)

Pivotal Moment

There are currently 14 'different' Pivotal seatposts available on the Dan's Comp website (which I refuse to link to purely out of spite, so you'll have to take my word for it).

A full 10 of them are capable of being run slammed (including the one shown, a cute little 75mm vestigal feller from Federal that they absolutely should have named "The Angry Inch"), which means the other four are more or less obsolete. Anyone who runs their seat more than two inches from their toptube should probably be shot anyway.

They range in price from $16.99 (Poverty, of course) to a rather alarming $29.99 (United—which, seeing that it's exactly the same as the rest except for the logo, had better come packaged with a $5 bill). The difference between most of them appears to be just color and logos. The weights are the same. The lengths are the same. The designs are the same. It's likely that most of them come out of the same forge (except for the Poverty ones, which are made from the remains of broken Odyssey Intacs by chimpanzees).

I guess it's just amazing to me that companies are charging different prices for what amounts to the exact same thing. One 114mm, 3.5 ounce post is EXACTLY like the other. Unless, of course, you just HAVE to have it in "laser green," which means you're spending $25.99 on a Colony.

(And what's the point of getting a matching-color seatpost that you're only going to run slammed anyway? What, is the inside of your seat tube going to make fun of you? Is the new trend on Bikeguide going to be bike x-rays? "Man, look at that internal butting!" "Yo, my seatpost ends RIGHT AT the lower toptube weld, isn't that awesome?!")

I'd almost feel better if someone offered a Pivotal post in carbon or titanium. It would be stupid, but at least it would be original.

Holey. Shit.

I don't even know where to start.

The Fly rims are an 'update' (I suppose) of the old Mongoose Pro Class rims. Which were never that great to begin with.

The Macneil bars are fantastic as the holes are hidden under the grips so you have NO IDEA if they start to crack. Everything's great—and then death. Awesome. Even better, they're 'XLT', which means they're likely to snap even where they're NOT full of holes.

And the Grim Reaper frame just defies explanation. Ooh, it was designed by NASCAR engineers! What the fuck does that have to do with anything? What do NASCAR engineers know about BMX? Wouldn't they be better at determining aerodynamics and sticker placement? I wouldn't buy one if you, um, paid me.

Back in the day (BITD for short), random kids rode drilled-out everything because they weighed 67 pounds and no one was making stuff for that awkward stage between mini and expert. I specifically remember a BMX Action feature on this kid named "Chicken" George Seevers who had a Redline so drilled out that even the holes had holes drilled in them. I assume he's dead now.