Bmx Questions

[eskimo]

I see where your coming from. The Shadow one is suppost to be good now they reformed it. I first bought it when it came out and the series one edt had alot of downfalls. Hopefully the new one will be good to you.

Quick question what foot forward are you poopipe?

Chains wise, now, i would recommend the Standard Ind one. But there rather hard to get hold of now. Thats what i run on my trials bike and a KHE collapse on the bmx

[poopipe]

I see where your coming from. The Shadow one is suppost to be good now they reformed it. I first bought it when it came out and the series one edt had alot of downfalls. Hopefully the new one will be good to you.

Quick question what foot forward are you poopipe?

Chains wise, now, i would recommend the Standard Ind one. But there rather hard to get hold of now. Thats what i run on my trials bike and a KHE collapse on the bmx

The shadow one is dead fancy, looks really well put together too

Billys don't carry many brands so I really was stuck with the collapse or the shadow - I wasn't going to wait around for mail order on this.

I'm right foot forward and spin to the left naturally ( that sounds slightly dodgy )

[Mark W]

The Interlock V2 is an OK chain, but to be honest I'd rather run a KMC 510HX and run a single link of it as a half-link to tweak the chain length. It's worked for me pretty well.

I know you've bought the chain already, but for next time I'd recommend either the Attila chain (same as the Loophole chain, they're pretty damn strong), the 510HX or the KHE Collapse Pro. Other than that, the only thing you could do is just get a little sprocket guard, or make one? If you're going to grind on your sprocket it'd probably be a sound investment.

For sprockets, you're only looking at about £25 max. I bought an Odyssey Vermont for £27.99, and there were plenty around for less than that that are well worth a look (as long as it's not the Demolition F1). That's not all that much, to be honest, and if it's keeping it out the way it's probably for the best. I'm guessing you'd need to get a cassette hub too, but you can pick them up pretty cheap now. www.pijin.co.uk are selling Hoffman hubs for about £40 or something like that on sale. My brother picked one up and it's really good. The difference in feel, performance and strength between a cassette hub and a generic freewheel hub with a freewheel on is surprisingly big, it just makes the whole bike feel better, and may be worth investing in for the long-run.

[poopipe]

I was kinda hoping billys would have the 510 thingy - they don't, on account of them stocking buggerall and I wasn't going near a kool chain again which was the only decent alternative apart from the collapse.

I've got a hazard on the back it's just got a 14t driver on it - hence the big ol' front cog. that combined with seatstay brake mounts puts me off reducing gearing - I'd not be able to go below 33-12 without grinding off my brake mounts (no objection to that in principle but it'll reduce what little's left of the resale value of the frame to feckall) so I cant really see the point in forking out the moolah. I'll consider it when the sprocket finally gives up the ghost (no sign of that happening though - must find out who made it)

anyway, it's done now - I should have enough spare links left over to see me through the next year or so of chainsnapping and ill be able to post up a review on what happens when you sprocket grind on an interlock v2

[Mark W]

If you've got the 14t driver, assuming it's not a 1-piece driver, couldn't you just take the lockring off and slip a 12t driver on? Then it'd be £28.99 for a Macneil full-guard 33t sprocket, and you're laughing?

Sprockets with guards from £24.99

[poopipe]

you may well be onto something there.

the only problems being finding the 12tooth cog jibber (i asked a few websites - including odyssey) and the thought of ordering from winstanleys making my blood run cold

im still gonna wait till the sprocket dies though - as my old dad used to say.. 'if it aint broke, keep smacking it on stuff till it is'

Edited September 15, 2006 by poopipe

[Mark W]

I may be able to help you out, as I've got a 4-piece driver lying round with a 12t sprocket on it I'll have a crack at getting it off for you and get back to you about it

[poopipe]

I may be able to help you out, as I've got a 4-piece driver lying round with a 12t sprocket on it I'll have a crack at getting it off for you and get back to you about it

you're an angel

i mailed the man at odyssey to ask if anyone's likely to have them but i can't see a response happening any time soon so if you could do that i'd be all happy and bouncy

failing that ill just fork out for a 1 piece jobby - 's only money innit?

