Messages

31

The Bike Shop / Re: Ideal BL hubs?

« on: June 16, 2015, 08:23:25 AM »

Although slightly irrelevant you asked for personal experience so I figured I'd share mine: I rode a hollow titanium Primo Mix axle with steel pegs for over 2 years and never had an issue with it. As far as I am aware it is still going strong on a friends bike. I got it cheap and figured if it breaks I'll just reinstall the original axle. No idea what grade of titanium it was but it served me very well.

32

The Lounge / Re: Annual who still posts on BG thread.

« on: June 03, 2015, 04:32:17 PM »

I rarely post, but check bg on a weekly basis. I figured now that we're on the subject I'd post...

33

The Lounge / Re: Post Internet Funnies

« on: May 27, 2015, 06:13:18 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0V9CoZNrNc

34

The Lounge / Re: Road trip through germany/netherlands help

« on: May 13, 2015, 04:16:31 AM »

I've moved from the Netherlands to NRW in Germany, which is the german part directly bordering the Netherlands, so my suggestions are limited to this part of Germany. That being said:
- Wicked Woods in Wuppertal (DE) is a cool indoorpark, 99% quarters, a jumpbox, foam pit and a huge pool
- Halle 59 in Cologne (DE) is another indoor park, also has a bowl, but smaller, and more emphasis on the street section but should still be a fun stop, as a bonus there are dirt jumps across the street
- You said no street but the University of Düsseldorf is like  giant skatepark with brick quarters everywhere. They placed skatestoppers (read bricks) on the best quarters but theres plenty left to ride. In addition there is a cool outdoor skatepark, iirc build by campramps, in Düsseldorf as well.
- The Promise in Heerlen (NL), another indoor park, build by camp ramps, this one in the Netherlands, 20 minutes over the German border
- There is an indoorpark in an old church in Arnhem (NL), not sure what their policy on bmx is though
- Cool outdoor concrete park including a pool with a cradle in Zutphen (NL)
- Skateland in Roterdam (NL), another huge indoor park, used to be the only indoor park with a vert ramp in it.
- Soulcycle park in Velsen Noord (NL), private small indoor, kinda ghetto, lots of fun, invite only but hit me up and I'll arange you an invite, I'm close friends with the guy who build it.
- Last but not least if you do make it to the Düsseldorf - Cologne area come and visit me in Leverkusen if you like, I know I'm biased but man we've got some awesome dirt jumps!    

Edit: I didn't include Amsterdam, a huge park / street plaza is supposedly on the drawing board but as of yet to be honest I don't think it's necessary to visit Amsterdam to have a good time riding-wise in the Netherlands (you should still visit it though, in Mokum ben je rijk en gelukkig tegelijk!). If you do want to ride, there's a huge bowl, the Marnixbowl. There's also a huge concrete park with a sick bowl that's definitely worth visiting in the town next to Amsterdam, Zaandam, my hometown. the parks called A8 because it's located under highway A8.

35

The Bike Shop / Re: Keychain woes?

« on: May 07, 2015, 08:13:04 AM »

OG Wombolts came with a thin washer for this very reason. I am running my keychain on said Wombolts with a new sprocket/rear wheel no issues. If I forget the washer, I have a similar issue.

I've heard this before but mine didn't include said thin washer (first batch, pre-ordered at empire at the time, still going strong). I've coke can shimmed it before but running a loose sprocket bolt is less of a hassle.

36

The Bike Shop / Re: Keychain woes?

« on: May 06, 2015, 09:02:23 AM »

^^ I have the same problem with my Wombolts. Not fully tightening the sprocketbolt solves it for me. My Thunderbolts on the other hand are fine.

37

The Bike Shop / Re: Odyssey Antigram vs G-Sport Simian front hub

« on: April 18, 2015, 12:07:49 AM »

The Antigram uses the same bearings that were used in the Vandero2, whereas the Simian uses the same bearings as the Marmoset. I remember quite a lot of people complaining about Vandero2 bearings, although I assume the large majority of the hubs are doing fine. Still I would go with the Simian personally. Are you going for a Antigram rear wheel? Because that would tip my vote to the Antigram because matching wheels  
I can't imagine the angled flanges will cause problems with cross lacing seeing as the Gsport Ribcage rims are designed specifically with cross lacing in mind. I have ribcage - marmoset front wheels on 2 bikes and they're tits!

38

The Lounge / Re: Middle name my child.

« on: March 26, 2015, 09:07:50 AM »

Pnsdltn.
For inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNSf-KQORRk

39

The Bike Shop / Re: Smooth half link set up?

