traitor's 650bmx

(via traitorcyclesblog)

prolly posted this up and now it's my turn to talk about it.

first of all, let's look at the side profile. this is a really wide wheelbase and therefore it looks kinda weird. also that wheelbase is goin to be a bit harder on riders who do wheelies (gonna be a little stretched out). the disc front brake , though looks cool, isnt going to appeal to many, since the fixed gear movement revolves around the notion that these bikes are pretty much brakeless. the top view makes it known that youre running a brake, so youll have to live day to day with the idea that you have the ability to squeeze a lever to stop. now ive seen this brake cable setup before, but dont really understand how one can get to the star nut in the fork... a maintenence hardship later?

this is a bike with 650's on it. that imposes a problem. now i dont mind a 650 in the front but dual 650's get a little sketchy. any bike with 650's doesnt have the strength to support many as well as those who huck their bikes over gaps and stuff. since the tires are quite narrow,  there's less room for the tire to absorb impact- this impact gets taken out on the rim. that's why bmx racers have such a b*tch time with their rims.


the seatpost height is going to mess this up, you see with a 650, youre closer to the ground and therefore the seatpost needs to be reased in order to function properly. in the picture above, you can see how high sometimes the seatpost will end up. sure the stem is going up, but if the stem were relatively straignt, the seatpost still has to be high. another reason for the height is for the fact that fixed gear riders have to constantly pedal- they cant slam the seat to the bottom and coast comfortably like bmx riders.

what has me worried here is the components. fork doesnt look that burly so when it snaps, what happens since it's meant for that setup only? when you have a flat in the middle of nowhere and a bike shop doesnt cater to 650s (alot of shops dont carry that tube) what happens? disc brake breaks on you, what happens? im no expert but this isnt looking too well.

so what we have here is a mutated bmx bike that serves little to no funcionality as a fixed freestyle machine. the reason why people dont slap on a fixed hub on a bmx bike is because it doesnt make sense. now i would gladly slap some track drop bars and thick tires to make this an old school ratrodish pathracer (i think thats a better function for it), but traitor's 650bmx needs to be a little refined to cater to the fixed freestyle community.

jmik