The genesis of this collaboration was Matt’s feeling that while many 22″ frame offerings were good, they just didn’t offer exactly what he wanted/needed for his riding style.
So, he approached Big Dave at PDC about designing a park/street oriented 22″ frame…one with a steeper head angle and other geo changes that would be a bit more agile than the dirt-oriented 22s that currently dominate the 22″ market.
Two versions were designed: one with a 21.75″ top tube and another, a 22.75″ top tube. (Nathan Steere opted for the shorter one I believe, Matt Stahl the larger option…the other test riders are unknown as of press time)
Two colorways are also available: Claret (burgundy) and a seafoam Green (my personal fav).
The Seaform Green is the “Mad Mike color” and with every purchase of a PDC Operator frame in that color you’ll also receive some custom Steev Inge-designed Mad Mike stickers…nice little incentive there! (Editors note: Satin Black is also an option.)
Testing seemed to go well evidenced by some of the clips coming from the crew:
Yess BMX is not shy about experimenting with new things (see their belt drive cruiser or their Project 2024) and it looks like they have cooked up something new again.
Introducing the 20os20 concept build.
The idea is to combine the smoothness of the OS20 steering with the gearing/tire/rollout selection of a regular 20″ race bike.
However, the concept isn’t entirely new.
Similar concepts have been tried in both motocross and downhill MTB.
Closer to the OS20/22″ side of things, United rider Kyle Forte experimented with running a 22″ front end on his 20″ (before making the switch to a full 22″ ride that ended up being his signature model, the KF22)
This is when I decided to try a 22” front wheel & longer fork on the front of my UTD 20”. My thinking was that it would raise the front end & slack the head angle out & make the bike less twitchy & more relaxed. I tried it & looked a bit odd, but I could feel the difference. The main downside was that it made my bike super easy to loop out. From the success of the experiment, I really wanted to run a 22” on the rear & dial a frame in to suit me.
Will the big wheel in front/small wheel in back combo work in racing better than did for Forte at the trails?
If you spend any time at all on the 22″ threads on the various forums and pages, the topic of Sunday/Odyssey joining the 22″ movement will come up.
More specifically, why Sunday/Odyssey hasn’t joined the movement.
Some have claimed that Sunday/Odyssey (let’s just say Odyssey for this post) hasn’t dived into the pool –even though a large number of their competitors have — is because they overinvested in the 24″ BMX scene and were left hanging when their investment wasn’t met with the demand they were expecting. Because of this, they are more than a little gun-shy about getting their feet wet with 22″ BMX. (I’m not saying this is true…it’s just what people are saying)
Granted, these comments were from a 2011 thread when the 22″ scene was far less populated by companies having a go at this new wheel size.
To be fair, there was a similar view expressed in 2010 over on our brother site, Cruiser Revolution, in a 22″ themed post. At the time, only one company Faction was doing anything 22″ related in a meaningful way. The post suggested that without more industry support it would likely be an extremely small niche without much traction.
Of course, once S&M tiptoed into the scene, before full-on embracing it, other companies now had the “air cover” to try it for themselves. (Which kind of proved the thesis of the post.)
Odyssey tends to be higher end, with more proprietary items —Hazard Lite, etc. –so it’s a bit harder to do a cookie cutter entry into the 22″ scene. They have standards (which is also why they are so popular/respected).
So what’s a company to do? On the one hand you have customers begging you to produce something…but you’re worried about misjudging demand and being left holding the bag/overstocked.
I think, my modest proposal is to embrace a tried and true BMX industry practice….copy what works for someone else.
(Also, don’t forget to send a pair of the first batch this way…I can’t be doing all the market strategy here without a little something, something, dontcha know)
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!
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!