Through Orange-Colored Pegs

To paraphrase my man Big L (1:52), Snafu done done it again.


Yep. See-through pegs. Apparently these "turned heads" at Interbike, despite the fact that I don't remember seeing them amongst the hundreds of product photos taken by guys at Ride, Dig and Fat. Oh well, could have been an oversight.

Or maybe it wasn't.

Unlike the Odyssey/G-Sport Plegs, which took forever to produce properly, went through multiple compounds, and didn't reach the market until over a year after they were first shown at Interbike (in '06) and more like two years since they were first developed, Snafu chose to use "injection-molded bulletproof polycarbonate plastic". Which sounds a lot to me like what was used to make Atomlab's much-maligned and short-lived Ballistic pedals (which were great except for when it came to, um, impacts) or Standard's Masterguard.

Were they tested? Of course! Apparently "SNAFU pros Matt Bischoff and Jeremiah Smith conducted a little stress test with our new pegs using a 10-ton tour bus, and the peg won." Which is great if you plan on getting run over by a 10-ton bus, but I'm not sure how it's supposed to show you how they'll hold up to, say, grinding concrete ledges or hitting rail uprights. Oh, and McGoo posted this creepy video where he submits them to the ever-important "deep throat" and "throw them in a parking lot" tests. I'm sure this is how most products are evaluated in the real world:

"Hey Tim, did you test that aileron?"
"Yes sir. Bill sucked on it, then we threw it around the parking lot for a while. Afterwards, I ran it over with my truck. Twice! It's still perfect."
"Fantastic. Bolt in on, will you? This bird's gotta be off the ground in an hour."

I'd be curious to know whether Snafu is using their own proprietary mix of polycarbonate, and how long it took for them to get it right. Or whether they just used something developed previously by someone else, like what Odyssey used for their clear pedals. Because if you read about polycarbonate, as tough at it is, it doesn't hold up well to abrasion. And once plastic gets abraded enough, it breaks. Think of how plastic pedals fail—and how quickly, if you grind them on rough surfaces. And pedals are both thicker and have chromoly spindles supporting them all the way through. (What's doubly weird is, unless I'm mistaken, Snafu doesn't even offer plastic pedals yet—these pegs will be their first polycarbonate product.)


Even Plegs haven't been the miracle product some hoped they'd be. They're slower than steel on some surfaces, wear down awfully fast on others, and occasionally fail catastrophically. If you land at an angle on something rough, you could carve a substantial groove after just one grind. I know about that through personal experience. And despite mention of it a long while back, Odyssey/G-Sport has yet to produce Plegs in any color other than black. You'd think if translucent pegs were a good idea, Odyssey would already be making them.

Look, you don't have to like Odyssey. You don't have to run their parts. But even if you're not a fan, you have to admit that they generally provide detailed and educated explanations of everything they do, whether it be a weird fork or sammich pedals (more on those later). New products get announced, and then aren't released for months, if not years—not until they're right. And their team rides them first. (Sometimes they still need tweaking even after that. See: Wombolts.)

Does that sound like Snafu's M.O.? I'll give you a hint: NO. These pegs are supposed to be out by the middle of November, and I don't recall ever seeing them (or even hearing word one about them) before Interbike. Nor do I recall seeing them on any Snafu pro's bike checks. (Not sure who would run them anyway. Would Brad Simms ride polycarbonate pegs? Morgan Wade? Dave Mirra?) That's not to say these pegs haven't been real-world tested. Maybe they have. But the testing hasn't been very—excuse the pun—transparent.

Show me some video of someone riding them. Let me hear what team guys think after riding them for a while. Heck, send a set to this guy. Until then they're just another gimmick, the BMX equivalent of this. Or this. Or these. Or maybe they're just another hoax.

(You know it's bad when The Come Up and I more or less agree on something.)

••••••••••••••••

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

Let's run through some Interbike photos, shall we? Thanks again to Jacob for sending them—his comments will appear first in quotes.


1. Kink Pivotal posts.


Here we have Kink's two varieties of seatpost—slammable, and absolutely have to be slammed. I'm sure that extra inch of aluminum is all that's keeping you from triple whips. (More importantly, note the seatpost clamps in the background. Keep hope alive!)



