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BMX has spawned its bastard children ... freestyle, street, vert, and dirt jumping. An' now the children, they all come together at the park.
Read on:
It
all started at a State Championship race in Idaho. I raced a young guy who looked for all the world like Wolverine in the first X-Men film. he said he knew about the bikes from the website, and that my website sucked. And it did, too. He offered to trade a redesign of the site for a frame. What is a guy to do? Thursday gets asked to do some one-off stuff from time to time, custom-basis. This is one of those cases, a guy knew what he wanted and nobody was building it. .. or if they tried, they weren't getting it right.
Let him speak for himself ...... All opinions expressed below are those of the (apparently satisfied) client!
I am 34 with bad knees, hips, and back. I wanted a 24" frame that was
more fun and easier to ride than a serious "competition" style race
frame. Most 24" offerings have low bottom brackets, low stand over
height, a top tube length that is either too short or too long for my
liking and a half-mile long rear end. I could seriously pop my hip
and throw my back trying to pull the front wheel up off of the gate.
Keep in mind that I'm 5' 10", 150 lbs. (give or take 5), I don't clip-
in, I don't suit up in the latest brightly color coordinated nylon, I
don't practice or "train" and I sure as hell don't count points like
I count my money. I ride for fun. Simple. (actually, I never even
raced that much when I started riding again and I don't race at all now)
Enter Jon. I met him at an Idaho state championship race after
accidentally stumbling on to his old website. I proposed the idea of
trading a new website for a custom frame. To my surprise he listened.
To begin the design of this frame I started with the S&M RV cruiser
frame, about the only fun ride friendly frame that was durable and
available at the time. From there we lengthened the top tube,
shortened the rear end, raised the BB a hair and used a more
traditional stand over height. The idea was I wanted a more lively
feeling 24", something with handling between a cruiser and a 20". I
also wanted a more traditional and adult looking cruiser frame, not
something that resembled a kids mini.
The end result was the "Green Machine". A frame that I could jump
trails with and not have my front end go up into the Evel Knievel
position, jump race jumps and not go into a serious nose-dive and
finally, I could pull the front end up out of the gate for two or
more full cranks without physical effects that I would feel the next
day. Excellent.
Since then, I have built a few more. What makes them different from the BMX racing bike?
Compared to basic Vida Loca geometry, it has a higher bottom bracket, shorter chainstay and steeper steering angle. The exact numbers are a topic of discussion, or you can rely on Thursday's somewhat questionable judgement. The other difference is the tubing: 1 3/8" top tube, 1 1/2" down tube and 7/8" x .049" chainstays. For heavier riders I also suggest going to a 3/16" thick rear dropout.
Forks: The standard Supercross pro fork is pretty decent and has a reputation for staying in one piece.
SPECS:
Material:
Heat treated
Chrome-moly top and down tube 1 3/8" &
1 1/2", .9-.6-.9mm
1 1/4"x .035" aircraft grade seat
tube, heavy duty machined crome-moly head tube and
bottom bracket shell
Aircraft-grade seamless straight gauge chrome
moly seat and chain stays, .035"/.049" (.9mm/1.2mm) wall
3/16"
chrome-moly plate dropouts
Gussets as shown
standard fork:
SuperCross and will hook you up. Buy the fork through Thursday and
get it painted to match the frame!
Available
options include
1 1/2" butted top tube and 1 3/4" x
.035" straight gauge downtube
E-brake mounts underneath the
seatstays
This bike can be built as a 24!
Angles:
Headtube: 72.5 to
74 degrees
Seat Tube: 68 to 71 degrees
Chainstay: 14.5 to 15.5 inches
TopTube: 20.5 to 22 inches C-C
Current (2016) base price: $700 any color in
stock
