Sony Style
I’ve found that there are two types of people in the comsumer electronics world, those who love Sony and those who loathe Sony. I know, you thought that Mac vs. PC was the big CE battle, no, it’s Sony vs Everyone Else. But even those who love Sony fall into the superset of those who are annoyed by Sony. You see, Sony desperately, desperately wants to rule the world through proprietary standards. sometimes they’re, admittedly, superior to the competition and fail due to sheer hubris (Betamax). Sometimes they’re marginally successful, but don’t actually replace the existing standard (Blu-Ray). Usually they’re just annoying and provide no advantage over the competition and exist only so that Sony can try to lock you into its ecosystem for the rest of your natural born life (MemoryStick).
Yeah, MacNeil. I’m not sure who’s idea it was to go back to the 22.2mm seat post/tube, but stop it already. “Lighter and stronger” my ass, you’re talking grams of weight savings and if it’s lighter it’s weaker (that’s the way tubes work, if you decrease the diameter of a tube, you have to increase the wall thickness to keep the same strength, unless they’re using higher grade steel for the seat tube). But, let’s call a spade a spade. Unless other frame makers jump onto this idiocy, the only people selling 22.2mm posts will be MacNeil. It’s not a lot of money, but times is hard, a few extra dollars per frame might add up to real money in the short term.
Maybe it’s not a naked money grab, maybe it’s just another case of a BMX company hoping that metallugical science will make up for the fact that modern BMX bike design is about aesthetics and scales above all (I’d like to head off anyone who says that the modern BMX bike evolved to a double diamond design because the triangle is nature’s most stable shape. The triangle IS geometrically stable, but I’d like you to compare the front end of a bike from 5 years ago to the front end of a bike from today, smaller tubing has resulted in a front quadrangle).
Who am I kidding, it’s probably both.
Jay Miron still remains my second all time favorite rider (behind Fiola, above Bestwick). I hate to see that his latest trick is shark jumping.
Some people got to be different. I thought that them making a chrome-moly race bike was a bold move. 90% of racer’s ride aluminum frames.
Yeah, but freestylers are so incredibly, ridiculously weight conscious these days that a trails frame probably weighs less than your average Pro sized race frame at this point.