I'll Fly Away

Having written about the Resurrection rims just last week, there's not much more to say about rims with holes cut in them. Yet here comes Fly with their new front-specific (although they assure it'll work on the back) rim. Worth noting that the white version is 25 grams heavier because it's painted, not anodized. Oh no! Not gonna sell many of those, I guess.




Like the Resurrections, they're really not much lighter than a conventional undrilled rim (heavier than a Rhyno Lite). Which makes it all a matter of aesthetics, and whether you actually want to run a "front-specific" rim or not. Personally? No thanks. I know it works for motorcycles and dragsters and stuff, but it's not for me.

Apparently they strengthened the sidewalls by adding extra material there. What, by using the metal they drilled out of the middle? No sir, I don't get it.

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Please excuse the short post, not really feeling myself today.

Ready To Die

Leave it to a French company (good luck figuring out their website) to out-Fly Fly:




What. The. Hell.

Saw these thangs on Dig yesterday. I believe the word you're looking for is 'yikes.'

Available in 36-hole only, in black, white or chrome, each rim has a shitload of holes cut in it. But fear not! According to K-124 (or Dig, maybe—I'm not sure who wrote the text), and I quote: "constructed of 6061 aluminum, the Resurrection rims feature 16mm x 16mm square holes throughout the rim to maximize weight savings without sacrificing strength." Right. According to whom, exactly? A structural engineer? The warranty department? NASCAR? Your mom? You'll have to excuse me whilst I remain skeptical. And I'd love to hear what George French thinks of these abominations.

Just look at them! I'm supposed to believe that these rims are just as strong as a rim that DOESN'T have a mess of Chiclet-shaped (and sized) holes cut in it? Right.

For the record, they apparently weigh 460 grams apiece. In comparison, an Odyssey 7K-A or Sun Big City Lite weighs 490 grams, and a Rhyno Lite weighs 415 grams. Hmmm. I'll take the rim that hasn't been attacked by maniac with a hole-punch, Alex. (Not to mention a Rhyno Lite/Big City Lite combo is actually 15 grams lighter.)

From what I could sort out from their website, K-124 seems to primarily produce trials stuff. Which makes sense—I've seen plenty of trials wheels with huge holes in them. But correct me if I'm wrong, trials bikes usually have equally huge tires (with low pressure), super-wide rims, and—while they do big drops—land going in a straight line. And they still blow up. Wouldn't want to see what happens if you land three-quarters of the way through a high-speed whip or 360 on your Resurrections.

I do hope that, like the Mongoose Pro Class rims of old, you can get different colored rim strips to liven up your ride.

And I hope the good people at K-124 remember one thing: in order to be resurrected, first you have to die.

Assassination Day

To be honest, nothing much in BMX surprises me anymore. The riding? When you have guys doing flairs entirely backwards and 360ing off rooftops, it's apparent that anything goes. And productwise, well, I think I've made myself quite clear. Let's just say I generally hope for the best and expect the worst.

Sometimes, it seems, my expectations are still too high.

Take Hitman Bikes. Their new street frame is a low-slung, drilled-out, Sanko-tubed creation that looks like an Eastern on a crash diet or a Tierra that was used for target practice (the three holes in the headtube beg to be converted into a working traffic light). According to the accompanying release, which is up on Ride but, oddly enough, not on Hitman's own site, it weighs four pounds, six ounces, which honestly seems kind of heavy given all the drilling. The prototype was sub-four, and is apparently still being ridden, which doesn't really explain why the production frame is 12 ounces heavier.

(I'm not entirely sure, based on the photo and the diagram below, where all 21 holes are. It looks like 10 in the seattube, three in the headtube, and four in the capped stays. Where else? Maybe the gyro tab ones count?)


As you can see on info sheet, they named the frame the "Sir Han," and used images of pistols and a silencer-wielding gunman. Which is all well and good, I suppose—the company is named "Hitman," and their last frame, the Ruby, was a nod to Jack, who sent Lee Harvey Oswald on his way.

But "Sir Han" is a whole other matter. Sirhan Sirhan was the nutjob who assassinated Presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy back in '68, paving the way for Dick Nixon and Spiro Agnew and all the ensuing unpleasantness. Not that Jack Ruby was a saint, but naming your 21-holed frame for a guy who put four holes in a future President—and is still very much alive, awaiting his 14th shot at parole—is at best a sick joke. I can't wait for the James Earl Ray and the MDC.

(Hitman is also releasing a drilled-out, sub-four-pound flatland frame that was designed in part by Day Smith and Sean McKinney. It only has 18 holes in it. Hopefully Sean wanted all the holes so the frame could double as a bong.)

Given the 18 holes, they should have called the flat frame the "Tiger," or the "Spackler." Instead they went with the "Judas," who may have betrayed Jesus, but never shot anyone. What a pussy.

Come Clarity

First, there were clear grips.

Were the Edwins first? I believe so. The compound wasn't as hand-friendly as the basic black ones, but they were new and cool and you could put stickers on your bars that you could see through the grips. Awesome. I've actually got a pair on my fixed gear right now. They get the job done.

