Bmx Questions

[guineasmithpig]

are you running cassette or freewheel? its just that a lot of freewheels run excentrically (not around a central point). so if you follow one tooth of the outer sprocket, it'll move outwards as it is at the furthest point backwards of the bike, lengthening the distance from the front of the chainring to the back of the rear sprocket, causing the cahin to be tighter. if you spin your wheel, you may see the rear sprocket moving up and down, which will tell you its running excentrically.

if your running a cassette, not a clue! haha. unless your having the same trouples with your driver (poorly formed or something).

smithy

[Si-man]

Fly brakes are wank!!

supposed to have no flex but mates flexes like a wanker

Just stick to a evolver brake or get a primo E brake

[Mark W]

Which part of the brake is flexing? I've never ever seen one flex much at all before?

[Si-man]

the top of the arms that join to the cable.

It flexes a good 5mm

[Houseface]

hey,

how the hell does a freecoaster work? i know how the freewheels work but not freecoaster

steve.

[Dan Clark]

George French done a really good article of it in Ride.

Search the g sport website for it.

[Nick Harding]

It's definitely that top-hat washer. The compress down a bit and f**k shit up in their own special way, meaning the chainring can move a little when it spins. What size crank spindle are you running? If it's 22mm I've got one here you can try out. Alternatively, work out where the tight spot is, and shim the minx with some coke can...

dude that has worked a treat thats alot man.ill get a new top hat washer aswell but this will do for the mean while cheers

[poopipe]

the top of the arms that join to the cable.

It flexes a good 5mm

my evolver does that , so did my old 990 from back in the day. It seems u brakes are shite right across the board.

[Mark W]

hey,

how the hell does a freecoaster work? i know how the freewheels work but not freecoaster

steve.

Basically, the "lump" that engages when you pedal runs on a big thread which goes across the axle. When you backpedal, the lump is effectively unscrewing across the axle, until it gets to a point where it's not longer engaging with the driver. At that point, you're "freecoasting". Then, to engage, you pedal forwards and it'll screw back across and engage again. KHE have just released one with a 14mm axle, which is probably the only one I'd run if I ever thought for a second that freecoasters were anything other than a wank idea ('cept for flatland). All personal opinion though I guess.

For some freecoaster action: 1 and partially in 2.

dude that has worked a treat thats alot man.ill get a new top hat washer aswell but this will do for the mean while cheers

As I said before, I've got one here you can have if you want

[Houseface]

hey,

what would be the lowest size chain ring i could get (for the usualy gearing) if i got a:

proper cassette hub-10 tooth

or

odyssey casette hub-12 tooth

would 25:10 be good?

steve.

Edited May 14, 2006 by stevyn

[Mark W]

28:10 would be the "proper" gearing, and 33:12 would be the "proper" gearing if you go 12t. 33:12 is what I've got at the moment and it feels pretty good

[Houseface]

if i went 25:10 would it feel the same as a 36:15 gearing because i had that and i loved it soo much

steve.

[Mark W]

36:15 = 24:10, so 25:10 will be close enough.

[CurtisRider]

now building another bmx, got myself a dragonfly, with a 21inch tt i prefer longer bmxs

anywho, i found i prefer the feel of a high front end, and was looking at some berringer lites-are they any good? im guessing 8 inch rise is about right? or can anybody suggest a better set of bars?

[Mark W]

Slam bars work out as fractionally higher than Beringer lights, due to the fact they are 8" high at the ends, but have less upsweep than the Beringers/Beringer Lights. I switched from Beringers to Slams and it made hopping 'n' stuff a shitload easier. My brother felt my bars too and changed his 3-year-old Beringers for Slams too, and he's had the same story. You can get a million and one Slam bar clones now though that are lighter, so maybe check out the Sunday Triumph bars or something along those lines.

