mysticnegro.com Kranky v3.0

So, the X-Games are this weekend.  I’ve watched most of them so far.

Lacking any stomach churning crashes from the Mega Ramp this year they just kept replaying Jake Brown and Danny Way’s mishaps from previous years.  So, it’s good to know that ESPN is still happy to feed the bottom, even if there’s no actual food.

This year’s X-Games medals are little sculptures of hands throwing up the “LA” hand sign.  Because nothing says street more than a bunch of middle class kids competing in niche athletics.

Speaking of which, Travis Pastrana showed up to try to rock a 360 flip.  No one could seem to grasp the concept of a 360 flip so it was called a “Rodeo Flip” a “corked out 720″ and “The Toilet Paper Roll.”  The last one is what Pastrana actually called it, which is dumb.  It’s a trick that already has a name, doing it on a motorcycle doesn’t make it a different trick.  Steve Caballero, a fakie to 360 is a Full Cab, I don’t care that you “can’t ollie a bicycle”.  I think Cary Hart is the only one that gets it, he’s always held that the Hart Attack should just be called a Superman Seatgrab.

Anyway ESPN hyped the living hell out of Pastrana’s return, at Mirra’s urging, to FMX best trick.  Boy, they must have felt like douchenuggets when he crashed his first try and decided to pack it in.

He did better than Willie Watts.  Watts is from Broken Arrow, OK, which is the hometown of one of my best friends.  I only say this because I know that they don’t put fail into the water in BA, but, Watts hyped up a crazy backflip body varial and then…two dead sailors.  So awesome.

In a break from typical X-Games over hyping/under delivering/manufactured drama, the Adaptive Motocross race was actually a very cool thing.

Over in BMX Big Air Kevin Robinson regained his title in a last minute rally against Chad Kagy and Dave Mirra.  Mirra tried to do a no-handed 3 across the 70 footer and, instead, gave a master class on how to eject from a trick gone wrong.  Anthony Napolitan pulled the first double front flip in competition, much of the crowd thought he should have won.  He shouldn’t have won.  The competition is “Big Air” not “big trick to not even big air if it was on a regular vert ramp.”  Not taking anything away from the double front, that was awesome, but what Anthony did was the equivalent of Jay Miron devoting his entire last X-Games park appearance to landing a 360 double whip across a box.

I missed the Big Air Rail Jam, which honestly seems like a contest created so Danny Way could win a gold medal. Danny way got a gold medal.

Apparently BMX Park is this afternoon.  W00t. And by “W00t” I mean, “Daniel Dhers is going to do 70 consecutive 720s and a handfull of flairs to win, because park – theoretically the most diverse of all BMX disciplines – has been reduced to a box jump competition.”

Oh, by the way, they threw BMX “street” on during “X-Center” the hour before the X-Games was listed to start.  Really?  Why the hell wouldn’t you just start the X-Games an hour earlier?  What since did that make?  None, just like the street contest, which had a format that I found hard to understand (8 tries at each obstical) and which just seemed to kill momentum.

I’m semi in the market for a frame.  I don’t need one, but I have half a bike in my garage and I want to make something, it seems that a frame would be helpful.  I could just buy the Eastern Dragon 1 that’s been on the wall at Mama’s for like four years, but I decided I’d explore my options.  So, I went to Dan’s and just for a laugh I decided to see how much FBM frames would run me.  I actually kinda like the Exodus, it seems like an old man frame and FBM guys read this stuff, so it seemed like a good thing.  But then I noticed something weird.

If you sort the frames in price descending order, well, it’s chock full of overseas made frames at the high end.  While I realize that country of origin isn’t the be all end all of pricing, that was always the draw of import frames, no?  Cheaper, but similar quality of domestic frames?  I, honestly, wasn’t expecting that.  So, now I have to wonder, why would I buy a Taiwanese frame for what I could probably get a custom American made frame for.  Not that I have anything against Taiwanese frames, I even ride one, but the mild custom stuff I’d want (hey, can you give me an extra quarter inch up front?) wouldn’t be that ‘spensive, I wouldn’t think.