Then there were clear pedals.

Odyssey originally introduced the molded composite Twisted PC as a cheaper alternative to the regular aluminum Twisted pedal as well as a product for flatlanders, who have always preferred plastic. But something funny happened on the way to obsolesence. When "lightness" passed both "cleanliness" and "Godliness" in the "ness" pantheon, suddenly the lowly $12 plastic pedal became a favorite amongst slammed-seat street riders (as visions of pedal and Luc-E grinds danced in their heads) and miniramp shredders. Spindles were beefed up, basic black was joined by white, all rejoiced.

Then came clear. (Atomlab actually tried a clear Lexan pedal years ago, but they were a) expensive, and b) brittle.) At $15 a pair, the clear Odysseys became an instant staple—and helped offset the cost of things like Kevlar-beaded folding tires.

(Odyssey has continued to expand the PC line with a bunch of pastel colors and some tinted clear ones—based on the original iMac colors, which most of their would-be consumers probably don't even remember. PC? Mac? Oh, I get it. Can we just lose the red endcap next?)


Now we have clear seats.

Éclat, We The People's new parts line, is introducing the Webster seat, which doubles as a colander. A railed plastic seat full of holes—what a new concept! (Oh, that's right, they have a lot of colors now.)


Combine the clear version with a slammed post, clear pedals, clear grips, drilled-out bars and stem, a Grim Reaper frame and a tiny drivetrain, and you more or less have a bike fit for Wonder Woman.


I kind of thought the whole point of a seat was to HIDE the rails and the clamp and all that nonsense. Guess not. And I wonder what UV will do to it?

Hollow Pointless

Have you ever had a chain snap on you? It's not fun. Usually it happens when you're really stepping into it, which makes the results that much worse. Knee to the stem, thigh to the crossbar, usually you go over the bars. If you're lucky, you land on your hands instead of your head. If you're not lucky, it happens when you're trying to sprint through a busy intersection and you get run over by a bus. Either way, it's not much fun. But hey, chains break. It happens.

That said, isn't the chain the last thing you'd want to lighten up on purpose? There was a time not so long ago when BMX chains were judged the same way hip-hop chains were: Heavier was better. There was the KMC 415h (or Kink chain) and the massive Sharp 420—which was better suited for a motorcycle or a garage door opener. Had things continued in that direction, we'd all be riding chains that look something like this (minus the feet):


They didn't continue like that, of course. Gearing dropped, so you didn't need to worry about your 45 bashing into everything anymore. And with chainrings out of harm's way, chains were free to get lighter. People went with traditional KMCs, like 410s, 510s and 710s. But that wasn't good enough. Oh no. Road chains had long used drilled-out pins and hollow plates. Izumi made a hollow-plate BMX/track chain back in the day. Why not do the same with new BMX chains? So KMC introduced the 710sl:


It came in at 365 grams as compared to 420 (!!!) grams for the regular 710 (according to Fat). Not much of a difference—less than two ounces. Of course it comes with enough links to run 48/16, so the weight difference is presumably less if you're running 28/10 or lower. And it, um, looks cool.

There are differences between road and BMX, however. Small as BMX drivetrains are, the chains still take hits every once in a while. And running it on a eight-, nine- or 10-tooth driver places a lot of stress on the chain, even if it doesn't have drilled-out plates and hollow pins. KMC can give you numbers for "pin power" and "breakload" all they want, but those don't take into account bashing a drilled-out link on a rail or ledge and then cranking full-out towards something else.

Look, I appreciate that plenty of people run drilled-out chains, and a majority of them are still very much alive. But of all the things to drill out, the part on your bike that arguably takes the most stress? What's next? Steerer tubes? Pedal spindles? Heck, even the Grim Reaper makes more sense to me than this. There are certain things I'd rather not see drilled out. Chains. Stem bolts. Forks. Anything that, if it snaps, will probably send me to the hospital or the dentist. And even barring injury, I'm not a big fan of liamfahyhamptoning around. So I like my chains like I like my teeth and my Alaskan wildlife preserves—undrilled.

(Of course, seeing that half-link chains have seemed to have more problems with snapping than regular chains, there's no way anyone would come out with a drilled-out halflink chain. Well, no one except KHE. Lovely.)





P.S. Sean Burns only rides Wipperman chains. Their 1G8 is apparently the strongest chain on the market, according to—um, them. This video has nothing to do with chains, but a minute of Sean Burns never hurt anybody. Well, except him.

Friday Quiz: Standard Edition

Apparently the guys from Zeal Distribution in the UK made a trip to Iowa to tour Standard's new in-house production facilities. They posted photos and a little recap of the trip here. Standard's frames used to be manufactured by Waterford Precision Cycles in Wisconsin, which is recognized as one of the finest framebuilders in the world. Of course Waterford's road and mountain frames retail for a lot more than $400, so it's probably more cost-effective for Standard to make their own frames and forks. They're undoubtedly excited about this new chapter in their history. Maybe a little TOO excited.