2. Kink ceramic headset.


Ceramic bearings are all the rage in road and mountain (and industrial applications, I'm sure). They're smoother, faster, and—of course—more expensive. This Kink version is supposed to retail for somewhere in the neighborhood of $100. Let's hope they remembered to make them correctly this time. Think this is a case of killing a fly with a grenade—does anyone's headset not spin smoothly enough? Will this help someone pull a sextuple whip or 37 barspins? Is it worth spending quadruple what a "regular" headset costs? Let me think...no.


3. KHE Centaur bar/stem combo.



Uh, the handlebar is actually a three-piece bar? Color me frightened.


“At first glance this you would think this would be a seat post clamp. but you would be wrong. It's the clamp inside the one piece bar and stem combo. Looks like a seat post clamp from 10 years ago.”

Yes it does. Words cannot express my disappointment.


4. KHE freecoaster.




"Coaster hub that you can adjust with only a allen key through the middle of the axle, allowing you to adjust on the fly for how much play you want without have take anything off the bike. Pretty sweet, but I dont ride a freecoaster hub.”

Neither do I, but having dealt with a Geisha Street for a while (two washers or three?), I can see where this would be a desireable development. Look for every other freecoaster maker out there to quickly license it if it works.


5. T-1 Cyclops stem.


Ain't gonna lie, I'm pretty happy to see an honest-to-God new T1 product. And I can appreciate stems with no bolts on the back, but a traditional four-bolt cap. Not really psyched on split caps, but oh well. At least it's not carved up all to hell and back.


6. Sunday Model D


I was going to call this Sunday's long-awaited trails frame, but I'm not sure whether people were really waiting for them. I know it has "normal" 5mm dropouts and a regular non-wave downtube. I do not know whether it has longer stays. The graphics are pretty rad, though. And you can't go wrong with olive and silver. Please make padsets.


7. Odyssey sidehack


I never understood sidehacks, even in the BMX Action days. Cool-looking bike, though. Are those...Cyclecraft bars?


8. Fly grips...er, grip?

Interesting. One grip that you can cut yourself to custom lengths. Or, if you ride a fixed with drops, buy two and cut the flanges off. I'm sure there are other uses for it, too, but this isn't that kind of website.



9. 2-Hip Groove...whatever.


“quite possibly the worst eye sore at interbike... I cant really say much more...”

And I already said enough.



10. Fit forks.

“kind of hard to see but the forks get crazy tapered down near the drop outs. dakota has been riding them and that have held up. hmmmm.”

They were displayed on the Dakota Roche frame, which I don't know anything about except that it has gussets on the top and bottom at the headtube. I'd like to see the Dakota, Eddie and DeHart frames side-by-side.


11. DK Random Wrench V2


“spoke wrench built into the top, sleeker one-peice design. with a little socket nub on the side. much nicer looking. not a bike part but something to make fixing it much easier.”

I've never had a Random Wrench—if I was carrying a camera bag anyway I didn't mind loading individual tools—but it makes sense, at least. Seems inevitable that I'll wind up with one.


12. Premium 3.3 pound frame


“sooo you make a 3.3 lbs frame and you build it up and bolt it to a stand, yet have no stand- alone frame to pick up... premium you are intelligent! so the tubes are double butted and drawn in a special way. then heat treated for 3.5 times longer than normal frames. haro guy said it would shatter before it bent... so you have that to look forward to!”

I'm not sure whether I need to add anything to that, other than the low standover is disgusting and the "Strawberry" toptube integrated seatclamp may be worse.


13. Stolen Pivotal post.


“more plastic! excuse me thermalite...”

I'm genuinely torn. On the one hand, if you're going to just slam your post anyway, there's no reason it shouldn't be made of plastic or wood or cardboard or whatever. On the other hand, is it really necessary? I vote HELL no. How heavy can one of those stubby little aluminum bits be? Now, if it was a plastique post, that would be a different story. I could get behind that.


14. Haro Freestyler


My friend Ian sent me this one. While the double top tube and graphics look spot-on, and the black mags are appropriate enough, I always hate the generic three-piece cranks and padded seats that appear on these throwback bikes. Not to mention the pseudo Gower Power sprocket and all-black tires. Bikes like this just end up looking like a mish-mash of styles from different eras and aren't particularly good for anything, except preying on the nostalgia-blinded. Why not do it right?

