Author Archives: cruiserrevolution

03.15.19
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Dan Atherton’s 22″ titanium bike

Dan Atherton of “The Athertons” fame (and a long distinguished MTB career…along with his talented siblings) has debuted a new 22″ titanium BMX bike.

This comes as a surprise given that what was expected from this Atherton Bikes company was mountain bikes, and possibly some enduro and e-bikes (heaven forbid).

According to Dan, he’s “been working with @tedjamesdesign for over a year on this beauty, anyone that knows Ted James knows how passionate he is about bikes and that passion comes out in the way he builds frames”.

Granted, it’s still only a prototype…but wow, is it hawt!

All titanium with a disc brake!

Yowza!

Dan seems pretty stoked on it if you can go by this picture.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu6_0A3ghmm/

Over on PinkBike, who were ones to break the story (after Instagram, of course), Atherton jumped into the comments with this explanation/teaser:

Cheers for the comments guys, this bike is very much a prototype at the moment with no plans to sell it as yet, i basically had this bike built because i like riding big jumps on my BMX, and coming from Wales where the jumps are not super smooth it made sense to run 22″ wheels, i also wanted a disk because anyone who has ridden Big, Fast, Downhill jumps knows that having a reliable brake gives a lot of confidence!! Myself, Ted James and Atherton Bikes have been blown away by the positive response to this bike and if it becomes clear there is a market for this type of bike then maybe we could make something happen!!

“Maybe we could make something happen?”

Sounds pretty promising.

For now, I just want to see some riding clips of Atherton ripping on this thing…I need some shred!

02.10.19
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22″ race tires back on the table?

Chris Moeller (of S&M bikes) floated the idea of a 22″ X 1.95 race tire some time ago (back in 2016, I think) but for whatever reason they never seemed to make it to market.

Many people have made do with the slimmer of the current offerings (if they wanted to race their 22s)…but I suspect many silently grumbled about the weight penalty of the more street/trail-designed rubber when they used them at the track.

You might also remember that ORP BMX tried to engineer their own solution by mounting OS20 tires to 22″ wheels.

Not a bad interim fix, but ORP themselves admitted they were a bear to mount. It also goes without saying that whenever it came time to swap out the tire (or tube) if a flat or blowout occurred….well, that’s probably not going to be the most pleasant experience either.

Anyway, back to the present day….

Moeller recently asked on his Instagram if S&M should make smaller size racing tires…and that he was considering opening up a new mold to do so (presumably if interest was there).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtUV12DDWmu/

Well, that prompted this exchange between John Paul Rogers (S&M alum/BMX enthusiast) and Moeller:

jpr_fla Produce light weight 22” tires & wheel sets that aren’t monster truck size, my back hurts. Harry Leary came up with Turbo Lite tires & wheels in the 80s. There has to be at least 40-50 people worldwide that want this.

moeller_chris @jpr_fla basically a 22” race tire in our 1.95 size. It’s actually a good idea.

 

Of course, after a number of comments followed from a number of 22″ aficionados (myself included) asking for 22 X 1.95 option.

Will this be enough to convince Moeller to open a mold for a 22″ X 1.95 Trackmark tire?

I can’t be sure at this point but I’m hopeful.

Heck, S&M’s offering 26″ and 29″ tires these days…so I think there’s got a be some love for the 22″ crowd for a more race-friendly tire option.

(And..I have my fingers crossed that they get them out by summer so I can throw them on my own rig for racing.)

01.13.19
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A 22″ Haro trails machine? Maybe…

Things started off innocently enough.

Last week  SugarCayne posted a look at the new 2019 Haro Group 1 RS-1, 20″ Trails Edition.

The idea behind it was to make an updated version of the Group 1 (featuring modern geometry) with the classic colorway of the 80s.

(For context Haro has done a good job of re-imagining the classics from the modern age…with retro cruisers being some of their popular offerings.)

No doubt, there’s some great stuff on this bike: the frame and fork is full cro-mo, the bars are 9″, the classic Haro sprocket design makes an appearance and the 1978 parts round out the components.

However, it was an instant bummer to see that Haro had decided to go with a 21″ top tube for this bike (Cayne noted his reservation with this too).

As soon as I saw this, I instantly thought, “Why not just make it a 22″ (wheels & top tube)?”

After all, the people buying this are most likely older/bigger…and well, 22″ tend to also really shine at the trails.

Seemed like a no-brainer.

Apparently David Anderson over at 22-Inch BMX thought the same thing.

According to David,

 “I thought, that needs to be a RS22.”

Then he mocked up an image for the 22-inch BMX group Facebook page  “to show the minor changes that would need to be made to make it happen.”

He suggested the following geometry:

  • Head Angle: 74.5 degrees
  • Seat Tube Angle: 71.5 degrees
  • Top Tube: 21.85″
  • Chain Stay: 14″
  • Seat Tube height: 10.25″
  • Bottom Bracket 12-12.5″ (on 22″ wheels)

Seemed pretty legit to me.

The 22-Inch BMX group seemed to be very receptive to the ideas as well. Many wondered aloud (or at least commented) what would it take for Haro to do this?

Well, that’s when things escalated.

Haro’s John Buultjens saw the discussion and weighed in.

According to Buultjens, if 100 people express interest in buying  a 22″ Group 1, Haro will make them!

Wasting little time, Anderson put together a poll on the 22-Inch BMX Facebook Group page to gauge interest.

They’re not quite at the 100 person mark yet but it’s only been a couple of days.

If this is something that might interest you, check out the poll and add your 2 cents.

01.04.19
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Trevor Sigloch’s 22″ edit rolls out

S&M rider Trevor Sigloch recently debuted his signature 20″ frame (the DTF) with features befitting his tall stature…most notably a 5″ headtube and a 9.25″ standover.

You can check that out in his “What I ride” clip that came out in early December.

Now that it’s 2019, Trevor has stepped things up a bit by dropping a brand new edit called, “I need my Dubs”.

The cool thing about this particular piece of footage is that Trevor is hitting the streets, parks and the dirt aboard a 22″ S&M ATF.

His 22″ setup is pretty sweet too…in addition to the aforementioned ATF frame….it’s got some Hoder Bars, 22″ Revenge wheels, Speedball tires and (to keep things moto) a stylish crossbar pad.

Pretty stoked on this…let’s keep those 22″ edits coming!