G, i have a ton of respect for you, but since you are kinda quenching the stoke here, i feel compelled to respond.
Hey, I have never tried them myself, just going off the feedback we got from legendary bike riders who tried the size and liked it but couldn't get the performance they wanted from the tyres so asked us if we were planning on doing them.
"Legendary" riders liking the size . . . seems like evidence enough of a good idea. Not to mention the regular riders/diggers like me and my friends in Texas and guys at PA and NY trails, and of course the riders in England who started this. And . . . you really do need to try a 22".
I thought my input might be constructive but I guess not...
Normally your input is very constructive, but this time it was simply "we looked at this, we decided not to do it, and here are the reasons it's a bad BUSINESS idea, (but apparently is a good RIDING idea) . . . .
I am open to new sizes etc, I love my 24" and would happily try this size too, but when we look at the practicalities of it, the tyres are a major hurdle, much more so than doing 29" was for MTBers. If there was a common bead the tyres could share with road or mtbs or something then it would be a lot easier... The 24" tyres we do now are already a bit of a headache from our point of view.
"Major hurdle" and "practicalities" are relative concepts. Anything bike-related can get made, with high quality, in Taiwan/China these days. It just takes someone with some money who wants to get it done. This has nothing to do with engineering/design/fabrication hurdles. It's just money. One respected BMX/MTB tire company I talked to said they could do 500 tires for $10,000. In the scheme of things, $10K ain't much. It doesn't have to be huge to work. I also had another BMX/MTB tire company tell me they weren't interested because they'd hate to have to distribute 22" tires to every bike shop in north america. Another straw man. Flatlanders don't get to find their parts in local bike shops, but it doesn't stop them from ordering through the web.
And, in a sense, the "hurdle" has already been jumped. Faction's first tire wasn't that great, but they followed up with a second one which is awesome. And here it is. My buddy Vernon's been riding them hard for a while with no problems.
Stuff like this needs to be top down. Top riders try it and like it, so it trickles down and THEN you get cheap bikes using it. This is what 29" has done. Hard to see how it could work the other way.
Local shredder sees beginner kid with department store bike on 22" and thinks, hey I will give that a go, local shredder goes to bigger comp and pro riders see it...
Seems unlikely..
Hmmm. Top down. . . . This is a little perplexing, so correct me if I'm misunderstanding you. But, a lot of the early innovations/improvements/new-directions in BMX were actually "bottom up"? Back when big companies were out of touch with what riders were doing in the late 80's, it was young riders with little capital, like Mat Hoffman, Chris Moeller, Rick Moliterno & Kurt Schmidt, who were pushing BMX from the bottom up. As for 22"s and pros, I currently don't see that as a function of pro riders not liking the idea. You already said that legendary riders DO like the idea. Then it is more of a function of the bmx BUSINESS not getting together around a conference table (or a casino table in Vegas at Interbike?) and 'deciding' to agree on the next trend. Frankly, I will always care more about good riding ideas and bike ideas, more than good 'business' ideas. None of us should even be in the bmx biz if it was all about making cash. Cue FUGAZI song here.
Thread is nearly 3 years old now and has reached 4 pages in that time on a super nerdy site like this... not exactly a huge response...
Yeah, I keep this thread going on purpose, because it's a solid concept. Just like the other more complete thread here:
http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/f61/22-inches-love-feels-just-right-237841/.
If you're correct that a top down approach is needed for any idea to become successful, then you'd have to also agree that the BMX industry has largely cold-shouldered this idea . . . then it's a little odd to also criticize lack of "bottom up" support for an idea that the bmx industry has given zero support to. (Although, that's changing, with S&M, Solid, Standard, and STOUT all making custom 22" stuff right now.)
Sorry to be negative, as I say, I would love to try it, and I would ideally love to be able to build half a dozen bikes up with 19", 20", 21", 22", 23" and 24" wheels (or even more intermediate sizes) and try them all,
Classic straw man argument. No one is saying there should be increments for every inch of wheel diameter. That's an easy argument to shoot down.
The real issue is that the gap between 20" and 24" is massive. And it's ludicrous that adult BMX'ers have had to choose between tiny 20" wheels or kinda-cumbersome 24"s for so long now. I do NOT think 22"s are a genius invention, they're not even an invention. They're just a necessary adjustment that feel instantly comfortable to ride. Every other 2" increment bmx size is widely supported EXCEPT for 22". There are 10", 12", 14", 16", 18", 20", 24", 26", 29" and you might also include 700c with the nex fixie freestyle guys. I frankly wonder how many 18" wheel bikes Hoffman sells. Most parents with a little kid want to pay less than $100 at a big box store on a bike that size.
but the reality of the industry is that BMX is small and relatively unprofitable branch (compared to "adult" bikes) and this is a small segment of that small market, its hard to see how we could ever get the tyre manufacturers (who need huge numbers) excited about it... "hey on a few years we might get 10% of 5% of your sales, so that is half a percent of what you make?!?!?!"
Somehow, the original dreamers and innovators in BMX, were not dissuaded from pursuing their ideas. 14mm axles, freecoasters, Potts mod, heat treated tubing and axles, pegs that didn't strip out, front-brake 990's, re-designed gyros . . . so many ideas in BMX were just ideas that some riders had. They often started out as rigged homemade modifications. Well, right now, riders are getting 22"s homemade/custom-made.
I don't claim to have all the answers to the tire question, but I will continue to pursue them.
Even though FACTION are not part of the inner clique of the BMX industry . . . I respect what they've done (put their personal money behind a good idea) way more than some of the current BMX companies who just offer 20 colors of exactly the same part that every other BMX company is making.
Once again, I do highly respect you and your opinions, so this is not meant as a personal attack.
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