•••••••••••••••••

Plasticman?

I wanted to talk about the new éclat website today—although I meant to do it a hell of a lot earlier—so I'm going to. Worse comes to worse I'll just fudge the timestamp so it SAYS it posted on Tuesday even if writing this stretches into Wednesday. Deal with it. There were a couple things I saw on my initial runthrough that I thought deserved attention, so I'll just bulletpoint through them. Cool?


• Sean Burns is on éclat?


Seriously, Sean Burns is on éclat? This is nothing against Sean Burns—I thought his section in Dead Bang was one of the greatest video parts ever, and dude is everything that BMX should be. Still, something doesn't sit right, even if he is running a 33t sprocket these days (28t by 2012!). Burns being on éclat feels like Deicide signing with Tooth and Nail or McDonald's being an official sponsor of the Olympics.

Oh wait, that's true.

Still, Burns being on éclat just feels wrong. If he's gonna be sponsored by a company with an accent mark, it should damn well be an umlaut. Who's he gonna pick up as his next sponsor, PETA? And the little bio on the site doesn't help, either. I quote: "In an age where tech is the flavor of the month and XXL t-shirts are a standard proponent of the BMX uniform, Sean Burns pedals fast whenever possible and squeezes into used leather jackets." Um, not sure what decade that was written in, but XXL t-shirts are only a "standard proponent" of the BMX uniform for guys who weigh 300-plus pounds, and even those guys are probably trying to squeeze into mediums these days. Might wanna edit that.


• Two-piece cranks.


Everyone seems to be making two-piece cranks today. They're the new three-piece. And éclat's, cringingly named "Tibias," seem to be a cross between Flys and Demolitions. They even have that second drilling so you can run an 18t sprocket if you're into that sort of thing.

Both arms come drilled so you can run them either LHD or RHD. And given that, I can safely assume two things—you don't have to order them specifically for either side drive, and they're not a "2.5" piece crank like Flys. I can't tell from the photo which arm is the one that comes off, but either rightys or leftys will have to take their cranks entirely apart to change sprockets, which is is one of the major downsides of two-piece cranks. And since they use a Profile-style spline interface, that seems like a lousy tradeoff just to lose one bolt. (They're 22mm, which is an advantage over Profile "race" cranks, but if I'm going to stay with the splined setup, I'd prefer to be able to replace either arm independently of the spindle.)

(Two asides—one, why hasn't Profile made a 22mm version of their cranks yet, and two, if I'm wrong about half of this stuff, I promise to explain further. Or let someone from éclat explain.)


• Front hub.

Yeesh. MEDIC!

Once again, this seems to be all the rage these days—internally-laced hubs. They look all fancy and lightweight and stuff. And the design would seem to protect the spoke better than their conventionally flanged brethren. That said, when a spoke does break (and it will), enjoy taking your entire hub apart to replace it. Do that enough times, and you'll be ready to go back to something simpler.


• Plastic pedals.


Dude. Everyone has plastic pedals. What's wrong with you? And why not get the grippiest nylon pedal on the market? I'm sure it's been independently verified. Makes you wonder why they bother making aluminum pedals at all. Other than the fact that Burns would probably rather run clipless than plastic.



• Window sticker.

Can I really find fault in a window sticker (scroll to the bottom)? Of course I can! It's just a little thing, though—when your company has been around for 47 minutes, none of your logos are "iconic." Just saying.


Oh, and when you click on the bottom bracket, the main photo that comes up is of the pedals. Might wanna fix that.

But hey, hope it all works out.

•••••••••••••••••••••

After reading all that—or scrolling past it—you're gonna need this:

Friday Quiz (featuring Farside)

I feel remiss for skipping last Friday entirely (not to mention Thursday), so you all deserve a decent quiz today. Maybe—just maybe—I'll post something over the weekend, too. Just to try and catch up. Anyway, on with the show.



1. It's hard to look threatening when you a) appear to have highlights in your hair, b) are wearing professionally worn-in jeans, and c) are recognized universally as more or less the nicest guy ever. However, one has to give Chris Doyle credit for trying as he brandishes his Demolition signature fork.