I dunno, I guess in a world where a $40K Hyundai makese sense this isn’t that odd.  No, no, it’s still odd.  BMX makes my brain hurt sometimes.

That Hitler video on TCU almost makes me want to go out and buy a fixie, and I don’t even like fixies.  I’m not going to link to it, you’ve probably seen it and as you all know, nothing makes your position seem more reasonable than coming from the mouth of Hitler, he who was known for thoroughly reasonable ideas.

I won’t get into the massive logic holes in it, but I will point out this wacky fact.

Twenty inch bicycles are not for adults.

Oh, I mean, adults ride them, I’m rather fond of them.  But, the 20″ BMX bike was always meant to be for children.  In fact the 26 and 24 inch cruiser was designed specifically to keep older kids around and to give parents something to do.  Which is why I find it a little odd that among the other things that get fetishized by BMXers (being broke, “real” BMX, etc.) wheel size is on the list.  If it ain’t 20″ it doesn’t count for whatever reason.

OK, that’s fine, but since the 20″ wheel was for children making it the defining element of a “real” BMX bike pretty much means it will suck as adult transportation, at least it will for anyone larger than a child.  Worse, with the steepening head tubes and lowering top tubes are actually making them even less suitable for anything other than doing tricks on.

“But I ride my Killorado to school 30 miles, uphill, both ways…in the snow,” I hear you say.  Yeah, and I’m morbidly obese and I had ice cream last night.  Both of us did things that we probably shouldn’t have.  It goes without saying that just because you can do it doesn’t make it right. 

On a related note.  I’m thinking about a 21.24″ FBM Exodus frame.  It looks like a frame that a grown man can ride.  Now if I can only find a decently padded seat…

I’m sure a lot of you have seen the pictures of Dizz Hicks on a Sunday! Funday.  If you haven’t, check them, it’s pretty f’ing awesome.  I’m reminded of something Dizz once said about how he became a kick-turn master.  He was afraid of vert. Ceppie Maes said that his entire flatland style grew out of the fact that he couldn’t do the most basic of then current tricks, so he had to figure out what he could do.

Given that everything today seems to be the same tricks just done bigger, maybe it’s time for someone who’s completely inept (and, Ceppie specifically said he couldn’t do a ROCK WALK, which pretty much defined inept in 80′s flatland) to come and blow minds.

Also, coaster brake, high seat post, isn’t that how everyone expected Krt to set up his Sunday?

While I was looking the other way MacNeil finally released a new Deuce Deuce.

When I saw the initial, prototype images I was a little concerned.  I should have been a lot more terrified.  You see, for all its faults, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the DD, being as how I’m 6’3″ and have arms like a great ape, it always struck me as something I should own, even as I balked at its price (that’s not a knock against the Deuce, I just find it hard to justify the money I spend on BMX given how casual a hobby it is for me).  So, what’s wrong with Deuce Deuce revision 2?

Well, let me tell ya.

Geometry:

Top Tube – 22” (good)
Rear Triangle – 14.25″ (excellent)
Head-tube angle – 74.5° (right)
Seat-tube angle – 71° (ok)
BB height – 11.7″ (sure)
Stand over height – 8.4” (the hell?!?!?!?)
Weight – 4.9 lbs (the fuck?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!)

The Deuce Deuce is built for taller riders, and while “taller” doesn’t mean “heavier” you can generally assume that a guy who needs a 22″ top tube is going to be a little bit more beefy than a guy who needs a 20.5 inch frame.  I’m not even talking about morbidly obese, like myself, I’m talking about guys like Matt Stahl, who are in shape (with the exception of thinking that nicotine is a food group).  I guess Chris Robinson could be riding this, though.  Which would explain why this thing weighs roughly the same as an Eastern Tramp, which at its longest is a good 1.5 – 2 inches shorter than the Deuce (and if Dan’s keeps with what seems to be the standard for published bike weights, they weighed the 20.5″ frame, not the 21).  WTF?

