Relief, and a bonus.

I'd had to sign out of this account and sign into another one quickly whilst writing that last post, and had forgotten to re-sign in. Thought I'd lost the whole thing, glad I hadn't. I'm lazy and repetition = bad.

Anyway, forgot to put this in the last post - generally, product information from manufacturers is about as interesting as watching nitro-cellulose coloured lacquer dry on an aluminium frame (which it never seems to, properly), but this is actually interesting and almost got an audible "aaaah" from me. G-Sport George knows what's up, and what is currently up is the Birdcage rim.

G-Sport Edit

G-Sport Welcome Edit.

That first link is about as functional and direct as G-Sport products and the G-Sport website. Link-up! Anyways, Randy Brown, Dave Thompson, Dakota Roche, Van Homan and Andrew Jackson - pretty much a "Favourite riders of mine" compilation video, and it's awesome.

Not again...

Well, it looks like Mutiny are making another frame I want? Second time it's been a Josh Bedford signature frame too...



Due out in October, by which time I'll hopefully have a job again and be able to afford such luxuries. Tempter.

In other "NEW PRODUCT" news, a 30 second video about bolts?

G-SPORT VOLCANO BOLTS FROM ODYSSEYBMX.COM

To be honest, speaking as a generally pegless rider, I'd rather have a bit more bolt to aim for for grinds 'n' stuff, but then again I do 'em weird.

And... uh... well, that's it. Dave Gorman, incidentally, is ridiculously good live, as I had the luck to find out tonight. Too good. I imagine the tickets have all sold out, but if you're near one of the venues for his latest tour, beg, borrow or steal to get there. It even involves bikes!

Interesting.

Found this on Bikeguide - apparently some kid brought it in to a guy's shop to have something sorted on it. S&M branded bolts, a different type driver to the Ratchet, and some other bits and pieces - early Ratchet prototype or some kind of rival hub? Who knows...

Infuriating.

Now, when I saw that this video was to describe a frame's seat clamping system, I was skeptical prior to even clicking play. A seat clamp clamps your seat post. It generally does this through you tightening a bolt. How much more complicated than that could it be? And if your seat clamp system needs an explanatory video, maybe that tells you you should re-design it?

I should've known prior to clicking play as well that the seat in question was probably going to be slammed, meaning that whatever clamping system it required wouldn't have to be that good in any case, and so it was no surprise when it was indeed a slammed seat.

At this point, it's probably best to let you watch the video so you can get the point of it all.



Yeah, what were they thinking? I'd been told from a few people via e-mail I was being too critical on here and being a sourpuss and all that, but honestly, this isn't a unique system, and it's not even a good one. Firstly, the "Bolt your seat into your frame" idea has been around for a while. I went to Farnborough skatepark and out of the 15 or so people there, I was the only one with a normal seat-clamp. Everyone else had a bolted in post to varying degrees of sophistication and accuracy. Regardless of that though, what about people - like, for example, me - who don't have access to a vice and a power-drill? I thought the days of having to mess around using industrial tools to piece your bike together were over, but apparently not. Making someone have to drill a product to be able to run it on your frame is ridiculous.

This whole 'locked in' idea that everyone seems to get for stuff like seatposts, stems, forks and bars is also a really, really bad one. George French wrote about it at length in a Ride tech column a while back, but essentially, a bit of give in your bike is a good thing. If you fall off and your, say, stem/forks are locked together, if you hit yourself into your bars there's going to be no give. Instead of the stem twisting on the forks and giving you a bit of a cushioned impact, it's full force (Unless you bend your bars - how can that be a 'good' thing?). The same goes for your seat. I've taken a seat to the leg before, and even with a bit of give it still hurt and still tweaked my seat a bit. If it had been totally locked in, the bruised calf I got would've been a lot worse. Equally, my seat would've probably been a bit worse off too. I'm pretty sure everyone's seen a "Gonzo" Pivotal seat - it's even such a recognised problem that Eclat have named their seat that theoretically reduces the problem in it's honour - so having your seat taking the full force of any impact isn't really a great idea, is it?

Anyway, that's probably enough. For those tuning in for news 'n' stuff, that's coming up next. Apologies for the superfluous nature of this post!

Will this work?

Hopefully this doesn't blow up the blog, embed code gamble.






Products, good. Widget, not so good...

GSport Ratchet

Joel got his new ratchet hub today... first impressions are very good. It looks and feels chunky, solid and well made. Converting from right to left hand drive was pretty straight forward - didn't need any tools as everything just pulled apart with a bare pair of hands and no brute force. Weight was a bit hefty though, 568g on the Pijin scales.

Let's just see how well it holds up after Joel has chucked it down a few 10 sets..

Oh Dear #1

Del-nonfashiontrailscompany-uxe are releasing a seat/post combo. Got on issue with that, just seems very strange coming from Deluxe, of all companies, bearing in mind phrases like "No bonkers bells and whistles which will be out of fashion in two weeks' time" appearing on their site.

What do the following all have in common with this post?

G-Sport's casse-"Ratchet" hub only being available in 36H for the first batch (That's right - a rear wheel, in 36h...).

S&M releasing - for a time - the lightest frame available (After ripping 'trendy' riders for buying fashionable products).

Odyssey having Sunday using their manufacturing processes, their design team - look at the pics of G's early frames, and an original Sunday frame - and so on (Odyssey: "We aren't a frame company").

Standard releasing a S.T.A. (That's Stronger Than All, for those unable to work out acronyms) that weighs less than 4.5lbs.

Answers on a postcard...