Which iconic image should they have tried to duplicate instead?


a) Malcolm X

b) Dirty Harry

c) Reservoir Dogs (with, perhaps, Brian Castillo)

d) John Rambo

e) Tony Montana



2. The UK's Segment Clothing made this shirt as a response to the "STREETS IS TALKING" shirt Fit made a while back:

Which discipline can we expect to respond next and how?


a) FLATLAND IS WHISPERING

b) PARK IS WHINING

c) VERT IS WITTERING

d) RACING IS LECTURING




3. This bike is:


a) Eddie Cleveland's fault.

b) The subject of Bikeguide's Bike Check of the Week.

c) A mass-market complete.

d) Your ticket to instant cool with just a swipe of a major credit card.

e) Most of the above.




4. There are big bars, there are bigger bars, and there are Solid's Roseanne Bars. Nine inches high and 32 inches wide, you won't find bigger bars unless you make them yourself. Assuming a little wider than shoulder width is about right, who are these bars designed for?


a) Andre the Giant

b) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

c) Sasquatch

d) Micah Kranz

e) Duh



5. Colony's new plastic pedals differ from all the other plastic pedals already on the market how?


a) Since they're Australian, they spin in the opposite direction of pedals from the Northern hemisphere.

b) They have black endcaps instead of white or red.

c) They say "Colony" on them.

d) They look like they should come stock on an $80 complete.

e) Absolutely nothing.




6. These stunning platform pedals are available from Bike Nashbar for the low, low price of $39.99:

What's the worst thing about them?


a) They only have three strings.

b) They're not available in 1/2".

c) They're not painted to look like Eddie Van Halen's guitar.

d) They don't offer a Dimebag Darrell version.

e) They exist.



7. This Nike Olympic trucker hat is supposed to be for the BMX team. You can buy one of your very own from Dan's for just $23.99:


If you were to buy one and wear it around, what percentage of people would look at it and think "oh, BMX"?


a) 22

b) 14

c) 9

d) 2

e) 0

••••••••••••••••••

And now for something completely different. The audio isn't the best, but it's still worth it. Farside playing some New Jersey college in 1995. Wish I was there.







(Doyle made me think of them, so thank—or blame—him.)

S&M Next Generation, Holmes

So.

The other day—July 18th, to be exact—S&M posted a news item with four new projects they were working on: seat guts to run a railed seat on a Pivotal post, a closed dropout, a super-wide bottom bracket shell for Shimano external BB cranks, and a clear plastic one-piece sprocket/guard. None, save for the seat guts, appeared particularly close to going into production, and I wasn't entirely sure whether any of it was serious at all.

You see, once upon a time when BMX wasn't so deadly serious, S&M used to run ads that openly mocked their alleged competition. One, which featured a cobbled-together two-piece frame, ridiculed Auburn. Then they came out with the PBR Model which was a jab at Standard and their R-Models. So part of me expected all of this "new" stuff to be some sort of elaborate joke. Seeing that he put his address at the bottom, I e-mailed Chris Moeller. He got back to me yesterday, assuring that it all—while still in the developmental stages—is indeed legit.

So let's go through this stuff one by one. I'm not gonna go through the trouble of swiping the photos from S&M's Flash-based site, so it's gonna be text only. Go there and check the photos if you must. For each, I'll run their original text, the questions I had, and the answers Chris gave me. Cool? Let's go.


1. Pivotal to railed seat guts.

The first one is a regular railed seat that works with a Pivotal seatpost with the use of our new guts. We like the single bolt assembly of the Pivotal system but really like railed seats for 3 reasons: the look, the flex, and the ability to adjust front to back. these guts have passed the testing stage and are being made now. We are also making a seat for this system but any railed seat will work after you cut a small slot in it for the Allen wrench. We also like to peel the padding and cover off first but you don't have to.

There were a few things I didn't get about this. I mean, if you want to run a railed seat, there are plenty of seatpost options already—the Odyssey Intac even has a single bolt. And the idea of cutting up a perfectly good seat seems a bit ridiculous too, even if it is good for your reproductive organs (assuming you actually sit down ever). The only real benefit I could see would be that this guy could move his seat forward and finally slam his seatpost. When I first saw the Pivotal concept, I thought the lack of front-to-back adjustment would be annoying. Then I got one and realized it didn't really matter. And I even sit on my seat sometimes!