It’s not just that somehow MacNeil made a bike crazy long and yet kept the weight down in the area of frames made for smaller riders, it’s that, once you ignore the length, it’s not really, uhm, tall.  Just a quick look around Dan’s shows that it has a bottom bracket and standover height not much different than your typical S3 based S&M/Fit contraption.  In contrast, I just went out to my garage with a tape measure and checked my K2.  It’s standover height was almost 10″, on a 20.5″ frame.  But, that was back in the old days when people still used seats.

At least they kept the wishbone.

I don’t know, it just seems to me that the Deuce Deuce is such a niche product anyway – either you want a 22″ top tube or you don’t – that trying to mainstream it is a bit pointless.  As it sits, the Deuce is now, for me is like that girl you had a crush on in high school, who didn’t age well.  Thanks for the memories, though.

I managed to successfully fight off the urge to sleep this morning long enough to hit up Duncan Creek at 6:50.  Oddly, I was not the first person there.  It was odd being back on my bike after a, what, 7 month lay off.  Felt good though.

Sadly, Duncan Creek was full of trash two feet away from the trash cans, which are located about every 5 feet.  I think teenagers are why we can’t have nice things.  There was also the first spot of graffiti on a low ledge.  Classy those Gwinnett kids, I tell you…

On a completely different note.

You know, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with the half a bike’s worth  of parts in my garage for a while now.  I wanted to do a throwback 80′s GT homage build.  Then I thought about doing a completely unhip build (you know using strictly parts from companies that aren’t in fashion in BMX.  I mean, I ride an Eastern, but, besides the forks, every other after market part on it is from a company that people like like Animal or Federal or, good Lord I have a lot of Odyssey). But, you know now that Subrosa has layback seatposts, you can find chrome frames and there are Generra Hypercolor Odyssey Chameleon parts, the throwback, non-GT, bike might be the way to go…

I don’t own a Subrosa product.  I will likely never own a Subrosa product, but, doggonnit, I can’t help but love those crazy bastards.  They just keep on repurposing all things retro for their own amusement.

I mean, it started with the Bash Bike, a shout out to the 90s that shaped Ryan Sher’s young riding brain. Then they released pictures of a new Ryan Sher signature dual top tube model. Granted no one who would want it would want an integrated, slammed, Pivotal seat post, and no one who would want a bike with an integrated, slammed Pivotal postwould likely to be fiending for an updated Haro Master, but that’s the brilliance of it.  It makes absolutely no sense.  You get the feeling that, like when Obama became president he started doing stuff you’d do if you were president (like having Stevie Wonder throw your a private concert) Ryan Sher has decided that the only reason to own a bike company is to make whatever ridiculous thing he always wanted as a kid.  For instance…

In a world where a 20″ top tube was considered XXL, seat tube angles were close to 90 degrees and people used their seats to, you know, sit, the layback seat post made perfect sense.  It allowed you to run your seat at a normal height (parallel to your bars, natch) and still have clearance to spin your bars for boomerangs and the like.

That’s the exact same rationale given for the Subrosa layback seatpost.  No, I’m not making that up, look:

Pivotal seats have no way to move forward or back like a tradition
railed seat. They always seem to be a bit far forward on the seat post,
cramping the space you have between the bars and seat.

I don’t know if that’s batshit insane, or just plain brilliant.  I mean, your typical BMX bike in 2009 has a top tube located nine inches below the top of the rear tire, a rear end so short that the rear tire/seat clearance that has to be measured with a micrometer and seat heights determined by a series of shrinking “rules” (two fist, one fist, half fingernail…).  Into that we’re going to introduce a teeny, tiny nubbin of a layback seat post (granted, I don’t know for sure that it’s a nubbin, but, unless that logo is crazily outsized it’s not as long as the amount of post I have sticking out of my frame).