[yoyoyo]

Righty-ho.

When my bmx finally comes, i wouldn't mind doing a bit of grinding. As there is no-one else i know of who can grind. Once the pegs hit say a waxed wall, will it slow down loads making me go over the front or will it carry on the same.

Just want to be prepared.

[BONGO]

you wanna be careful doing double pegs on walls and ledges as the front peg can slow you down sometimes quite fast. Every wall, ledge and rail is different though. If its bumpy or really rough, go for a feeble maybe, which is rear peg and front wheel.

Watch out for aluminium rails as they are SLOW. Just get going and fall off, it's good for learning. Like boxers, they learn by losing. Easy wins teach you nothing, so get crashing!

[eskimo]

Easy wins teach you nothing, so get crashing!

Just remember to roll

[BONGO]

yeah don't twist your knee and tear your acl like me so i can't ride till 2008

[yoyoyo]

Watch out for aluminium rails as they are SLOW. Just get going and fall off, it's good for learning. Like boxers, they learn by losing. Easy wins teach you nothing, so get crashing!

Something to look forward to then.

Cheers though.

[poopipe]

yeah don't twist your knee and tear your acl like me so i can't ride till 2008

If you'd have posted that 3 weeks ago I might be riding at the moment

I'd suggest a feeble the first time you grind anything new, concrete type substances have a nasty tendency to stop you dead as soon as you hit them which can be fairly unpleasant.

Hanging your weight out back a bit will reduce the risk of landing on your face when it does happen (a particularly good tip when doing smiths)

[poopipe]

i haven't spent any money on bikes for ages (apart from that chain but it doesn't count cos it was maintenance)

I want more pegs so I can learn grinds on t'other side - nice fast pegs that dont dent or bend, what shall I get? (not Ti cos they're too expensive)

[A!!]

After finally learning how to 180 and landing fakie off the ground and small jumps, i want to start learning how to 360.

One of my friends has a few dirt jumps in his field and they are a fairly decent size, and i want to try learn them on that. But when it comes to learning new things that potentially are pretty dangerous i find my self bottling out of it.

So i was just wondering if anyone could give me some key pointers or tips on the technique to help me learn them, as i don't really want to go flying over it without any clue of how to do them.

Edited September 19, 2006 by huck_it

[BONGO]

i haven't spent any money on bikes for ages (apart from that chain but it doesn't count cos it was maintenance)

I want more pegs so I can learn grinds on t'other side - nice fast pegs that dont dent or bend, what shall I get? (not Ti cos they're too expensive)

macneil steel ones are nice and fast. Look at shadow pegs too. They are really good pegs both of them.

[poopipe]

cheers bongo - i like shadow cos of the little birdy

After finally learning how to 180 and landing fakie off the ground and small jumps, i want to start learning how to 360.

One of my friends has a few dirt jumps in his field and they are a fairly decent size, and i want to try learn them on that. But when it comes to learning new things that potentially are pretty dangerous i find my self bottling out of it.

So i was just wondering if anyone could give me some key pointers or tips on the technique to help me learn them, as i don't really want to go flying over it without any clue of how to do them.

learning 360s the poopipe way (sans crashes) ...

rule 1: it always counts if you ride out of it, regardless of what it looks like

learn to tyretap round out of a 180 on flat ground first - fairly simple, just 180 but hop a little higher,lean back a bit more than usual and look where you want to be going, you don't need brakes for the tyretap(that would be cheating). That's your basic movement in there, spin 180 then pull round.

