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BMX has spawned its bastard children ... freestyle, street, vert, and dirt jumping. An' now the childun biggah than they daddy!
Read on:
It
all started at my first National, Rad Canyon in Salt Lake City, maybe
1997? They had a dirt jumping course set up alongside the track.
Between motos, my son and I were watching the locals do "free
style" on dirt. A kid came from nowhere and did a front flip
over the first gap, then a back flip over the second. At the time
this was more-or-less bleeding edge: in other words, Thursday
territory. In other words, time to talk to some riders, right?
The
bikes most kids were riding on trails were mainly freestyle-oriented:
35 to 40-pounders designed for ramp work. Well, on a half-pipe, you
can make that weight work for you. A forty-pound bike is OK, long as
you have a car to drive to the trails or whatever, and so long as
your lifestyle supports multiple bikes. But what if you are a kid,
and you want a bike you can ride to the trails? Or ride to
school?
Or maybe you would like to do a little BMX racing as
well as dirt work, maybe a little street on the side? But if street
is your thing, check out Acid Rain's streetwise little brother, here.
So, what if I made a relatively light dirt jumping bike, like around 30 pounds?
ACID
RAIN is the result. Based on a shortened Vida Loca geometry, it uses
Reynolds' fattest tubes for lightweight strength, plus heavier seat
and chain stays and extra-thick chrome-moly dropouts. The prototype
was given o a free-style team in Albuquerque. They loved the bike ..
to death!
It took a red-hot, 180-pound team rider casing on a
30-foot jump to crumple the front end. But these are guys who use up
a H*****n every six months. Not bad for what, in that context, would
be an ultralight.
This is a bike Thursday wants to kick out
at a low price, cause it's made for kids and other people who aren't
made of money. Accordingly, wait until I hook up with Taiwan! Until
then, Acid rain is gonna be a little pricey, but worth it, if it's
what you're lookin for. Remember, this is a bike you can break ...
that goes with the territory when you are building in this weight
range. But 98 percent of you will never ride hard enough to break it,
and in the meantime you won't need a truck to carry it around.
Chris Hale, Thursday Test Pilot, and the Acid Rain prototype. He couldn't break it ......................................>
SPECS:
Material:
Reynolds
525 Chrome-moly top and 725 heat treated down tube 1 3/8" &
1 1/2", .9-.6-.9mm
1 1/4"x .035 aircraft grade seat
tube, reinforced Alliant dirt machined cro-mo jumping 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: What
you see here is the last old original SE dirt jumping Landing gear
anywhere. Thursday has had pretty good luck lately with MacNeil and
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:
74 degrees
Seat Tube: 71 degrees
Chainstay: 14.5 inches (36.8
cm)
TopTube: 20.5 inches C-C (52.1 cm)
Front centers: 22.9
inches (58.2 cm)
Current (2011) base price: $520 any color in
stock
