BMX Basics

It pains me to admit it, but I am occasionally quite wrong about things. One of my more interesting failures of understanding was my attitude towards DiaCompe's AheadSet system when it was introduced. I thought it was a stupid gimmick. I criticized what I thought was a ridiculous method for keeping the headset tight - and I was wrong. I predicted that the clamp-on stems would be significantly less durable than their quill-type predecessors - and, with a few exceptions, I was wrong. I stated that riders would not put up with having such a limited range of stem adjustment - and I was wrong again, because most riders today are not at all interested in raising their bars.

That isn't to say that the AheadSet system is perfect. In fact, Klein's AirHeadset is stiffer, lighter, and longer-lasting than the AheadSet, albeit at considerably higher cost. Furthermore, many of the benefits riders associate with the AheadSet - stiffness, steering feel, longer fork life - are actually due, not to the AheadSet design, but to the change in the so-called "BMX Standard" to a 1 1/8" head tube. All in all, though, given the choice between a quill-stem, 1" frame and a threadless, 1 1/8" one, I'd pick the new stuff. For once, the new way (and I suppose it's no longer really a new way) is better.

If only that were always the case. Genuine progress in the cycling state-of-the-art is rare, and not always easy to identify. Sometimes, one 'gimmick' proves itself, only to be swept away by a retrograde step (as was the case when Tange's excellent SwitchBlades were supplanted in the high-dollar-fork market by the disastrous Answer ProForx) or by an even better product (Odyssey released the much-improved Pitbull 2, with every reasonable expectation of dominating the brake market, only to be completely stymied by Shimano's V-brake). Other times, a useful improvement fails in the marketplace for any one of many reasons (given further development, Sugino's CT175 cranks could have been very successful, and even today I would prefer a set of old CT cranks to Technique or GT's Power Series aluminum cranks).

My inability to be right one hundred percent of the time has not stopped me from formulating Boswell's General Rule of New BMX Stuff, stated below:

It's junk. Don't buy it.

If progress in the BMX world is slow, and it is, and if many of the recent "improvements" in cycling are not improvements at all, and they are not, at least not in my opinion, then it follows, as surely as night follows the day (a little Polonius quote for the old guys out there. An amusing sidebar; Many of the Polonius quotes now uttered with such gravity, such as the one referenced above, were intended by Shakespeare to be demonstrations of idiocy. Funny, isn't it, how past stupidity can be changed by time into today's respectability? Just ask Nirve's current team manager) that there is a "sweet spot" in BMX development, where you have all the good, proven stuff, and none of the gimmicks. All (or most) of the good, and none of the bad. And since I need a third sentence to make a legitimate paragraph... let's just say that this "sweet spot" would combine every legitimate improvement with none of the unproven gimmickry that has no place in an effective racing tool.

Let's build this bike. In order to save the most controversial aspects for last, we will start with components. We'll use an "oversized", or, for the kids out there, "normal" 1 1/8" threadless fork/head tube design. We'll use an AheadSet of some type. A Shimano or Tektro V-brake set would be a good choice. Although I have a soft spot in my heart for the old separate seat clamps that bolted on to a seatpost on one side and a seat on the other, there is a useful amount of weight to be saved by using a one-piece seatpost/seat clamp combo, so we'll go with the flow here - and I don't think there's a reason not to choose aluminum for this part. I do think there's a reason to avoid aluminum handlebars, but at the same time, most of the really 'heavy-duty' trail handlebars out there are too heavy for the additional strength - so a .049" bar is a good compromise.

I don't believe in spending too much money on hubs - so we won't. Many of the rims out there are just plain junk - I recommend the Araya Super 7X series, even if it's tough to get tires off them sometimes. Stainless steel spokes are a worthwhile investment. Comp III tires are as good a choice now as they were in 1986.

On to cranks. I think that any rider who chooses a set of cranks other than the Redline Flight Group or standard Profile offerings should have to write a ten-thousand-word paper explaining why. It's this simple - for the past fifteen years, other companies have been trying to outdo Redline and Profile, without success. Saving weight is all well and good, but any rider in his teens and above should think very carefully before choosing a crankset other than the above two. I tend to slightly prefer the Redlines, but I have owned many sets of Profiles, with more or less total satisfaction.

There are many good pedals out there. We'll leave it at that.

Now, let's pick our frame. As we'll see in Part Two of this column, next month, there are compelling reasons to consider a steel (Cr-Mo) frame. There is rarely any more than a pound to be saved with an aluminum frame, and Cr-Mo frames like the BADD and Standard 125R frames are narrowing, and in the case of the Standard, entirely closing, that gap. More importantly for the case of our hypothetical bike, good, solid Cr-Mo frames with AheadSet - compatible head tubes and V-brake mounts have been available for more than six years now.

The rest of the bike is personal choice - seats, stems, seat clamps, and other miscellany. Looking at the above specification, one thing is clear - all of this stuff has been available for quite some time now, and it's all fairly well-proven. If you followed the above guidelines, you would be very likely to have a long-lasting, durable race bike - so durable, in fact, that you might get more than five years of racing out of a single bike, as we will see in next month's column.

