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might hold up fine, ushering in a whole new era in BMX history where four-pound frames are seen as heavy and outdated.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

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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.

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.

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

Friday Quiz

With sincerest apologies to bikesnobnyc, who's better at this than anybody, I'd like to end this week with a quick one-question quiz.

Clicking on the photo will reveal the answer, but don't cheat.



Which bike company is proudly showing the exact weight of their latest super-litewait prototype frame by balancing it on a scale?


a) Eastern

b) Fit

c) FBM

d) Fly

e) Thick


And one open-ended question to sleep on. If every company is going to try and make frames that are more or less the same (low toptube, sub-5), why do we need so damn many companies in the first place?