[CurtisRider]

cheers mark, ive been looking about, but i cant seem to find any bars that are a reasonable weight? they all seem crazy heavy, or am i just being too picky? im trying to keep the bike as light as possible (within reason) as im not a harsh rider and itll mainly be used for techy park stuff

i did have slams once, but they were cut down so narrow i couldnt handle using them, seemed ok other than that

[Mark W]

The Sunday Triumph bars are like 728g or something along those lines, so they're not that heavy. I've got 'real' Slams on mine and I didn't notice any extra weight putting them on

[Thom]

I'm thinking about getting a bmx as I'm getting a bit bored with trials, need something different. I've never really ridden Bmx seriously only mucking around with my friends bike. So I basically have no idea about anything to do with BMX like geometry, brakes etc. Would you be able to recommend a good starter bmx for street/park kinda riding ? would it be better to get a complete, 2nd hand, or build one custom ? Also why do the majority of BMX'ers run only a rear brake ? Sorry for the newb questions but any help would be great thanks!!

[Houseface]

reason for the rear brake thing is because not many people use them apart from the odd nose stall on the top of stuff, but even then most people just foot jam or they have a very good sense of balance with no brakes.

good starter bmx is a mongoose or something? go for around 200 pounds spent if you can

if you have more to spend go for a dk six/four pack

these bikescan all be found on linky doo da

steve.

[poopipe]

righty..

I've got me an empty jar. Into this jar I'm putting a tenner a week plus my pub change so within a month or four I'll have a load of money to spend on a new bmx frame (won't be long before I kill the current one, sorry Joe ).

I don't want to go beyond about £250 and I don't want to buy second hand cos I'm a tart.

What I want is a nice clean streety frame that won't object too strongly to me grinding on the wrong bit of bike and getting run over by cars.

Preferably no gyro tabs, definitely no wiggly stays, 'clever' cable guides or any of that shite either

I'm thinking 20.5" - 21" toptube and pretty normal geometry otherwise - no wacky headangles or BB rises for me. USA BB , 990 mounts - preferably on the seatstays but not too fussed, 14mm axles.

any suggestions ?

[Mark W]

You sure it's gotta be US BB? Mid BBs are a lot more common now, and Mid BB bearings are pretty cheap too.

I bought a Mutiny Sinister 'cos I wanted a 21" TT, and pretty regular geometry, as well as SS mounts. It's a super nice frame, pretty light (5.2lbs, I think?), and was well cheap 'cos it was on sale at www.customriders.com. Cost me £157 in the end, which is pretty damn cheap for a top spec pro frame

The Superstar frames are really good too, and sound like they'd tick all the right boxes for you. The Le Treets frame or the Parkinson would do you pretty well. I had a 20.75"TT Parkinson and loved it, but it was just a touch too short for me. Come to think of it, that frame might even be for sale now...

[poopipe]

If I can tuck a set of powerbites into a mid BB (spanish ?) and shit hot bearings aren't horrendously expensive it's definitely an option.

the mutiny looks good n solid ( but where did the pound and a half of missing metal go ?) - cheap too which means new forks 'n' bars without feeling too guilty.

Theres something about the parkinson that I'm not keen on - not sure what it is (probably the colour )

[Mark W]

I got Hollowbites into my Mid BB, so yeah, you're good I think the Mutiny BB kit works out as being around £15 or so, so it's not too bad. The Sinister also comes with a free headset too, by the way.

The Sinister's got double butted top 'n' down tubes, a Mid BB, hiddenset, larger blow-holes for more weight-saving, and slimmer dropouts 'n' stuff, so it ends up being pretty cheap. I haven't got any ti bits on my bike or any ridiculous weight-saving mods on the go, and my BMX weighs just over 25lbs so they build up pretty nicely

The Parkinson comes in a couple of colours too, so don't fret about that too much

[Sponge]

Been talking to Mark about this on MSN, but thought some of you guys might know a little more! Cheers for help though Mark

Here we go:

Basically, got a profile crank, and it kinda 'wobbles' a tiny tiny bit after loads of jumping, the crankarm slides onto the 48-spline Profile spindle quite easily by hand. Mark recommended me using loctite on the crankbolt, but I also heard off him that there exists some crankbolt that BMXers use to eliminate 'Profile wobble' something called a bitch-bolt maybe?

Would appreciate any help.

[Mark W]

Like I said - Bikeguide it