« on: March 21, 2015, 07:15:50 AM »

I've been running an Odyssey bluebird with preinstalled halflink for over a year and it's been great. I got a Cult chain for the 2nd bike, also with preinstalled halflink, but the pin on the preinstalled halflink was way too long. Like easily 3 to 4 mm on each side, impossible to ride with a sandwich MDS sprocket (and it was even grinding on the hubshell). No idea why they made the pin so long.

40

The Lounge / Re: Things to look forward to this year

« on: March 01, 2015, 09:10:08 AM »

Test riding and dialing in the new thing we've been building at our dirt jumps in the winter, can't f*cking wait! (bit personal, I know, but I am kind of going of the hopeful assumption I'm not the only one on here who spend most of the winter in the woods with his best friends mr. shovel and ms. wheelbarrow)

41

The Lounge / Re: BG's Current Injuries

« on: January 08, 2015, 08:10:52 PM »

Was looking for this thread a few weeks back. After 30 years with what I would call a medical clean slate my right lung spontaneously collapsed whilst I was digging by myself in the middle of the week at our jumps, which are very secluded. Sat around for half an hour thinking I had some bad cramps in my shoulder, then dragged myself home and felt better after 2 hours so I went back and dug for another hour. Then in the evening the ''cramp'' came back, this time combined with uncontrollable coughing. Went to the doctor the next morning who send me over for a röntgen, after which I was diagnosed with a spontaneous pneumothorax. I was hospitalized for 6 days and the CT scan revealed some blisters/bubbles on my lung, of which one most likely popped and caused this adventure so I went back in for surgery halfway December. Everything went fine and I had my first ride again this week. In retrospect I was very lucky I still managed to get home by myself (and very stupid to go back afterwards), could have taken days before somebody would've found me.

42

The Bike Shop / Re: Oldest part on your BMX?

« on: January 04, 2015, 06:13:31 PM »

I recently build up a second bike for riding dirt, which contains:
- Seatclamp from my first BMX (Eastern Battery 2003, bought January 2004)
- S&M Blackbike frame 2004, bought in 2005
- Odyssey Wombolts, first batch, pre ordered at empire at the time, not sure when that was

43

The Bike Shop / Re: Fit S3 Rawing / Painting advice

« on: January 03, 2015, 09:11:42 AM »

My S&M blackbike used to look like that. Rawed it myself at one point, used a cheap clearcoat, then got a new frame and lend the Blackbike to a friend, who stashed it in his shed for about 3 years (same Dutch climate). I sanded of most of the rust by hand and resprayed it in matte black, no primer, no clearcoat (wanted to do a more decent job but in the end couldn't be arsed). That's been a year ago and it still looks perfect as far as I can judge, no paint cracking or bubbeling, no old rusty spots showing. You might wanna go with the sandblasting / primer / paint / clearcoat, I'm sure you will have even better results, but I am very pleased with how well my quick half assed restoration is holding up

44

The Bike Shop / Re: Ratchet driver questions

« on: December 23, 2014, 03:53:14 PM »

The seal is quite specific, not so sure if a DIY substitute would be easy to make (though I never tried, just my gut feeling). The seal sits in a groove on the driver, I think I would try to cut something to shape from a bit harder plastic (i.e. Coke bottle, something that would stay seated in the groove). You could also try to get a hold of G and ask him politely if he could hook you up with a new one, he might be in the Christmas spirit Alternatively the driver will function fine without the seal, you'll just collect dust and rinse out the bearing grease a bit quicker.

45

The Bike Shop / Re: New odyssey stampy video

« on: December 12, 2014, 08:14:43 AM »

If I remember correctly G mentioned previously that they only tested one pair of forks per competing brand. If this is the case again then it is a bit weird, statistically, to round up all forks for which n=1 to within 0.1 K, and for the one brand for which n≥1 (I assume more than one Odyssey fork was tested) to round up to 650 K+. It's not wrong perse it's just a bit of a weird way to represent your data in my opinion. What is the number of replicates, average number of cycles and standard deviation for Odyssey forks?

It's only BMX.

I'm not the one who made the barplot, just playing devils advocate. For what it's worth I'd never venture elsewhere when it comes to forks, owned 7 Odyssey forks and the fork that came on my complete bike in 11 years of riding. I actually think the stampy test is really cool and testing your product beyond industry standard is the way to go. I just think the barplot is a bit misleading and if I remember correctly G actually mentioned pretty much the same thing previously but called it not being able to publish data of competitors forks due to only one fork per competing brand being tested. So now that they did a second stampy test I'm curious to find out more about the data on Odyssey forks: How many were tested? What was the average number of cycles until failure? Where the results reproducible?