Moeller's response: "Some people like to adjust their seats front to back….so it’s a bonus for them. Other people like the flex and look or a normal railed seat (like me) so that’s also a bonus. It just gives people the option of using either style of seat on a Pivotal post." Fair enough.

2. Closed dropout.

This rear drop out uses a hub with a hollow axle and bolt. This drop hasn't had the taper machined into it yet but when it does it fits the bolt perfectly. We are testing this now and it's working out great. The drop out never closes up and you can slam your wheel and have it tighten the chain automatically due to the tapered bolt. We call this the "Black Hole". This thing is awesome and it's super clean.

I had four main questions about this. 1) People still pinch dropouts? Maybe they do, but it's hard to believe it happens often, given how short most of them are. 2) What hubs would this work with? Profile, I suppose. And the new G-Sport hubs will have a female axle. But it sure doesn't help the zillions of riders who have conventional hubs. 3) Who wants to fully unbolt their whole rear axle anytime they want to take their rear wheel off? 4) How does it work with pegs?

Moeller's response: "People do close drop-outs up and they do bend so this one would be a lot stronger in every direction. Hubs wouldn’t be available right out of the gate but parts for new systems never are at first i.e. Aheadset, removable 990 posts, Hiddensets, Mid BB’s etc. If it caught on the hubs would be around for sure. As far as pegs go you could make a peg with a taper on the base, or use a flat one and tapered washer under it."

I'm still not sold. But it's not like it'll be replacing all conventional dropouts next year or anything.

3. Bottom bracket for Shimano cranks.

Shimano DX cranks used to have thread-in cups that sat on the outside of the Euro BB shell. Now they are working on a plastic BB system that presses in. It works great but requires a new BB from the frame manufacturers that is asymetrical...we are riding them now and they work really good. This might also allow street riders to use Shimano cranks without fear of grinding down the outside of the cups. It also makes putting your bike together way easier. No need for a special tool for instance.

It's a racer thing, and I don't understand. I mean, for race bikes, sure. Go ahead. But it seems to me that using this BB shell would limit you to JUST using Shimano cranks. And since they use a spider/chainring setup, I can't imagine why street riders would ever run them. Weight savings isn't everything, is it? (And honestly, I'm not sure what's so bad about external bearings in the first place?)

Moeller's response: "The BB is a Shimano thing…we just built them a frame for it. They are doing it already in MTB. It would probably be race only but who knows the cranks are real light and if they offered a regular sprocket it might catch on…they are so light."

Race bikes, OK, I suppose I get it. Street bikes? No. At least, I hope not.

4. Clear sprocket/guard.

Last up is a Lexan sprocket with guard. This thing is light but expensive and we're not having the best of luck with it yet. Not only is it breaking but the teeth are getting mangled pretty eaisily. This may go the way of the original plastic Addicks sprocket but we're not done yet. The idea was to make a guard sprocket that slid really good. We're still working on it.

I believe the word I'm looking for is "yuck." The Addicks sprocket that Chris mentions was a '70s product that was more or less an epic failure. Vintage BMX types may use them on era-correct show builds, but that's about it. More recently, there was the Seawright sprocket, which didn't last long either. As for plastic guards, some bashguard bikes had them, and later there was the Masterguard and the Havok (later Odyssey) Sprocket Pocket. This has been tried before. And even with all the advances in composites, it's hard to believe that a plastic 22-28t sprocket could be made strong enough. Honestly, it's hard to believe a company like S&M is even trying something like this. Especially since their last one-piece sprocket/guard was so rad.

Moeller's response: "The plastic sprocket isn’t real hot…but we are always making weird shit and testing it. We just thought for once we’d show people a few things. 99% of the stuff we make and test never comes out. But the stuff we have pioneered has changed a lot of how people look at BMX bikes."

Hey, I'm a sucker for honesty. Keep playing around, guys. S&M bikes have come a long way in 10 years. Who knows what they'll look like 10 years from now?

