Mark W

"It utilizes the inherent flex in the drive system to transfer the torque and ensure that a single pawl will never take the entire load. This is where Industry Nine claim that their system has an advantage over a traditional pawl system that can’t limit that flex - they say it limits and minimizes wear and tear on the system and provides a more consistent ride." That's where they lost me a bit. They mention earlier in the copy that their hub can flex enough to take the load over up to 4 pawls simultaneously which sounds like it must be quite a lot of flex. I don't really get how that is limiting/reducing the flex compared to, say, a Pro 4? If my Hopes died fully I'd been thinking of going for some Torch hubs but it looks like that dream is over if they're discontinued in lieu of these. Not sure how much I'd really trust them long term with a ratchet that's so shallow, and that's a reasonable chunk of cash for a hub.

The Gusset tugs are definitely stronger so they won't break like the standard Onza tugs, but it'll just be the rear wheel slipping being the root cause. Basically, M6 bolts are pretty small and need a lot of torque to really hold everything in place. If you try and screw in an axle bolt to most trials hubs by hand you'll feel quite a bit of resistance or friction (when shooting photos of hubs at TartyBikes I'd usually need to mess around with bolts, and quite often I'd have to dick around with allen keys and spanners to move bolts in hubs, and that is using a brand new bolt in a brand new hub - just without grease). If you add to that the tension naturally ramping up as you tighten the bolt it means that bolts will often feel tight without necessarily being tight. Using grease helps out more than you might think - as shown here: https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/torque-lubrication-effects-d_1693.html It's just something that happens with M6 axle bolts and horizontal dropouts. It's why for comp style bikes with snail cams most riders will go for notched snail cams as they are much harder to make shift or slip compared to chain tugs or smooth snail cams.

For the chain to move over a tooth like that (if I read you right) there'd have to be a lot of twisting/flex - you wouldn't need a high speed camera to see it. The Tensile freewheels aren't the best so if your chain tension isn't altering but you're just getting a skip then it's probably just the freewheel doing it's thing. If your chain tension is dropping, it can only be the wheel moving in the dropouts.

Yeah, looks like a different catalogue-style dropout to the non-disc one that ended up on the production frames back then. The old proto at TartyBikes had the same dropout as the production ones so that one Staples is on must have been the properly original one. I'm fairly sure the TB frame was one that Danny had ridden (up until he broke it :p), so it would make sense that the dropout was more like the final one... It's all good - I wasn't having a dig about Curtis/Leeson, that was genuine curiosity. I wasn't sure when they first started popping up - I was a straight up 20" fanboy back then and was totally lacking any f**ks to give as far as anything bigger went.

True, but expressing it as "I went out looking for any black b*****d" is not necessarily the most nuanced way of doing it, and for good or ill people will read into that choice of phrase. Had that interview been done the week after it had happened it would have made more sense, but it just seems weird to do it now for a variety of reasons. Ultimately using race as a descriptor has more impact simply because using it in a negative connotation is a lot more historically loaded. Don't get me wrong - the needle has definitely swung way too far in the way that people are looking to be offended and then destroy the lives of those they perceive as being 'wrong'. He just didn't help himself at all in this instance.

Where do Leeson and Curtis fit into this? I'd generally been under the impression that they'd been doing custom steel 24" frames, but the ET24 was the first production 24" frame...

The first gen prototypes had V-Brake mounts. That looks like one of the ones that was upstairs at TartyBikes for a while - black, V-mounts, no head tube gusset. I meant to get photos of it a bunch of times but it always slipped my mind, and I think it was one of the frames that got scrapped not so long ago

I'm not sure the chronology of it quite works out like that. The first prototype Inspired was around before Danny was involved with Inspired - think Matt Staples may have been riding it? Danny definitely had input in developing it after he rode one. I don't think it was a case of him requesting an ET clone and Dave starting Inspired up though. Totally agree about Martyn and Edd kickstarting things though. Kris Leeson and those guys definitely had an impact too but Martyn and Edd seemed to open it up a bit more. The things those guys, the Trials-Kings and Akrigg were doing back then still hold up well now in a lot of cases. Same deal with Tim Pratt and Phil Feeney (although they were a little later on) too to be fair...

