July 6, 2009

Bike Check: Volume Cutter

This is my new Cutter build, it's pretty much as BMX as you can get, overall I like it very much although there are some lagging problems with the frame that I'm hoping Volume will address in future production runs
The principle problem being that the dropouts are way too short for running with a large tire. They're short to begin with and when you add a 32c tire you completely lose the front half of the drops. You can see from the bite mark on the dropout where my wheel was before I bought a pintle (half link) chain.
I'm doing a little R&D and wanted to know exactly how riding a BMX crank with a wider than track Q factor would affect my riding. The answer is surprisingly not at all. I'm a finicky dude, and have been riding bikes for a long time and as most people who ride often are, I'm picky about my setup and thought this would be weird and require a period of adjustment. Not so. It doesn't bother me at all and I'm super stoked on the cranks. Big thanks to the homies at Profile. I just ordered a 130 Stout from Milwaukee so once that gets here I'll be totally good to go.

Another component that I'm trying out is the Volume Krull spider. The spider is working great, however during installation the steel insert (the splined part that mates with the spindle) separated from the alloy spider which caused me some distress. This was easily rectified though by torquing down the cranks on the spindle and using the cranks as a press to re-press in the insert. I haven't had any issues with it since.
Milwaukee Bruiser proto fork which I'm very into. My last ride was a Brooklyn Gangsta track and I could never get multiple bar spins with a 700c on it. With this setup, even though the Milwaukee has a shorter axle-to-crown than the Fu Manchu fork, it's no problem. The new short All-City toe clips help contribute to the bar spinning success as well.
DMR Wing bars and a BMX stem to top everything off.

The bike feels super solid and I'm excited to put it through it's paces for the next few months.

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