1.
Standard's prototype race fork features stylistically sculpted dropouts that incorporate the Standard logo. When you look at them, what do you see?

a) Company pride

b) Fine worksmanship

c) Substantial weight savings

d) A pair of stained glass windows

e) An enormous lawsuit waiting to happen


2.
Standard's new frame dropout also has their logo all over it. Fourteen of them. Obviously someone in Iowa loves their new CNC machine. (It will be highly disappointing if their new frames aren't covered in exactly 63 logos.) The question is, how many of these new dropouts would be required to make one old STA dropout?

a) 2

b) 4

c) 10

d) 27

e) 63


3.
The in thing to do these days is to hang your newest frame like a prize bass in order to show how unbelievably light it is. (The fact that Standard is making a lighter frame in-house than any that Waterford made for them is awesome, and by awesome I mean completely terrifying.) From what I gather, this is a prototype of Rick Moliterno's signature frame, which he's seen holding in another photo. One has to wonder what it will be called:

a) LTA

b) Lighty

c) Boss 4.19

d) Eleanor

e) Suck It, Moeller

Stem Sell 'Research'

Back in the olden days—by which I mean 1998 or so—it was easy to choose a stem. Frontload or topload? That was pretty much it. As it was, it seemed like everyone on the face of the earth ran either a Standard or an S&M Redneck, depending on geographic/brand allegiance and how high one wanted to run one's bars. Some people ran their topload Standard stems upside-down, but I'm not sure whether it actually made any difference in bar height, or it was just that they thought it looked cool. A few holdouts ran DKs, but they were weirdos and not to be trusted.

Then, one day, someone must have thrown their stem on a scale and realized, 'hey, this lump of metal is sort of heavy.' (Either that or they got a hernia picking up a Primo Casket.) Thus we got a new generation of lighter weight frontload stems, including the Animal Jumpoff, the original Solid, and, of course, the Redneck Lite:
Once again, choice was determined primarily by geography or brand allegiance. (The topload stem briefly went the way of the dodo and the Herrington Crusader.)


Then, not long afterwards, G-Sport's George French developed the Elementary with Odyssey. It looked...different. Lots of cutouts, more than two pieces, only one large 8mm bolt. But it was also substantially lighter than any of the traditional six-bolt stems. And once you sorted out how much to tighten it using the single bolt, it worked great. It just took some getting used to, especially for those of us who were accustomed to riding with what looked like a brick connecting our bars to our forks.
Now, this set the bar even higher—or lower—in terms of weight. The original Elementary (V3 out now) came in well under 10 ounces when most "traditional" lightweight front-load stems were more like 11 or 12. This would not stand, man. S&M just reached for the router, shaving a few extra ounces off the LT and adding an X. Animal left well enough alone with the Jumpoff (although not for much longer, perhaps). And some companies, well, they went straight off the deep end in their own attempts to re-invent the stem:


SEQUENCE THE HOOK
The Hook is more or less an Elementary that's been cut diagonally in half and pieced back together short a few significant parts and with one extra bolt—or maybe one that was co-designed by Picasso and M.C. Escher. While the Elementary uses one solid 8mm bolt at the very center, The Hook utilizes two much smaller, hollow bolts at the corners, where they seem as if they'd be subject to more stress and difficult to tighten evenly. If this were a flatland stem it might be less of a big deal (Sequence is primarily a flatland company), but it's available in three sizes (26, 35 and 50mm), so, I guess not.


DRIVE TWIN

The yin and the yang? The New Beetle? Hard to say what Drive was going for here, except for the chance to use as many bolts as possible (eight). Like the Elementary, the shape is curvy and somewhat pleasant. Unlike the Elementary, everything else. From the Drive site:

"We had an idea. A singular pressure point stem, that dissipates load throughout the stem, rather than driving forces directly into your handlebar, fork, and/or the stem itself. It will keep your parts from slipping, bending, or breaking because of tension or clamping reasons. This is exactly what the Twin stem does."

I'm not sure HOW it keeps those forces from going into your bars, fork or stem (where else would they go), but it just does, OK?


KINK RELIEF
The Kink Relief is what would happen if an Elementary and a Coalition Povah were put through that machine that Jeff Goldblum used in The Fly. Hollow bolts again? Of course! I suspect this lightweight wonder is called the Relief because of the sigh you'll give every time you make it home alive.


PREMIUM SUB-TEN
Premium, to their credit, chose to stick with the traditional four bolts in the front, two bolts in back, frontload design that's been around since the advent of the Aheadset. They just machined gigantic holes through everything and used hollow bolts. I just wonder how they knew when to stop removing material. "OK, WE'RE UNDER 10 OUNCES, STOP CUTTING!"


FIT D.L.D.

Lastly, I at least wanted to mention the Fit D.L.D. (Down Low Drop). It doesn't appear to have been machined to within a millimeter of its (or your) life like the Sub-Ten. But it is interesting as the extra drop allows one to run high-rise bars like S&M Slams without them feeling quite so tall. One wonders why one couldn't achieve the same thing by running a traditional frontload (or even, God forbid, a topload) stem with lower bars. But that just wouldn't look cool, would it?

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.