To get the 360, you simply spin faster and harder (particularly at the start)- you need to lead with your head the whole way round and keep your feet on the pedals. To get past 180 and land you'll want to tuck a little and sort of lean yourself forwards to line up with the landing(not too far) - this helps spin the bike around and stops you looping out. They're perfectly doable off kerbs/little ledges if you're nervous of trying them on big jumps.

safety hints...

learn them on a box jump / tabletop thingy first, not on doubles - you dont want to slap into the upslope of the landing and a 360 scrubs a fair bit of distance off a jump in my experience.

learn them at fairly low speed to start with - you only need enough speed to pop up onto the deck to start with. Once your comfortable with the motions at low speed start thinking about going faster and bigger. The more height you get, the slower you need to spin but you don't want to be underestimating it at 30mph

in my experience, girling out of a 360 is best done early or very late - you don't want to be bailing while moving backwards - the bike will be behind you and spinning quite rapidly by that point.

[eskimo]

Macneil pegs for the win. Just my opinion. I run one on the rear and a Animal light up front.

As were on the twisting discusion now. Bongo or anyone any pointers on 360in a spine?

Just a few tips would be cool. I keep looping out

[BONGO]

To 360 a spine, all you need to be able to do really is 360 onto the deck of a box.

Thats to start with. What you need to do is no different to going onto a box, so really its a mental thing. You just 360 the spine with your brake covered (like normal?) and as you come round you will just land lol. Not too much to it really. You just need a little bottle to go for it that first time. Remember to spin a tiny bit slower as you are going to land lower than where you take off probably to begin with.

Try to get 360's on the box landing at least both wheels at the same time. If you have trouble witht this and you land back wheel first, try turning the bars 45 degree's towards the way you spin while in the 360 and this helps level you out. (it does for me anyway, i landed back wheel first and this was said to me and it solved the problem).

I imagined the spine had a glass deck. It sounds daft but do whatever you need to get your mind into it and then just go for it. Don't be scared to crash. If you think about it, the amount of times you crash and the amount of times you hurt yourself, Jeez, it's hardly worth worrying about hurting yourself!!

Once you can 360 a spine like this over time you will learn to pull in a different way, maybe even by accident, so that you land nose dived. You can pull in different ways to get this. Some people pull back over there leading shoulder and some pull back the same way but kind of down under their arm pit (see morgan wade's spine 360's)

Hope this helps, Bongo.

[A!!]

learning 360s the poopipe way (sans crashes) ...

Thanks poopipe

Just been out for a bit on my bike after reading your post, and i can now 270 off the ground using a tiny lip and shoving it round like a b***ard, and then i turn the last 90 on the rear wheel. So i'm pretty happy with that

And now i know the technique, i think i'm definitely going to give it a blast over the tabletop at my mates house.

[poopipe]

am i going to need any special tools to put the one piece driver in my hazard ?

looks like it might just slide in but I can't find any instructions on web and I'd rather go out & buy tools before I take it all apart and find I'm shafted.

[BONGO]

am i going to need any special tools to put the one piece driver in my hazard ?

looks like it might just slide in but I can't find any instructions on web and I'd rather go out & buy tools before I take it all apart and find I'm shafted.

no mate you slide it down the shaft (oo err missus) (could of said axle but shaft is a cooler word), and once its in just put the lock ring onto the axl and tighten it up. job done.

If you have troubl getting the driver in, try pushing it in while turning it the way it freewheels.

bongo.

[poopipe]

no mate you slide it down the shaft (oo err missus) (could of said axle but shaft is a cooler word), and once its in just put the lock ring onto the axl and tighten it up. job done.

If you have troubl getting the driver in, try pushing it in while turning it the way it freewheels.

bongo.

ta all sorted

shaft is indeed a much better word

I feel cheated when stuff's that easy to sort out. I managed to gouge a chunk out of my hand punching my sprocket in an effort to get the crank arm off which made up for it though.

my bike's got weeny cogs and it sounds different now . yay!

[BONGO]

hahaha, a good thing normally comes with a bad thing!!!