I don’t understand it.  I mean, I know no one’s going to use it on a Killorado…well, not without a weight saving cut-out on the back of the seat for tire clearance, but, uhm, yeah that’s kind of the problem.  Aren’t seats today little vestigal pieces which exist solely so that your seat tube doesn’t go through your wedding vegetables after a bad landing?  Don’t the geometries of most modern frames leave so little clearance between the seat and rear tire that a couple bad landings with this will turn your brakeless setup into one with a seat post mounted rear brake?

The way I see it, this only has one flaw.  Subrosa, this needs to be 330mm long.  Yes, this needs to be a full sized, old man’s post.  Yes, yes it does.  Make it and I’ll buy it, I promise.  As it sits, I love you guys, but not enough to give you my money.  But you’re so, so, so close…

Don’t make me beg.  ‘Cos I will.

SOLIDSTEEL Johno & the Church Gap from Clint on Vimeo.

So, this video has made the BMX blog rounds.  A guy (almost) jumps the infamous Austin Church Gap, detonates his rear wheel and destroys his bars. 

Alright

So, in the last handful of years one of the best riders in the sport lost the use of his limbs, two people have died and one of the most influential of new school riders had a career defining accident (Aitken’s career is now seperated into “pre accident” and “post accident”).  After Aitken’s fall there was a lot of talk about helmets and safety gear in BMX.  That talk lasted for about two days, and now we have this.  Before jumping this massive gap, kid adjusts his baseball cap.

Alright, his choice I guess (and I have to laugh at all the people who say they hate freestyle MTBs because they’re the wrong tool for the job.  Fully suspended mountain bikes were designed from the ground up to handle massive gaps, but I digress).  Here’s the problem.  While not a lot of people are saying that this guy was an idiot for trying this in jeans, a t-shirt and a baseball cap, the few that have have received the oh so hardcore reaction of “BMX is dangerous!!!!” “You’re a communist!!!!!!” “That’s why my parents have insurance!!!!!”

I just don’t get why a large majority of BMXers seem to be, at best, apathetic about safety gear and a small, but extremely vocal, minority seem to not only be actively opposed to it, but offended by the very idea that anyone would suggest that wearing safety gear is a good idea.  Yeah, BMX is dangerous, (and, in fact two of my above examples either happened while safety gear was being worn or it wouldn’t have mattered anyway) but, sheesh, while other dangerous activities seek to mitigate the possibility of a horrible, painful death BMXers seem to want to increase it.  I can’t see NASCAR drivers screaming that they don’t want roll cages, but Lord forbid you suggest BMXers wear helmets.

Anyway, back to the video.  I’m glad the dude walked away…but he’s still an idiot.

About every 5 years a new generation of BMX starts.

About every 5 years the nac-nac comes back en vogue.

It’s just funny to me that every generation of BMX declares the nac “the worst trick ever,” but it seems to be the first trick to regain popularity during the next new rider cycle.

The Shorty’s Pizza Shop Van

I’ve become a fan of the show Wheeler Dealers on HDTV.  It’s a British show where a kind of annoying car salesman buys up old cars for not that much money, gives them to his friend – a surfer who apparently suffers from giantism – to fix up, and then sells them for not that much money plus not that much money.  A couple of weeks ago they did a VW Micro Bus, which they converted into the perfect surf vehicle and which the giant surfer promptly bought for himself.

All the things that make the Bus a perfect surf vehicle make it a perfect BMX vehicle.  It’s cheap, big enough to carry a bunch of your friends inside and a bunch of your gear on the roof.  It has possibly the single most insane aftermarket of any vehicle, ever, ranging from hot rod to camper transformations and it is from an era where “Volkswagen” wasn’t German for “electrical problems.”

The only real downsides have to do with the driving experience.  The VW Microbus in full tune makes about the same horsepower as a Suzuki SV (the motorcycle everyone suggest for those who’ve never ridden a motorcycle) and handles about as well as your couch on casters.  But the fact is, you don’t buy one of these for driving excitement.  You buy one for vibe, which it has in spades.

If you’ve got five grand burning a hole in your pocket, you could do a lot worse than a pristine, restored example of one of these for your bike hauling duties.