With things like this, it's generally best to try and separate issues off so you know where to look. If the chain is tight, you hear this noise and then it's slack, the only cause of that will be the rear wheel. The position of your rear wheel is what dictates chain tension, so it's going to involve that. If the chain is still tight (or if it's only loose in spots - most freewheels don't spin perfectly concentrically around the BB axle, so you'll often get tight spots or loose spots. This is especially true with Onza cranks due to the design of the threaded section for the freewheel) then it sounds like it'll be your freewheel skipping. If the chain is going loose, then your best option is to take your back wheel out, take the axle bolts and washers off and give everything a good clean. If it's been slipping in the past you might have bits of paint and metal built up on the end of the hub spacers which will stop them gripping the frame as effectively. The big thing though is to make sure you've got plenty of grease in the axle threads and on your axle bolts. Dry bolts will often feel like they're torqued up quite a lot before they really are, so putting that bit of grease on will help you get a lot more torque through them which should hold them in place. If your old tugs broke, that will usually be from the wheel shifting, so it would suggest this is a likely cause. The wheel suddenly shifting can sometimes make a noise too, incidentally. For the freewheel, if you've got something like GT-85 you can flush the freewheel out to help perk it up a bit. Just point the tip of the nozzle into the gap between the outer shell and the centre section of the freewheel (this will be easiest with the bike upside down, and you being on the non-drive side of the bike), and as you slowly rotate the cranks backwards start spraying into it. If you've got any dirt or similar in the freewheel this can help get some of it out. From memory, the Tensile freewheels on the Zoot come with some grease in them which will slow down engagement a bit too and make them more prone to skips (as well as being a magnet for dirt/grit) - the GT-85 will help reduce the 'stickiness' of that grease a bit as well.

Think part of it is probably the turn of phrase he used to describe it now. To put it mildly they were pretty poorly chosen words, especially in light of the current 'climate' for things like that. That said, the current shit in the US with that Governor in black face or the KKK outfit - he couldn't really be handling it much worse than he is, and his white friends saying that they weren't offended by it aren't really helping either.

The Spank rims do seem to be a bit more dent resistant than the Inspired rims. Not sure if you're going down that path but they're a little easier to set up tubeless too.

Grinds were conspicuous by their absence, so I'm guessing they had some pretty tight restrictions on what they could/couldn't do. Shots looked nice, but the video itself kind of fizzled out. Sort of surprising as Matty Lambert has made some really good stuff in the past. Still, expect everyone was paid pretty well for it and seems like they had a good time so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Some good stuff in this, although that Dehart song is absolute shit:

Don't necessarily miss how weak a lot of those frames/parts were though

The more recent Echo brakes seem to be an improvement over the old ones. The older ones were more prone to leaks, and from memory they also came with rotors that were super hard and brake pads that weren't stellar. They seem to have improved overall. Both Echo and Jitsie are good brands though - there's not much to choose between the two, especially now Jitsie have chopped their prices down. 20" trials bikes will feel a lot different to your BMXs. They're fairly alien compared to 24/26" trials bikes, which in turn are still fairly alien compared to most other bikes. Your height will play a bit of a role too, if you're taller then a 26" will probably feel more comfortable for you.

It's not really just the material - the design will play a big role in how long they last. Some companies don't make great carbon forks and they break faster, other companies (like Clean and Crewkerz) do and their carbon forks will last a long, long time. If there's no signs of them breaking then you're probably fine to keep riding them. Carthy used to break alloy forks pretty regularly but the Crewkerz Carbons last him a long time, so if he's got that similar increase in durability from switching to them you should too. The Clean forks are extremely similar to the Crewkerz ones, so they should be fairly representative.