Revolution Calling

Here's something I should have posted about a long time ago—before the Hell Stallion, even. John Pang wrote about it on the ever-excellent Pijin blog way back in May, jeff brought it up in yesterday's comments, and I'm just getting to it now. For shame. I present to you the UnKnown (UK) BikeCo Revolution:



Here's what I can gather about the frame:

• It's lower than a Fly Tierra, which means you can use your seat as an e-brake/lock.
• It will retail for £269.99, which is roughly $540US.
• It's made from heat-treated chromoly.
• It has a lifetime warranty.
• It has what looks suspiciously like a Superstar internal clamp.
• The initial production run will be 200 frames (up from the original 100 due to demand).
• It doesn't have any crazy holes drilled in it.
• It weighs 3.5 pounds.

Yes, 3.5 pounds. Which is only a half-pound more than an old Solid fork, and means it will cost roughly 71 pounds an, um, pound (roughly the same as Kobe beef). I'm guessing the tubes are translucent.

In the little writeup he did upon seeing the frame, Pang said "My first impression of the frame was that it's just too light and the tubing on the rear triangle looks way too skinny." I would tend to agree with that assessment.

But he goes on to say that, since it's a signature frame of a tailwhip-happy shredder (Kane Hennessy) it should be fine for anyone. That's a leap I'm not ready to take. Ditto this well-intentioned statement: "They are putting a lifetime guarantee on the frame so it must be solid!" Maybe. Maybe not.

One has to wonder how some virtually (and literally) unknown bike company in the UK managed to produce a frame that's so absurdly light? I can't find anything online, but I seem to recall there was something in the new Ride UK as well as Ride US that referred to top secret heat-treating methods that could not be revealed under penalty of death. I guess that's fine—Odyssey doesn't seem to be in any rush to explain the 41Thermal process.

But when a little company puts out a frame that's somewhat comparable to the Tierra in dimensions yet weighs a FULL POUND (Fly lists it at 4.65 pounds) less, I can't help but think, where the heck is all that weight loss coming from? It ain't just the seatpost clamp. I think the Revolution weighs less than the Killorado, for God's sake.

Who knows, the Revolution might hold up fine, ushering in a whole new era in BMX history where four-pound frames are seen as heavy and outdated.

But I doubt it.

•••••••••••••••••••••

Also from the Pijin blog, I haven't posted one of these shots in a while:

Running plastic pedals is fine. If you're weighing them, you may need to admit you have a problem.

Bike Check (By Request)

Seeing that there has been some wonder in the comments section about my own ride, here it is:



FRAME: 21" Fit Edwin 2007 prototype
FORKS: Odyssey Race
BARS: Animal Bob Lite
STEM: Animal Jumpoff
CRANKS: Odyssey Wombolt, LHD, 175mm
PEDALS: Odyssey Jim C Mag (unsealed)*
SPROCKET: Terrible One American Flyer, 28t
FRONT WHEEL: Odyssey Hazard Lite/Vandero 2
REAR WHEEL: Odyssey Hazard Lite/LHD cassette, 10t
TIRES: Odyssey Plyte 2.1
PEGS: Odyssey Pleg (4)**
SEAT: Animal Cush
POST: Macneil
GRIPS: Animal Edwin
BAR ENDS: Odyssey Par Ends
HEADSET: FSA Impact
CHAIN: KMC 510hx

* Actually, the pedals are currently black Twisted PCs (I know)...
** ...mostly because I'm running Plegs. Seemed silly to have plastic pegs and metal pedals. Still not used to grinding quietly.

MODS: Not much—I'm no Chase Gouin. Cut the seatpost, cut the steerer, that's it.

(I realize that the one photo is something of a cop-out—I meant to do a shot-for-shot match of the Fit S3.5 preview, but it just never happened.)

This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse

Sometimes it's hard to tell what's a joke and what isn't these days.

Take the Super Rat Machine Works pedals.

It's not the Super Rat Machine Works shop that's a joke. They're what appears to be an awesome machine shop based in Kansas City run by fellow rider and FBM Hall of Famer Phil Wasson who makes parts for FBM, Solid and is working on a stem for Terrible One. And it's not even the pedals themselves, which are American-made CNCed artwork.

Nope, in this case it's the pins, of all things. The pedals come with both steel and plastic pins, 16 of each, which get the weigh-in treatment:


As they say on the site:

"that saves you 6.94 grams per pair of pedals! which in reality is probably as much as the mud on your front tire weighs… or 2 pre-1982 pennies, since after 1982 they started skimping on the copper content of pennies. if you’ve got post 1982 pennies, you’re saving the weight of 3 of those."

