I was talking to Sam Miller the other day and he mentioned snapping the BMX cranks on his trackie. Prolly posted up a short time back that he broke the spindle on a Miche bottom bracket. What I'm getting at here is that it's starting to look like BMX cranks are going to become necessary as Fixed Freestyle continues it's evolution (or de-evolution depending on what side of the fence you're on). With this product from Volume, and Profile reportedly working on a fixed gear crankset the question of interest in using BMX cranksets for fixed use appears to have been answered with a resounding yes. But that brings up the new quandry of should the new generation of fixed gear freestyle frames also adapt BMX (Spanish or Mid) bottom brackets.
I've already become a fan of internal headsets for freestyle use (in my experience they come loose less often, even after constant nose bonking) and the new Milwaukee S700 was explained to me by it's designer as a 700c BMX bike, evident right down to the 990 mounts. So without question the BMX influence is gaining traction, but where does that leave us in regards to bottom brackets? The install on a BMX bb is easy and I would imagine that you gain a considerable amount of stiffness using a larger diameter shell. But is it necessary or even an improvement?
I don't know but I would love to hear some thoughts out there, so I put the question to you:
Should the new generation of framesets also adapt to a street BMX standard bottom bracket, or is the smaller diameter English BB still plenty valid?
Think about it and let me know.
5 comments:
here's an idea, run bmx cranks and while your at it throw some smaller more durable wheels on there, some taller bars and trim the seat tube a bit. oh wait, they already make those. i think they are called bmx bikes? i know making it harder than it is supposed to be is important so you might as well keep it fixed. i think a better question is who makes bmx frames with 3/8s dropouts for your catalog tiawan hubs that say all city but are the same as a dimension, formula or any other pos?
damn... hater.
at any rate, english bottom brackets are totally durable. most BMX bikes used them for years. i still have a threaded english bb on mine.
I would love a set of vintage Redline Flights on my fixie.
I think any manufacturer that made a fixie freestyle bike with a BMX bb would be the star of the show.
In talking with some other folks, I learned that it's not an issue of stiffness but one of bearing size. The larger diameter BB shell on a BMX allows for larger bearings with greater life.
Shoving a large diameter BMX spindle into an English shell means you have to downsize the bearings. Similar problems occured with Isis and Ocatalink.
that's the story, but I can honestly say I know a lot of people that have never had a problem running euro BB's on their BMX bikes. there was actually a BB conference of sorts years ago at FBM where a lot of the independent bike companies got together and tried deciding what direction to go for BB standardization to no avail for the most part.
I think the main thing that came out of it was to stop using the euro for whatever reason... maybe cause kids where cross threading their BB's and ruining frames. Now BMX has Euro, American, Mid and Spanish. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
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