John Langlois is really good. Crazy how this is just a throwaway Instagram clip these days...

Have you actually looked at how many cases there are recorded of people dying from drinking Red Bull? I found at most 5, 4 of those had other factors that contributed to it. There's only been one court case tabled that blamed Red Bull for someone's death, ever. Regarding smoking, this is a quote from King James in 1604 (he ordered autopsies to be carried out on people who smoked and had died, where they found that their “inward parts infected with an oily kind of soot.”): "[Smoking] is lothesome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmfull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrific Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” The only reason that it's still a thing is tax revenue. I know you're going to say that that could be the same for energy drinks, but there's only so much trolling I can really be bothered dealing with... About 5 cigarettes vs. 5 cans of Red Bull - get the cans lined up. Just for reference, a standard can of Red Bull has 80mg of caffeine in it. The recommended safe daily upper limit is 400-450mg. For comparison, if I'm getting a coffee when I'm out from Starbucks/Costa, I'd usually get something like a Cortado. 1 Starbucks Cortado is equivalent to 2 cans of Red Bull.

No, but that's because they're totally different things. You can't seriously be trying to argue that one is as bad as the other? "Energy drinks have been associated with health risks... and excessive or repeated consumption can lead to cardiac and psychiatric conditions. However, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that an adequate consumption of Red Bull and other popular energy drinks is safe... Energy drinks have the effects that caffeine and sugar give, but there is no distinct evidence that the wide variety of other ingredients has any effect." As it says there, an 'adequate consumption' of them is safe. There is no 'adequate consumption' of cigarettes to make them safe. Red Bull itself has been going for 30 years, but the product itself has been consumed for longer than that. I'm pretty sure if it led to widespread health implications equivalent to those associated with smoking we'd know about it, unless their lobbying group are more successful than the billions that the cigarette companies threw at suppressing medical research? If you're trying to say that because someone could go and drink too much and cause themselves issues, what about coffee in that people have drunk too much of that and died from complications caused by excessive consumption of caffeine? A medium/grande Starbucks coffee has 4 times the caffeine content of a can of Red Bull. You still haven't answered my questions, btw - think of it as the way that companies do carbon offsetting, or planting trees to offset the ones lost for making paper.

Yes and no - my understanding of it is that the Red Bull we're thinking of (the Austrian company) is actually not much more than a media company. The drink production is all handled by the Thai company who came up with the drink originally. They split the profit between them. The Austrian company's goal is to get brand exposure (around 40% of Red Bull's overall revenue is spent on marketing), the Thai company's goal is to create the product. To an extent, I think the Austrian side of it is more aimed at becoming a bigger media entity, which just happens to be funded by an energy drink company. Obviously their goal is to sell more product to make more money, but they don't always push that side of it as much. For example, they fund projects that aren't being undertaken by Red Bull affiliated athletes/musicians/artists, often without really requiring much if any branding. I saw a skateboarding video a while back that just had a really small bit in the credits pointing out it was Red Bull funded. I believe at the moment they'e also trying to put together a video with a pro skater who's not got any endorsement with them, but has a cool idea for a project that only a company like Red Bull could fund. I doubt he's going to be necking cans mid-way through it. See also: Felix Baumgartner. With things like that I think their goal is to get enough brand exposure and awareness that if someone is buying an energy drink they'll buy a Red Bull, rather than getting people who wouldn't ordinarily buy an energy drink to buy one. Admittedly that's a bit down the "potato"/"potato" route, but it does seem a little different to me compared to how, as an example, that 'Bang' company sponsoring Aurelien are doing things.

My point is that the Street Light Sessions were funded by Red Bull, and revolved around Danny MacAskill's (a Red Bull athlete) involvement. That event got people into riding, and to use your view of it got them into a "healthy lifestyle sport", despite it being funded by an "immoral" company. At what point does getting more people into a "healthy lifestyle sport" outweigh the fact that they are promoting an "unhealthy" product? I've heard customers say they got into riding because they saw videos like Way Back Home, Imaginate, Epecuen - these are all Red Bull funded under Danny's direction, so when does the fact that they're getting more people into riding by inspiring them with those videos outweigh the fact their product is "unhealthy"?