The weight part is a joke, I guess (it's kind of funny they list them to 1/100th of a gram). But plastic pins in aluminum pedals? For real? I must be getting old.

P.S. You know what else is old? Oh, nothing.

Turning Titanium Into Garbage

I would love to hear a rational explanation for these pegs.

Let me see if I have this right: KHE (who, in case you forgot, are also in the process of bringing us the one-piece bar/stem combo and the baseball seat) developed a plastic/fiberglass peg called the Alchemy. Relatively cheap, apparently slid on everything. Yet somehow they decided that the plastic compound wasn't durable enough for street riding, so they made a titanium-sleeved "street" version.

This is odd because no one even makes titanium pegs anymore. Odyssey, Macneil and DK all discontinued theirs. Heck, you can't even find ti sprockets or bolt kits anymore. Remember RNC? Titanium is prohibitively expensive, grinds slowly, and wears down quickly on rough surfaces. What's next? Gold- and platinum-sleeved versions? Ones with $20 bills glued to them? Apparently there will be a steel version, which actually DOES make a fair amount of sense if you want light, inexpensive pegs that still feel 'normal'. But the ti version just seems like an awful waste of money and material. Is there a titanium glut in Germany that I'm not aware of? Is this what we're doing with the remaining F117s?

It would make more sense to me if they made a titanium-cored peg with a replaceable composite outer sleeve (kind of like this but different). That way you ruin the cheap part.

Simple Weight-Saving Tip

Let's say, for argument's sake, that you're a 15-year-old kid just getting into BMX. A little late, but these things happen. And let's also say that you have seemingly endless resources (let's call them "mom and dad"). So you build up the perfect bike—picking it out piece-by-piece, with "ultralight" this and "XLT" that. No pegs, no brakes, no problem! "Mom, can you strip my Pivotal?"

Yet when you finally get it together and get out into the sun, something still doesn't seem right. It's not that you've hardly ever ridden a BMX bike before and need to build up more strength by riding every day. No, that can't be it. There must be something wrong with the bike. It's still too heavy!

But what else is there? You've already got plastic pedals and plastic barends, a two-inch long slammed seatpost and a stripped and trimmed seat, Kevlar-beaded tires, and enough race parts to get sponsored by the NAACP. Your frame was designed by NASCAR engineers, and your fork was designed by—well, someone who knew what they were doing, hopefully. You've got hollow bolts and ti bolts, ti axle nuts and a hollow-pin, hollow-plate chain. Your gearing is so small that said chain hits your chainstay on the top AND bottom. What else is there?

Here's where the hint comes into play, oh seeker of the unbearable lightness of BMXing. Look at yourself in a mirror (or convenient store window) while sitting on your bike. Do your arms look like this?


If so, maybe start with that four inches of extra metal on the end of your bars.

Playskool Bikes?

Presenting the latest greatest from the company that brought you the $1,200 ti frame with holes in it: the plastic bottom bracket.


This was inevitable, of course. Similar plastic "bearing" systems have been used in industrial applications for a long time. And the plastic bottom bracket should be cheaper AND lighter (and easier to install) than a conventional sealed bearing setup. Also, it's not the first time something like this has been used in BMX. If I remember correctly, Hutch made a mini headset in the '80s that used magnesium cups and some sort of nylon 'bearings'. Of course that was a setup meant to be used by riders under 90 pounds.

As for a bottom bracket on a full-sized bike, I'm not too sure. In an industrial setting, 'bearings' like this just have to spin. There may be pressure, but one would presume it to be fairly steady. Bottom bracket bearings get abused on a daily basis. Tailwhips to the pedals, drops, whatever. I'm no mechanical engineer, but there's a lot of stress that'll have to be dispersed one way or another, isn't there? Flex, deforming, cracking—all of these things seem likely. Is it worth it to save a few ounces? Will crankflips still be possible? Are they fireproof? Isn't this a case of fixing something that isn't broken? Can plastic headsets be far behind? Hub 'bearings'? How much plastic is enough on one bike?

(Also, if this idea DOES work, why use so much plastic? Will this mark a return to the Euro bottom bracket standard? Should I keep my old Edwin just in case?)

Oh yeah, one more question for Eastern. How many plastic 'bearings' are there in this?: