Messages

1

The Lounge / Re: Where is everyone at in life?

« on: March 31, 2021, 12:05:58 AM »

my bike, which i haven't ridden for a few years, has literally melted thanks to being left under a glass roof. The tires melted and stuck to the ground, grips are a mess, i'll have to take it apart one day to salvage some parts just for keepsake e.g. RNC 30t full titanium sprocket, gsport monkey front hub, elementary stem, JCPC pedals. I completely forgot where i got the frame from, i only remember having to ask the girl i was seeing at the time to get it for me from the US.

professional career wise, i've started a firm with two others to provide financial risk consulting for institutions and other investment banks. we've done surprisingly well over the past couple years, even during the heaviest COVID hits. The tax man has dragged out a legal dispute against us for 14 months now, they're literally trying to claim payable tax on parts of our profits that are under no local jurisdiction and without double taxation policies. i can't go further into it but it's very annoying. It does make you wonder if your own lawyers are also dragging their feet

politically, where i live is getting completely wrecked. day by day, laws are being 'amended' to quash democracy, there is literally no way out. I've been wanting to migrate to a scandanavian country for a while but more realistically, i'll probably end up in canada/new york/ ausatralia/ aus/ new zealand in a few years.

2

The Lounge / Re: Is The Mystery Still Unsolved?

« on: March 07, 2020, 07:34:35 AM »

all the real pros have self balancing bikes

3

The Bike Shop / Re: All your hub questions answered:

« on: November 05, 2019, 09:10:52 AM »

good info albeit a bit old - most decent bmx hubs nowadays are female axle with bolts, and they use sealed bearings so locknuts aren't really a thing anymore

4

The Bike Shop / Re: another new freecoaster - planetary gear engagement

« on: August 29, 2019, 07:49:20 PM »

Other downside is that magnetic force falls off very quickly with distance, so in effect they're a non linear spring, in this case they'll have less force when engaged, than when the teeth are riding over each other.

the two magnets have the least distance between them when the pawls are fully engaged, im guessing that'd make the attraction strongest in that state. but to prevent skipping, the magnetic force is most needed when the tips of the pawls are just touching (they'll never fully disengage because the magnets pull them together). So the magnets will have to be pretty strong, magnetically speaking

If it were worth doing to reduce rolling resistance, shimano or some other major manufacturer would have done it.

i'd give them the benefit of doubt, i like seeing innovation nevertheless. it's fine when a thousand new ideas fails, since we just need one to hit it right and it changes the industry. This hub, for instance, has one single moving part only. best wank material for engineers all round amirite?


they claim they use "neomidium magnets that pretty much last forever", so i looked it up:

1. strongest permanent magnet commercially purchasable - "Neodymium magnets larger than a few cubic centimeters are strong enough to cause injuries to body parts pinched between two magnets, or a magnet and a ferrous metal surface, even causing broken bones" from wiki

2. very vulnerable to corrosion so it needs protective coatings - should be fine being inside a hub

3. very brittle - "Magnets that get too near each other can strike each other with enough force to chip and shatter the brittle magnets themselves". even if they're well protected from killing themselves via engagement, it's hard to imagine how they can withstand sudden shocks like an icepick or even slamming the end of the peg into the ground

5

The Bike Shop / Re: another new freecoaster - planetary gear engagement

« on: August 26, 2019, 09:43:19 AM »

https://bmxunion.com/daily/sneak-peek-inside-the-flybikes-magneto-cassette-hub/

in comparison, Fly came out with a cassette hub that uses two magnets. the entire engagement mechanism just has one moving part.

1. i wonder if this can be adopted into a freecoaster design? (currently with this magneto hub, the two magnets ATTRACT each other to pull the "pawl ring" into the teeth)

2. aren't magnets very brittle? any sort of impact to the axle/ pegs may damage it, i don't know if they've tested it enough and how much impact the hub can withstand

3. looking at their pictures, i'm guessing the 'pawl ring' can possibly be simplified to have, say 3 'pawls' instead of the entire ring being pawls but that'd probably require a higher level of machining precision to keep it working properly

6

The Bike Shop / Re: Quick Questions

« on: August 08, 2019, 01:11:07 AM »

anyone got one of those tiny Rocker bmx? my brother bought one for a laugh, a lot of the parts are interchangable with an actual bmx e.g. stem bars cranks seatpost etc, but the wheels are heavy as fuck... due to their peculiar shape and size i suppose

anyone got suggestions for lightning up the wheels? the rear is currently a 10mm male axle freecoaster, where the hubshell also acts as the spokes and rim a-la mag wheels

and a brief look suggests it uses a spacing wider than the bmx 110mm

7

The Bike Shop / another new freecoaster - planetary gear engagement

« on: August 05, 2019, 06:57:52 AM »

https://bmxunion.com/daily/inside-look-at-the-free-night-planetary-freecoaster-hub/

what does everyone think? pretty interesting concept although there're a few things im skeptical about

1. male axle in 2019?
2. if you pedal forward when in fakie, the internals can explode


anyway, super happy of some new innovation coming to market

8

The Bike Shop / Re: converting bike with gears to single speed?

« on: August 04, 2019, 12:05:20 AM »

maybe he should just do footjam nosepicks to stop

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The Bike Shop / Re: converting bike with gears to single speed?

« on: July 31, 2019, 10:52:50 AM »

i cleaned and greased the posts but the brake will not hold even tension on both arms or center itself properly.

for a conventional V-brake, there should be 3 tiny holes on the frame right next to the v-brake lug, and you should see that the coil spring 'slots' into one of the three. they are for you to adjust tension. by slotting the coil spring into different holes you can get different amount of absolute tension, or tension relative to the opposite brake arm. that should give you a set up that works good enough for the arms/ brakepads to stay away from the rim when you're not pulling the brake lever

10

The Bike Shop / Re: converting bike with gears to single speed?

« on: July 30, 2019, 07:16:40 AM »

there are basically 3 screws on a derailleur for adjustments:

a tiny one to set the inward movement limit, i.e. stopping the derailleur being able to move the chain closer towards the hub once it's on the largest cog

another tiny one next to it, to set the outer movement limit, i.e. stopping the derailleur being able to move the chain closer towards the inside of dropout once the chain is on the smallest cog

once you've got those set the chain/cog/transmission change should work regardless of how ghetto it is

11

The Bike Shop / Re: converting bike with gears to single speed?

« on: July 28, 2019, 08:56:17 PM »

do you mean the whole derailleur is fucked? or just out of maintainence/ adjustments?

the easiest way to learn how to adjust/tune the deraileur to work 'good enough' is just to open a youtube video.

a basic cleaning and some appropriate lubrication, along with some basic adjustments, may make it work well enough depending on condition

12

The Bike Shop / Re: Fat Tires (for the rear)

« on: July 23, 2019, 11:14:31 PM »

smaller tires at the same pressure roll faster due to less resistance, and the way that BMX is ridden it is very noticable

smaller tires are lighter yes, assuming everything else is the same (i.e. tire tread pattern, kevlar vs steel beads etc)

i'd argue, however, that "kids now a days go through hubs and parts faster than we used to" can be due to a lot of factors. we went thru an era where parts weren't well made and just... die after a while, and you mcgyvver which ever way you can do keep the bike running. then came the era of heavier bikes, durability being priority (alex triple wall rims, 9 lkb pork frames). as we coasted thru the 36t sprocket to smaller and lighter, parts became better made overall. but after a certain point, it's a choice of losing a bit more durability to get a lighter bike, with a higher expected frequency of parts replacement. e.g. how much heavier would a 48 spoke wheel be, compared to 36? it's 12 spokes, bigger flanges on the hub, and a few more holes on teh rim (plus some minute weights here and there). but nobody rides 48 now because 36s are deemed strong enough, and everyone prefer a slight lighter wheel with the understanding that you'll replace it a bit more frequently.

now take that philosophy and apply it to the rest of the bike - now you replace parts a bit more frequently, but your bike is lighter and more fashionable since you can keep up with the fresh cool colour ways - companies obviously want to market that way as well... new generation of product every 9 months, with the expectation of people 'upgrading' everyone 18-24 months. but i really digress here.

it really depends on the average coasting speed/ style of your riding really, i think as we grow older towards mid 30's, our joints are working a bit worse and you'd want a more foregiving bike - a fatter tire can mean running slightly lower pressure, and if you're not always riding at full pedal speed, it's something worth considering

note: since i ride a mixture of flatland/ a bit of street whenever i have to clear the spider webs on the bike, i keep 1.75 rear tire with high pressure, and a 1.9 front with high pressure. it's a bit too janky on the front end riding street, and a bit too wide riding flatland, so i'm on a perfect unhappy medium

13

The Lounge / Re: Aphantasia

« on: May 24, 2019, 04:38:56 AM »

Literally just read about this on some random subreddit this morning......crazy shit.

that's called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon

14

The Lounge / Re: I'm pretty sure Jasper made the first internet meme

« on: December 16, 2018, 06:14:47 PM »

not to burst your bubble but way before Sheepdog created Bikeguide, a lot of us were on bmxboard, and memes already flew

just back then they were known as jokes and were less of a "recurring template" (i.e. memonic) nature, but they were memes nonetheless


also, even back in the days of IRC chatrooms, ICQ etc, memes already existed tho they were mostly in text form

15

The Lounge / Re: When's the last time you rode your bike?

« on: May 28, 2018, 06:17:50 AM »

have a niece just about tall enough to start to learn riding bikes, i may buy some 16" or 18" wheels for mine so we can both try something new together

incidentally, the trick to being a kid's favourite uncle is to kill all the other ones before they get to interact with them