Is the bike we have just described a "perfect" BMX bike? Certainly not. A perfect BMX bike would weigh nothing, last forever, and cost less than a pack of gum. Given the current state of the art, however, it is as close to perfect as we are going to get.

Let's compare our "perfect" bike to the bikes most teenaged riders are racing with. To begin with, our bike is cheaper. A good Cr-Mo frame costs less than a spanking-new monocoque. A basic set of sealed wheels costs less than a third of what top-of-the-line stuff sells for, not to mention the 'exotic' wheelsets that cost over five hundred bucks... As expensive as Profiles or Flights are, they don't come close, price-wise to the forged-aluminum cranks out there. Unless we go nuts and buy a while bunch of CNC-machined components, we can build our bike for around eight hundred dollars:

Can we do even better than $823.00? Yes. A Redline John Purse Team Model sells for around $475.00 and includes pretty much everything our hypothetical bike does. Can we get even cheaper than that? Yes, a Huffy Tantrum also meets our requirements at $399.99. Cheaper than that? Yes, last year's Tantrum at $299.99. Think about that - that is less than one-sixth the price of the super-gimmick-mobile above. EVEN CHEAPER? How does under a hundred dollars sound? It is possible, sort of... and that's what we'll talk about next month.

Let's return to our $823.00 bike. What do we lose compared to the $1888.00 model? Well, we can expect to weigh in at around 26 pounds with our bike, compared to the 24 pounds the high-dollar ride costs. We will lose a certain amount of bottom bracket stiffness - how much depends on the frame we choose. We will also lose the 'neato' factor - you know, the 'wait-till-my-friends-see-my-monocoque-frame' feeling. Admit it. You want your friends to be jealous. I understand - that's why I spend too much money on cars/Marzocchi Bomber forks/houses/Garrick Anderson coats. If you can be a better man (or woman) than I am, you can just not worry about it too much. They will be jealous of you when you win races. Or, you could spend the thousand bucks you save on something else, and earn their envy that way.

What, if anything, do we gain by spending a thousand dollars less? Quite a bit, actually, the most important benefit being additional durability. "Our" bike will last several seasons. "Theirs" won't. For safety's sake, the frame on our eighteen-hundred-dollar special should be replaced at least once a year. Those super-trick aluminum cranks rarely survive more than one hard landing. Expensive wheels can be broken as easily as cheaper ones, and often require more maintenance. When you begin to add up the additional recurring costs of the "bleeding-edge-tech" bike, you will see that the yearly costs to replace frames and forks alone exceed the cost of a new Tantrum.

What if we want to sell our bikes and buy new ones? Selling a used bike is tough work, and the more money you are asking for it, the less likely you are to sell it. Few people want to spend a thousand dollars for a used bike, while plenty of people are willing to pay two or three hundred dollars for one. In automotive leasing terms, the cheaper bike has a much higher residual percentage, which makes it a better investment as well.

Have I convinced you yet? Let me point out that my "old-tech-low-cost" idea hasn't always been the way to go. For example, back in, say, 1996, you would have been better off springing for the AheadSet, V-brake-equipped, Cr-Mo bike (basically, what we're building here) than you would have been had you decided to buy a 1991-tech, 1" headtube, Pitbull-equipped scoot. The mid-Nineties saw some useful improvements - and since then, most of the new stuff has been fairly suspect.

Let's talk cost-per-year on these bikes, because that's the most important factor of all. Money spent on your bike is money you can't travel with, enter races with, buy new helmets with, or take your girlfriend to the movies with. If you buy a bike when you are fourteen and keep it until you are nineteen, what will it cost you to keep that bike in working order over those five years? The gimmick bike costs a lot of money to start with, and a lot of money per year. I figure that it would cost you an average of $820 per year to ride it! On the other hand, the 2000 Tantrum, assuming one new pair of wheels and a little bit of maintenance over five years, costs $105 per year!!! Think about it. If you have someone to split the expenses with, you could probably run five Nationals and the Grands for the cost difference, every year. (Some of you probably doubt that you can race five Nationals, plus the Grands, for around seven hundred bucks. Against that doubt, I can only say that I have done it myself.) Think about that the next time your friend with the Powerlite P61 tells you he can't afford to do a Wednesday night race with you. Why spend money on a racing bike, when you could spend it actually racing?

While you chew on the above thought, here's another: By my reckoning, my personal race bike has cost me about $165/year for the past four years - and right now, it looks, and rides, better than ever. Next month, we are going to take a look at some real-life numbers and see how I:

• Bought my race bike for $200, brand new;
• Upgraded it to pro-quality equipment for less than $300 on top of that;
• Have enjoyed four racing seasons with it;
• And, thanks to an expenditure of under $100, have completely revamped it for season #5 - and it looks, and rides, better than it ever did!

By the end of next month's column, you will see how I have been totally satisfied with my "on the cheap" race ride, and I will absolutely and completely justify to you why I am happy riding a bike that cost less, in total, than a single car payment. Convinced now? As Yoda told Luke, "You wiiiiiiiillll beeeee..."

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Redline, Huffy, or any of their vendors. I recommend the bikes because I have examined and ridden them, not because I am someone's paid mouthpiece. Think about that the next time you pick up an issue of a color magazine.