I don't really understand that statement... A couple of semi-rhetorical questions more specifically related to Red Bull's involvement with trials - I know a few riders who got into trials because they got to have a go on a trials bike at the Red Bull Street Light Sessions. Is them getting into trials worse than Red Bull bankrolling that event? At what point does that balance tip? How many riders need to get into riding trials having seen Imaginate or Epecuen to offset Red Bull's involvement?

Health and the environment aren't linked?

It's not just trials - Garrett Reynolds is one of the best BMXers in the world, and he only has one paying sponsor (Red Bull). Other guys like Chad Kerley only have one paying BMX-specific sponsor, the bulk of his income comes from non-endemic sponsors. Believe it's a similar story for Dennis Enarson too. The majority of 'pro' BMXers are making virtually no money now, so without those alternative sponsors they'd be screwed. The issue is that there are so many companies out there that each company is effectively getting a smaller slice of what is already a slightly smaller pie. Factor in rising costs of parts but expectations for RRPs to be low and it makes it even worse. Bearing in mind the order of magnitude trials is smaller than BMX, it's unsurprising there are only really probably 2 riders out there who are actually making a living from riding their bikes (in the sense they could do nothing but ride their bikes as they choose to and still make a living). The same lack of money for companies is behind that too. Semi-related to that, but a lot of the heavier drinking/smoking BMXers now have sponsors who make CBD-related products, natural supplements, etc. There's been a pretty big shift over the past few years. One formerly-pro BMXer stopped his riding career to start a juicing cafe when he got seriously into health-related stuff. The morality thing depends what level you want to take it to as well. Is someone buying a Red Bull better or worse than someone buying a pair of some BMXers signature shoes made with animal-based materials (e.g. suede), and soles that are glued on using some pretty nasty substances? Is that better or worse than the gigantic carbon footprint created by the UCI MTB World Cups flying huge amounts of people all around the world to race down some tracks and hand out some meaningless baubles and jerseys? What about e-bikes that use batteries that are reasonably environmentally damaging to create? Speaking of energy drink sponsorship, this is laughably bad:

Yeah, it's that latter part with the drive side bearing that throws me with it. It shouldn't work, but it seems to have been holding up well for a lot of riders who do massive stuff. From personal experience they're probably the easiest cranks I've fitted to my bike, and they've worked flawlessly the whole time they've been on.

I'm with Flipp about the type of rider likely to buy light stuff. Weight is part of it, but a large part of the reason comp riders run a front rim brake is due to the feel/performance of a rim brake vs. a disc brake. That's why the top 20" riders are almost all running rear disc/front rim now too. At what stage are you planning on making a prototype of it, by the way? It seems a bit risky to just rely on FEA to make it as light as you think you can get away with before actually using them for real. If you haven't modelled it perfectly and have worked out a way to put all the random directions and degrees of force through it that you would do through riding (e.g. when you're doing a hook on an awkward shaped obstacle, you've got all kinds of unpleasant twisting/bending/grossness going on), you won't have as much margin for error? Similarly, when carbon forks first came out there were riders complaining about how flexible they were. If you're going that far down the road of making them super light without being able to feel what they're actually like on a bike again it seems like you might encounter problems when you try them for real - not just in them not being great forks, but also in having spent more time and effort on the design that you'll then have to go back and undo. I'm not by any means saying that the current carbon fork designs are optimised, and they could no doubt be lighter/better, so I know that expectations of your forks vs. those forks based on weight alone won't necessarily be accurate (i.e. you saying that yours will be way lighter doesn't necessarily mean they'll have the problems associated with being too light). It just seems from the outside looking in that starting off with a slightly heavier product that you can then refine and optimise after gauging the feel and performance of it would be better than cutting things too fine.